There are at most nine dialects in a township. How complicated is Jiangxi dialect?

If you meet a Jiangxi native in other places and ask him to speak Jiangxi dialect, he will probably be a little confused, because for a Jiangxi native, he usually has no concept of "Jiangxi dialect", and the dialect situation in Jiangxi is quite complicated, so it is impossible to generalize "province" as a whole.

Of course, this is not the case in a certain province in Jiangxi. Compared with almost one or even several northern provinces, dialects in many southern provinces are quite complicated. However, even compared with the southern provinces, the dialect situation in Jiangxi is chaotic. For example, speaking of "Hunan dialect", you may also think of several Changsha dialects that occasionally pop up in Hunan Satellite TV variety shows; When it comes to "Jiangxi dialect", both outsiders and Jiangxi people may wonder: which one to find to represent Jiangxi dialect?

In fact, although Jiangxi dialect is chaotic, it can be roughly divided into several dialect areas: Gan dialect area, Hakka dialect area, Mandarin dialect area, Huizhou dialect area and Wu dialect area. Here is a brief introduction for everyone.

First, Gan dialect

Let's start with the most mainstream Gan dialect. Although you may not have the concept of "Jiangxi dialect", the concept of "Jiangxi dialect" actually exists. This is the "Gan dialect"!

According to different classifications, Chinese can be divided into many different dialects, including seven, nine and thirteen, but "Gan dialect" is one of them.

Gan dialect is the main language used by Jiangxi people (Jiangyou people of Han nationality). Of Jiangxi's 46 million people, about 30 million people use Gan dialect, accounting for about 2/3 of the province's population. At present, in Jiangxi 100 counties and cities, 6 1 0 generally uses Gan dialect.

Some people may ask: Isn't there a "Jiangxi dialect"? Why don't Jiangxi people have the concept of "Jiangxi dialect"?

The problem is that although there is the concept of "Gan dialect", "Gan dialect" does not communicate internally. Even though the dialects have more common features, most of the words spoken in different places still don't understand each other.

According to the second edition of Atlas of Chinese Language, Gan dialect can be divided into nine parts: Changdu, Liu Yi, Datong, Jicha, Fu Guang, Ying, Lei Zi, Dongsui and Huaiyue.

The communication between these different Gan dialect films is also quite difficult, even within the same film, it may not be able to communicate with each other, such as Changdu films.

If Gan dialect is regarded as an independent language, its standard language is of course Nanchang dialect, which belongs to Changdu dialect. However, Nanchang dialect usually refers to the areas under the jurisdiction of Nanchang City and Nanchang County, excluding other areas of Changdu dialect. However, if further subdivided, only Nanchang dialect used in the old city of Nanchang (now the area from the west of Bayi Avenue to the riverside, less than 5 square kilometers north of Yongshu Road and south of Yangming Road) will be the standard. As for the use of Changdu dialect,

By the way, I also want to say that Gan dialect is spoken not only by Jiangxi people, but also by a large number of people in Hunan, Hubei and other provinces. This is because Jiangxi's economy was developed at the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty, and it was less damaged by the war, so a large number of Jiangxi people moved to Huguang area. Many early immigrant communities in Jiangxi still use Gan dialect. At present, the number of people who use Gan dialect is about 48 million (more than the population of Jiangxi Province), and there are 29 million in Jiangxi.

Population distribution of Gan dialect

Second, other dialects.

After talking about Gan dialect, let's talk about other dialects in Jiangxi. The second largest dialect in Jiangxi is Hakka dialect.

Hakka people are mostly distributed in northern Guangdong, southern Jiangxi and western Fujian, so southern Jiangxi is almost a Hakka-speaking area.

At present, there are about 8 million people in Jiangxi who use Hakka dialect, accounting for about 1/6 of the total population of the province, mainly concentrated in Ganzhou area in southern Jiangxi and some areas in Ji 'an, while the only place in northern Jiangxi where Hakka dialect is used is Tonggu County in Yichun.

Tonggu County: the only Hakka county in northern Jiangxi, where 70% of the population is Hakka, is a Hakka settlement in northwest Jiangxi, and most of the locals are descendants of Hakka immigrants from Fujian and Guangdong in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

However, Hakka dialect is not completely interoperable. Dialect systems in some places in southern Jiangxi are not even divided into counties, but towns, which are difficult to understand each other.

