The Pre-modern Hakka Phonology In The Eastern Guangdong

Chinese Hakka is the only one that was entitled by the sub-ethnic group among the Chinese dialects, and its historical origin and development is always fascinating and attractive to the academia since it gets the present name.The author has obtained several pre-modern Romanized Hakka corpus, which includes Romanized Sanon 新安 Hakka New Testament (abbr. SHNT); Romanized Wukinfu 五 经富 Hakka New Testament(abbr. WHNT); A Chinese-English Dictionay, Hakka Dialects Spoken in Kwangtung Province(abbr. CEDH); Dictionaire chinoi-fransais, dialecte Hac-ka(abbr. DCFH), and compares them with the data of field survey of modern Hakka dialects in eastern Guangdong. Therefore, guided by the new method of 2-folded evidences put forward by Prof. Lu Guoyao 鲁国尧, some preliminary exploration is done to the status and evolution of the Hakka dialect in the eastern Guangdong during the late 200 years.Firstly, the historical background and the locality of the compilation of the Hakka vernacular documents, the foreign and Chinese compilers, the Romanized systems, the features and configuration of the documents are corroborated by all kinds of files and archives. Especially we emphasize that the roles and the contributions of the native Chinese such as Dai Wenguang 戴文光, Peng Qifeng 彭启峰 during the compilation of the vernacular literature in the western churches in pre-modern China.Secondly, the’horizontal’comparison among the four Pre-modern Hakkas in eastern Guangdong recorded in the historical documental files and the’vertical’contrast between the modern Hakka data and the premodern Hakka corpus has been made to thoroughly reconstruct the initial, final and tonal systems of the premodern Hakkas, in which initials are 5 categories, namely 23 in SHNT,24 in WHNT,23 in CEDH and 21 in DCFH; finals are 33categories, namely 48 in SHNT,49 in WHNT,53 in CEDH and 63 in DCFH; 6 tones falls into yin even, yang even, rising, falling, yin entering, yang entering respectively. Through the horizontal comprison, the common phonological features and the internal phonological differences of the four’documental’Hakkas in eastern Guangdong have been obtained. Using the internal differences as distinctive features and combined with the results of historical research, the exact sub-dialects in eastern Guangdong described by the four documentary materials have been ascertained for the first time.The phonological system of the earlier Hakka in eastern Guangdong has been reconstracted,too.Finally the author points out there are not too least changes of the Hakka dialect in the eastern Guangdong occurs during the one or two centuries of the pre-modern China in reality,among which are:labialized velar initials disappears;the confluence of the initial groups of Jing 精 Zhuang 驻 and the grade 2 of Zhi 知二‖the grade 3 of Zhi 知三, zhang章;the ancient initials Ming明,Wei微,Ni泥,Ri日,Yi 疑 that are half voiced change into fully voiced;the six-vowel pattern alters;the apical vowel 1 appears;the medial appears in the grade 2 of the Xieshe 蟹摄,Shanshe 山摄 and disappears in the grade 3 or 4 三四等 of the Shanshe 山摄;the essential vowel lowers in the grade 3 or 4 of the Shanshe 山摄(e�'a);the ancient tone of fully voiced departing 浊去 changes into the rising tone上声.The causes and conditions of the evolution have been deduced or discussed on this paper.