The Dialects On The Borders Between Hengnan And Qidong County

It has been an academic focus among Chinese linguists on how todistinguish Chinese dialects. In the last decade, with more and moredialects disclosed to the world, it is more and more clear that manydialects experts are getting more reasonable and scientific ideas abouthow to distinguish them, which makes it more clear for us to know aboutthe Chinese dialects. As it was written in "The division of Hunandialects" by Bao Houxing and Chen Hui in 2005, " based on historicaland geographical factors as well as the variety of Hunan dialects, thereare five main Hunan dialects: Changyi, Louzhao, Hengzhou, Cenxu andYongzhou dialects( later named Yongquan). This article mainly discusses:Hengyang branch(mainly spoken by people in Hengnan county) ofHengzhou dialect and Dongqi branch of Yongquan dialect. It is verycommon that the regional interrelation of different dialects lead to theblur of the borders between them, especially those on the borders.Therefore, there are in fact more meticulous branches of these dialects inHengnan and Qidong county. Based on the spot investigation andfocusing on the phonetics, this article presents a clear and detaileddescription and comparison about the vowels, consonants, and tones aswell as present dialects used across the borders in fours areas in Hengnancounty and three ones in Qidong county. It also puts forward the researchon what dialects used in Hengnan county and Qidong county, thus pointsout the fact the writer gets based on much survey: it has become a factthat the dialects used in the three townships along the border of aregetting mixed more and more with Hengzhou and Yongquan dialects.The article is divided in 5 parts.Part 1: forword A brief introduction about geography, history, population anddialects in Hengnan and Qidong counties and the present academicresearch about Hunan dialects, what and how the article tries to solve,what is the meaning to do the research and what the survey shows.Part 2: phonetic system of Maoshi dialectsA description of phonetic system and the characteristics ofphonology with the chart of similar homophones.Part 3: phonetic system of Hongyan dialectsA description of phonetic system and the characteristics ofphonology with the chart of similar homophones.Part 4: integrated comparison and the issue of ascriptionCompare Maoshi, Hongyan and the dialects related to them and tryto figure out the laws of interact of different dialects on each other andthe issue of ascription.Part 5: ConclusionAnalyze and probe into the causes of the phonetic characteristics ofthe dialects on the borders of Hengyang and Qidong.