Hear the Ancient: Cultural Heritage in Northern Shaanxi Dialect

Author: Wang Keming
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2007-01-01
Features: The author has spent many years in northern Shaanxi and discovered that the dialect of northern Shaanxi preserves a large number of ancient words. He spent ten years reviewing many ancient books to trace the origins of these archaic remnants in the dialect. The book not only uses ancient texts to verify the dialect but also showcases the unique folk customs of northern Shaanxi through the dialect. The book records 3,900 distinctive spoken words of northern Shaanxi. The recording principle is that the words are those the author personally heard or used in daily life, and not those commonly used in Mandarin. Words found in the book do not count. The northern Shaanxi words and phrases collected in the book come from conversations with cadres, workers, and farmers in places like Yan'an and Yulin, as well as from dozens of farmers in Jiayugou Village. Based on the author's own sense of life in northern Shaanxi, the northern Shaanxi words are divided into seven categories: "Ancient Northern Shaanxi Words for the Human Body," "Ancient Northern Shaanxi Verbs for Actions," "Ancient Words in Daily Life in Northern Shaanxi," "Ancient Northern Shaanxi Words for Interpersonal Interactions," "Ancient Northern Shaanxi Words Related to Marriage, Funerals, Beliefs, and Spiritual Needs," "Ancient Northern Shaanxi Words for Heaven, Earth, and Nature," and "Ancient Function Words in Northern Shaanxi Dialect." There are also 42 subcategories such as "Family: The Word 'Da' Has Been Used for 1,500 Years" and "Labor: Before the Invention of Characters, 'Geng' Was Called 'Jie.'" These categories do not conform to the norms of dialect surveys. The author has also included over 230 photographs in the text to help readers understand the meanings of the words or gain insights into northern Shaanxi. At the end of the book, there is a phonetic index and a stroke index.