But Gannan doesn't always speak Hakka-there is a dialect island 5 kilometers away from Xinfeng County, the core of Gannan, the old city of Ganzhou. People in this dialect island speak Southwest Mandarin. This dialect island is surrounded by Gannan Hakka dialect area with more than 8 million people, which is quite conspicuous.

There is more than one Mandarin-speaking area in Jiangxi. Jiujiang, Ruichang and Chaisang (formerly Jiujiang County, later changed to Chaisang District), an important port city in northern Jiangxi, do not use Gan, but use Jianghuai Mandarin.

In addition to Gan dialect, Hakka dialect and Mandarin, there are other dialects in Jiangxi, which exist in Shangrao in the northeast. As far as prefecture-level cities are concerned, the complexity of Shangrao dialect is second to none in Jiangxi: Wuyuan County, Fuliang County and Dexing City use Hui language; Shangrao City, Shangrao County, Yushan County, Guangfeng County and Dexing City (limited to leading) use Wu dialect; Gan dialect is used in Poyang, Yugan, Wannian, Yiyang, Hengfeng and Yanshan.

Three or ten miles of different sounds

In other words, if roughly divided, there are five dialects in Jiangxi: Gan dialect, Hakka dialect, Mandarin dialect, Wu dialect and Hui dialect, but if subdivided, more dialects can be distinguished.

Why is Jiangxi dialect so chaotic?

Actually, it has something to do with the terrain first. Different from the topography of the northern plain, the mountainous terrain in the south makes it easy for languages to develop themselves in a limited area, and it is difficult to form a mixture.

The hilly area of Jiangxi accounts for 70% of the total area of the province, which naturally hindered the communication between different regions in ancient times. The largest plain in Jiangxi Province is Poyang Lake Plain, covering an area of about 20,000 square kilometers. It has been the political, economic and cultural center of Jiangxi since ancient times. Because of the flat terrain, the dialects here are relatively close, and the largest branch of Jiangxi dialect with Nanchang dialect as the core has been formed here-Changdu Pian.

In addition, water system, immigration and administration will also have an impact on dialects.

For example, why did Ganzhou and the old city of Ganzhou form dialect islands? According to research, this is caused by immigration. In the third year of Zheng De in Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1508), due to the uprising in southern Jiangxi, the court transferred the wolf soldiers (guest soldiers) from Guilin and Liuzhou in Guangxi to Ganzhou. Guilin dialect and Liuzhou dialect were brought to Ganzhou city, forming the official dialect of Ganzhou. At present, the number of people using Ganzhou dialect is between 300,000 and 350,000.

In addition, there are special historical reasons for Jiujiang, Jiujiang City and nearby places to speak Jianghuai Mandarin. In fact, Jiujiang dialect has always been different from Jiangxi's main Gan dialect. The Records of Jiujiang Prefecture in Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty recorded: "Wen Yi Yan is close to reality for Jinling." The so-called Jinling is Nanjing, also known as Jianghuai Mandarin. Why is Jiujiang dialect close to Nanjing and far from Nanjing?

This is related to Jiujiang people. Jiujiang, located in the northernmost part of Jiangxi Province, has been a gathering place for refugees from the north since ancient times. Therefore, many residents of ancient Jiujiang City are descendants of immigrants. In addition, the ancient Yangtze River was the traffic artery, and the economic and cultural exchanges in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were quite frequent, so the "Jianghuai Mandarin" with common characteristics was formed.

Note: During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Xunyang (Jiujiang) was a key area for accepting immigrants from the north. Xiyang County, Xincai County, Anfeng County, Songzi County, Hongnong County (where most immigrants came from) and Taiyuan County all had a large number of refugees living here. Some scholars believe that the prototype of "Peach Blossom Garden" in Tao Yuanming's famous novel "Peach Blossom Garden" was established by these northern immigrants in their hometown.

