Cantonese Zhuang Dai Language Issues ( )

Author: Liu Shuxin
Publisher:
Publishing Date: Not available
Features: Twenty years ago, the collection of essays Research on Lexicology and Lexicography was published, bringing a sense of relief, but in a poem, I also expressed regret: "In the vast sea of literature, a drop is but a trickle; Time flies swiftly, nearing the years I've spent." Indeed, at that time, I had already reached half a century, and yet this was my first collection of essays! Moreover, it was a book written by a single author—this was the first one I had ever published! Nine years later, I published the second collection of essays New Explorations in Semantics and Lexicology, and three years after that, the third collection Fleeting Insights into Grammar was released. At last, I felt I had made up for lost time, not too late, and believed I had done justice to myself and to society. However, it also gave rise to a sense of satisfaction, thinking that I had cultivated several fields of linguistics and that these three specialized collections of essays should suffice. This idea did not last long, as I soon realized it was incorrect. About several months before the third collection was published, due to the needs of the Chinese Department's doctoral program, I began to devote most of my time and energy to studying the relational words between Zhuang-Dai and Yue dialects, while also deepening my interest in researching some issues in the Yue dialect. Over the years, I made multiple trips to ethnic minority areas and the Dongjiang River Basin for linguistic and dialect surveys, gathering firsthand materials and publishing a series of research findings. By this summer, I had accumulated several substantial papers in these areas, which could be compiled into a specialized collection. As long as the work naturally progresses and meets practical needs, there should be no fixed limit to personal specialized collections—more is better. Over the past decade, the few papers I wrote in other fields of linguistics are scattered and diverse, not suitable for compiling into a specialized collection on their own, and their total word count is also insufficient to form a book. Now, I have included them after the Cantonese-Zhuang-Dai section in this collection, which seems quite appropriate. On one hand, they do not overshadow the main part of the collection but rather complement it, making it stand out; on the other hand, they significantly expand the research scope, helping to cater to a broader readership with diverse interests. In fact, most of them were painstakingly crafted, and I feel they are quite satisfactory, adding weight and color to the collection.