sway to a greater or lesser extent. Amongst
the many large towns and important centres
of trade and influence
in the Höng
Shán district, the principal town is Síú-lám
(小欖). It is said to be larger than
any district city in the Kwong Tung Province.
Being so large in size and population—
variously estimated at 300,000 and
upwards
[1]—the inhabitants proudly say
that they are a district to themselves, and
refuse to recognise either Shun Tak or Höng
Shán as their district. Politically they
belong to the latter, although they, it is
said, once owned allegiance to the Shun Tak
jurisdiction. The Shun Tak dialect is still
the speech of the Síú-lamites.
The San Wúí dialect is the native tongue of the dwellers in the Wong Löng Tò village (黃良都). The reason for this is said to be that this village once formed a part of the San Wúí district. The village of Taú Mún is inhabited by descendants of immigrants from the San Wúí district. They and their ancestors have probably resided here for three centuries; and the dialect they speak is a mixture of San Wúi and Höng Shán—the San Wúi element preponderating in their language, that is as regards the pronunciation of the words, but the idiom of their speech is that of the Höng Shán.
In the South of the Höng Shán district there are several villages where the dialect is like the South-west dialect of the San Wúí district. In Hong Héí's time it was perhaps included in Kong Chau, but this was changed two hundred years ago. Wong Löng Tò 黃良都 is one of these villages, also Kú Chan (古鎭). We believe, in both these places the dialect is said, according to Chinese phraseology, to be eight-tenths or nine-tenths like the San Wúí. There are also between ten or twenty or thirty villages where the speech is like the North-east dialect of San Wúí.
Again in some parts of the Höng Shán dialect near the Tung Kwún borders, the dialect is Tung Kwún to a more or less extent. This is due first to Tung Kwún people having moved into the Höng Shán district, and kept up their own dialect as a foundation to which they have added on some of the Höng Shán dialect; and secondly another cause for this is, that the Höng Shán dwellers in the neighbourhood either of the Tung Kwún district (for it lies on the other side of the main estuary of the Canton River) or in proximity to the Tung Kwún speakers, mentioned just above, have been influenced to some extent in their language.
A number of the Höng Shán people have gone abroad in common with their fellow-countrymen in the delta of the Canton River. The Hawaiian Islands, as well as Australia, have both received their contingents of emigrants from this district. A recent traveller in the district found himself accosted in pidgin-English in the Háng Méí (坑尾) village; and he discovered that a third of the adult male population of this village were able to speak this hybrid speech, they having returned from Australia (Sydney).
Comparison with Cantonese, &c.
A few sounds of the Cantonese are not found in the Höng Shán dialect, though a more extended study of the dialect might lead to the discovery of new words differing in pronunciation from any of the Cantonese sounds. There are 240 syllables in the Höng Shán which are pronounced differently from the Cantonese out of a total of 737 syllables in the latter. Roughly speaking then about one-third of the Höng Shán dialect, as represented by the pronunciation of words only, differs from the Cantonese. In this estimate the tones, which have no small share in distinguishing one dialect from another, are not taken into account: the ear is the best judge of the difference caused by them. The Höng Shán contains fewer syllables than the Cantonese. This is what would naturally be expected to be the case, as most of the words commencing in ch in
- ↑ Henry's 'The Cross and the Dragon,' p. 35.
