The Tungkwun dialect of Cantonese.
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T C 上平 上 去 入 中入 下平 上 去 入 俗話變音
In a previous number of the China Review,
Mr. Dyer Ball has an article on the Tungkwun dialect as spoken at Sheklúng. Mr.
Ball does not pretend to an intimate acquaintance
with this dialect and only aims at
giving a general idea of it.
It is not
surprising then to find many mistakes and
omissions; but why is the syllabary marred
by including a score of syllables, which
should be impossible according to Mr. Ball's
own exposition of the phonetic laws which
rule the dialect[1]?
The Sheklung dialect (which does not
however differ much from other Tungkwun
dialects) is not spoken over any large extent
of country. It reaches along the S. Bank
of the E. River eight miles W. to Wongching
and three miles E. to In-wo (the first
village of Shekkong höng): on the N. Bank
it covers the 十四屬 14 belonging
to Tungkwun, with the exception of
Wattàu, (which speaks Pok-lo). Along the
river leading to the District-city, it reaches
three miles on the N. Bank to Shek-kit, and
- ↑ See, in the syllabary, 2, 14, 251, 334, 455 sounds in ai,=32, 107, 226, 288, 347, 348, 413, 600 in au (distinguished from áu)=79, 199, 283, 395, in ang and 458 in ak=325, 614 in ŭt and ŭn: 243 in ui (Mr. Parker's oü): 312 in ip: 329 in om (but see below Note 11a). Other non-Sheklung sounds are 86 fit: 203 kwit: 585 wit: 410 sháp (becomes cháp): 426 shok (becomes sok): 259 mük:[n 1] 583 we. Besides 202 kwik (always becomes k'wik): 341 pap: and probably 290 ne (the Interrogative final ni).
- ↑
There are still one or two changes that
require to be made in Cantonese 'orthography':
兵 is not ꜀ping in Cantonese but
꜀peng, i.e. to the unsophisticated ear and
eye. Consequently 石 must be shük꜇ and
not shek꜇. Owing to the influence of initial
y 英 is sometimes heard a true ꜀ying.
There is probably no final e but only ä
which however may be long or (as in enclitics
such as ke꜄) short: the short form might
still be written with e, although the e in
'send' and the ar in 'parent' are not merely
long and short forms of the same sound
as Mr. Parker states. Mr. Parker's oü would not quite do, i.e. it does not represent the current Cantonese sound: it should, I think, be óü which I write. To pronounce ö the lips have to be shot out and so it is not the German ö, but still less is it éu or eo. The appearance of a 'diphthong' in the vowel in some cases is due to the finals ng and k.
