Tujia Language Substratum In Chinese Dialect Of Enshi Region

While substratum theory originating from the West was at first put forward by the Italian linguist J. H. Bredsdorff , the Italian linguist named G. L. Ascoli then did a extremely detailed research on what effects sub stratums possibly acted on the various languages belonging to Latin Family. Afterwards, there're many Western linguists who used sub stratums'influence of non-Indo-European languages to explain the evolution of Teuton languages. In 20th century, some linguists not only looked sub stratums as the courses resulting in upper stratum deviating themselves from mother languages, but looked sub stratums as the influencing factors for upper stratums'further development. They believed it was the most essential to analyze sub stratums'influence for the law of language inner development, which not only was true in the forming processes of some languages but also in their further development.As regard to the influence substratum has made on Chinese language, the linguists pay more attention to Altaicization of inland Chinese returned in the north and South-Asialization of Chinese moving towards the south. Hunan normal university's Luo Xinru, making reference to Kam-Tai and Hmong-Mien languages who have inheritance relations with two ethnic groups---- ancient Baiyue and Man, analyzes substratum phenomena respectively from the angle of sound, word and grammar in his assay substratum language phenomena in native language in the south of Hunan province. The theory foundation and research methods in his assay give a great enlightenment to my article's writing.That Tujia language will be substituted by Chinese language in not very long is an unavoidable realistic question. In the Southwest of Hubei province, Enshi area's eight counties have comprehensively been captured by Chinese language and the dialect in this area belongs to the cheng-yu branch of southwestern mandarin. Tujia language is one of the closest and most important sub stratums of this areas'dialect. The dialect in Enshi area is, in some extent, influenced by substratum of Tujia language in its forming and developing process, while the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the influence is still needing a lot of investigation and research work based on descriptive materials.Based on the predecessors'research results ,my article manages to comprehensively utilize principles and methods in linguistics, ethnology, history, cultural anthropology and sociology, to select data from literatures or by on-the-spot investigations, to show and analyze the truth that Tujia language is substratum of Tujia nationality compact communities although these communities have been captured by Chinese language, to study the truth's influence on southwestern Mandarin, to probe the significance of the substratum as the living fossil of national culture, to prove, from one profile, that one of the causes that make the language influenced by it(substratum) deviating from its original language pattern is substratum language that is either one of the factors deciding its further development.The whole article can be divided into four chapters.The first chapter is introduction. It briefly summarizes major points and research methods of substratum theories and introduces the domestic research situation at present. Based on these, it shows the origin of my article's thesis, the research foundation, the research scope and the question needing to be resolved.The second chapter firstly introduces nationality structure and population survey in Enshi area; expounds main different viewpoints of the subject of branch of Tujia language and condition of language utilization in this area. Afterwards, it analyzes the trail that Tujia language was gradually weakened and finally wiped out from four aspects---- migration activity in big scale of ancient Ba human, local chronicles, ancient books'record about Tujia language, the process of administrative evolution and nationalities'migration in its history in the Southwest of Hubei province. The order of the trail is generally below:North of LüCong slope of Badong County→north of Jianshi County (north of the Qingjiang basin), south of LüCong slope of Badong County, north of Qingjiang→north of the Enshi Qingjiang basin , northeastern of Lichuan County→outside the Hefeng pass, south of the Xianfeng Longtan river→south of the Qingjiang river in Enshi City and Jianshi County, northeastern of Lichuan County→north of Xuanen County, Laifeng County and Hefeng County, north of the Xianfeng Longtan river area→the Youshui river basin taking Laifeng County as central, the Loushui basin of Hefeng CountyThe third chapter separately unfolds and analyzes some substratum phenomena of TuJia language from pronunciation, word and grammar. As for pronunciation, the phenomena such as front-tip Shengmu's alveolarization , labiodentals"f"being pronounced as velar"x"and Cuokou voicing vowels"y"being pronounced as Qichi voicing vowels"i"in the dialect have been mainly analyzed. As for word, 13 Tujia nationality words that are active in Enshi dialect have been listed here and analyzed. As for grammar , the relations between the especial adjective reduplications such as"A得 A式","AB得AB式"or"A得AB式"and the deeper form of adjective in Tujia language has been probed.The fourth chapter emphasizes Ba-Shu Chinese dialect's core status in the southwest Mandarin and explicitly defines the relations between Ba language, Shu language and Ba-Shu Chinese dialect and southwest Mandarin. The increasing similarity of characters of Ba Chinese dialect and Shu Chinese dialect results from their adjacent geographical position, jigsaw-like or common cultural custom and extremely similar processes of being captured by Chinese language. So, it's not accidental that Enshi area's dialect and Sichuan Mandarin have so much similarity. In multitudinous southwest minorities of our country, the scope over which the ancient Ba human was distributed early and successively is very broad, which even surpasses that of today's southwest Mandarin, therefore, we can learn that they certainly produce obvious influence on this scope from many aspects including language and substratum of Ba language is one of important factors that have built characteristics of southwest Mandarin.The conclusion part summarizes what has been stated above; points out the undeniable truth that Chinese dialect in Enshi area retains some substratum phenomena of Tujia language. To select and analyze substratum phenomena of Tujia language is of vital significance in terms of research of Chinese dialect: substratum of Ba language has produced influence not to be neglected on the forming process of southwest Mandarin and will not stop this kind of influence on its developing process; in some extent, substratum of Tujia nationality language lying in Chinese dialect of Enshi area will either continue to influence southwest mandarin's developing direction.