Jiujiang people nowadays are mostly descendants of immigrants. 1858 After the Xiang army captured Jiujiangcheng, Jiujiang City was massacred, and the residents of Laojiu Jiangcheng were basically killed. The present situation in Jiujiang is mostly the descendants of residents in Hubei, Anhui and even Xinyang, Henan. They also used Jianghuai Mandarin, which laid the foundation for the current Jiujiang dialect, and then Jiujiang dialect continued to affect nearby Jiujiang County, Ruichang and Huangmei, Hubei Province.

Jiujiang dialect has a rare phenomenon of "Hua Er Yin" (the characteristic of northern dialect) in Jiangxi dialect, and it seems to be incompatible with other dialects in Jiangxi area.

However, Hukou County, just across a lake from Jiujiang, does not use Jianghuai Mandarin, and Hukou dialect belongs to Changdu dialect of Gan dialect. This is also a strange phenomenon, because Jianghuai Mandarin is used in Jiujiang city and the suburbs west of Hukou, while Jianghuai Mandarin is also used in some areas of Anqing city east of Hukou. Hukou is equivalent to cutting the Jianghuai Mandarin area in half. Why?

In fact, this is also related to waterways. In ancient times, Hukou did not form a prosperous port along the river. The economic activities of Hukou and Xing Zi usually interact with Nanchang through Poyang Lake waterway, but there is not much communication with the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, so Hukou dialect is not close to Jiujiang, but close to Nanchang.

Similarly, Wuning and Xiushui counties in the westernmost part of Jiujiang also use Changdu dialect, which is the influence of Xiushui River. In ancient times, the water system was almost equivalent to a modern "expressway", and the traffic facilities in the upper and lower reaches of the river were easy to form a relatively unified common culture. In ancient times, Nanchang was connected with Wuning and Xiushui by Xiushui River. In fact, Wuning and Xiushui counties in Ming and Qing Dynasties were also under the jurisdiction of Nanchang government, not Jiujiang government.

As shown above, along Yongxiu, the river in Wuning is He Xiu, further to the west is xiushui county, and the lake in the middle is Lushan West Sea (Zhelin Reservoir), a tourist attraction.

Finally, focus on Shangrao in the northeast of Jiangxi! This place is rich in dialects, which is also related to Shangrao's own geographical location: at the junction of many provinces, the west of Shangrao is close to Poyang Lake, and Poyang, Yugan and Wannian, which belong to Poyang Lake, naturally belong to the core area of Jiangxi, and use Gan dialect. In fact, during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there was an independent administrative unit here-Raozhou Prefecture, which governed Poyang.

The northwest of Shangrao is a bit chaotic. Shangrao, Yushan and Guangfeng have been in close contact with Wuyu District in Quzhou, Zhejiang Province since ancient times, with convenient transportation. Zhejiang-jiangxi railway passed by, and the dialect he spoke was also Wu dialect. Xin Qiji's famous sentence: drunken beauty. It was written by Shangrao.

Note: Shangrao in ancient times was also closely related to wuyue in administration. Shangrao County in Xinzhou and Poyang County in Raozhou belonged to Jiangnan East Road rather than Jiangnan West Road in Song Dynasty. In the Yuan Dynasty, Xinzhou Road, Raozhou Road and Qianshan State were placed under Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Zhongshu provinces, not Jiangxi Province. Until the early Ming Dynasty, Raozhou Prefecture (eastern Shangrao, Jingdezhen) and Guangxin Prefecture (downtown Shangrao, western Shangrao, yingtan and other places) were changed to be subordinate to Jiangxi Ministry of Military Affairs because of inconvenient waterway transportation.

Wuyuan, Dexing in the east of Shangrao and Fuliang in Jingdezhen all speak Hui language, which is actually normal. After all, these places had close contacts with Anhui in ancient times. Wuyuan was one of the six counties in ancient Huizhou, and it was not until later that Wuyuan was placed under Jiangxi.

Note: There are nine dialects in Tieshan Township of Shangrao County (Tieshan, Tingzhou, Mashan, Jianning, Guangfeng, Tiandun, Guangdong, Fujian and Mandarin), which belong to Wu dialect, Hakka dialect, Gan dialect and Mandarin.

Because Jiangxi dialect is so complicated, it is really difficult for a "Jiangxi native" to speak "Jiangxi dialect". This is a place with "ten miles of different sounds", and he probably doesn't even know which system his dialect belongs to.