The investigation and study on five Minnan dialect islands with a Zhang-zhou accent in the Pearl River Basin

The Pearl River Basin including the North River basin, the West River basin and the East River basin consists of dozens of large and small Min dialect islands. This phenomenon has long been concerned about by the academics. However, most researches are on the Zhongshan Min dialect, and some are on Shaoguan, Renhua and Sijie in Guangxi province. There is no research that conducts a systematically comparative study of the dialect islands along the Pearl River has been published.;The Min dialect islands in the Pearl River Basin are bound to die out eventually, sharing the same fate as most of the dialect islands in the world. The author is on a mission to rescue these dying Min dialects. I have conducted a detailed and in-depth field investigation, and collected vivid language materials, in order to leave records for these vanishing languages. Since 2003, I have investigated the dialects on five islands, which are the island of Le Chang Ta Tou Ba, Ying De Yu Zui along the North River, and the island of Yu Nan Lian Tan, Ping Nan Si Jie and Ping Le Zhou Tang along the West River. According to the investigation, these five dialects mentioned above all originated from the Zhangzhou dialect. Therefore, the topic of this dissertation is about the investigation and study on these five Minnan dialect islands with a Zhangzhou accent.;There are 2300 single words, 2400 vocabularies, and 100 sentences in these investigative language materials of Le Chang Ta Tou Ba, Ying De Yu Zui, Yu Nan Lian Tan, Ping Nan Si Jie and Ping Le Zhou Tang. After my sorting out and analyzing these materials, and then comparing the materials between the source dialect and the surrounding dialects, seven research questions have raised. First, the formation and distribution of the Min dialect islands in the Pearl River Basin; Second, the language life and language vision of these five investigated islands, which are Le Chang Ta Tou Ba, Ying De Yu Zui, Yu Nan Lian Tan, Ping Nan Si Tang; Third, the language properties of these five islands; Fourth, a comparative study of the original Zhangzhou dialect and the dialects on these five islands; Fifth, a comparison on these five dialects with the medieval pronunciation; Sixth, the features of the pronunciation, glossary, and the grammars on these five islands; Seventh, the language contact and language variation on these five islands.;The theories I use are: Firstly, I use the research method that is used to study migration history, by using the history materials and genealogy information, intending to construct the formation process of these five Minnan dialect islands; Secondly, by using the theories of language contact, language variation and lexical diffusion, I analyze the Specificities of these dialects on these five Minnan dialect islands and the cause of the formation of these specificities.;Key Words: Dialect Island, Migration History, Language Contact, Language Variation, lexical diffusion, Language of life.