Want to know the etymology of Shidong Town, Huaiji County, Guangdong Province

Villagers in Gu Yong Town and Shidong Town of Huaiji County have used standard dialects for generations to communicate, forming a unique language in the local area, which has attracted the attention of relevant departments and experts. Recently, several experts from the Institute of Ethnic Studies of China Academy of Sciences and Guangdong Institute of Ethnic Studies came to Gu Yong Town and Shidong Town to inspect the standard dialects used by villagers here for generations and experience the differences between these languages and other languages. Because these standard dialects are completely different from Guangfu dialect, Hakka dialect and Chaoshan dialect in Guangdong, they are called "living fossils" of ancient Cantonese by experts and scholars.

The origin of "bidder"

According to experts' preliminary research, the Han ancestors who spoke standard characters in Huaiji moved from the Central Plains during the Warring States Period more than 2,200 years ago, hundreds of years earlier than the Han ancestors who spoke vernacular in Huaiji County. This group of people are called "standard speakers" by the local vernacular villagers.

After their ancestors moved to Huaiji Shidong, Gu Yong and other places, they lived together with the local Baiyue indigenous people (ancestors of Zhuang and Dong), and their languages merged with each other, gradually forming a unique "Huabiao" over time.

Because the "standard dialect people" live in mountainous areas with inconvenient transportation and rarely associate with the Han people who speak vernacular Chinese, the "standard dialect" has been passed down from generation to generation and has been used all the time. These "speakers" not only retain the syllables of ancient Chinese, but also blend some languages of Zhuang and Dong, so they are very difficult to understand.

There are 65,438+million "bidders" in Huaiji.

About 654.38 million people in Huaiji County speak standard dialects, mainly in Gu Yong Town and Shidong Town, and some villages in Qiaotou, Dagang and Liangcun also speak standard dialects. There are also some people who speak standard words in some towns and villages in neighboring Fengkai County and Hezhou County of Guangxi, but the number cannot be counted. As "standard speakers" have lived in the intersection of Han and Zhuang since ancient times, they have followed the traditional languages and customs of Han and Zhuang and become unique "standard speakers".

Because "Huabiao" and vernacular Chinese are two completely different languages, if the "Huabiao" in Huaiji County speaks Huabiao, the Huaiji people who speak vernacular Chinese will sound like listening to a gobbledygook. Liang, a non-local cadre of the town government, had a headache when he mentioned the bid for the Olympic Games: "When I first transferred, I asked an old lady who said the bid for the Olympic Games in vernacular for more than a dozen times, but she didn't understand the vernacular at all and kept asking,' Where is the milk house?' "Later, a' standard speaker' who can speak vernacular Chinese came up as an interpreter to solve the problem. I have been dealing with' standard speakers' for several years, and I have also specially learned' standard speaking'. Now I can only understand part of the' standard words', and sometimes I can communicate with the villagers in simple everyday language. "

As Huabiao is a living fossil in ancient Cantonese, many words are completely different from vernacular and Mandarin. Hua Biao reads "wiping the table" as "sitting on the bed", "what" as "door mat", "pork" as "beef paste" and "tears" as "eye drops" and "breakfast".

In the local area, "bidders" live together with their surnames, mostly natural villages with single surnames. Among them, the surnames such as Zhi and Huang are the most common. Like Shidong Town with more than 60,000 people, there are at least 10000 people surnamed Zhi.

Except for the "Eating the King" Festival and the "Eating the New Valley" Festival on April 2 1 day of the lunar calendar, most of the traditional festivals of "calling cards" are the same as those in other parts of Guangdong. In these two festivals, "bidders" (including married women) will go home for a reunion dinner and pray for a good weather and a good harvest in the coming year. In the past, "standard speakers" generally had the traditional habit of "crying for marriage", that is, the bride told her parents her gratitude for their parents' upbringing in the language of "crying" on the wedding day, with sincere words and touching scenes. With the changes of the times, modern people have rarely "cried and married".

There are many "eating" festivals in "Biaobian", but dog meat is rarely eaten. They think dogs are related to tengu. If you eat dog meat, it will not only cause sores on your hands and feet, but also affect your fertility. But now the younger generation of "standard speakers" are no longer superstitious about these taboos, thinking that dog meat nourishes the body, and they still eat dog meat.

In addition to the unique language, the dress of women who speak standard dialect in Huaiji County is also different from that of women who speak vernacular dialect in this county. Women in standard-speaking areas like to wear ancient long-breasted shirts and red ropes on their heads, especially in Gu Yong town. Before the 1990s, every market day in Gu Yong Town, these women wearing red ropes and blue coats walked in groups, which became a beautiful landscape. After the reform and opening up, many young girls in Huaiji County no longer wear large-breasted shirts when they go out to work. When they go home to visit relatives, they wear fashionable clothes. However, after they return to China to get married and have children, they will still keep the tradition of wearing big-breasted shirts like their ancestors.