CATDOLL : CATDOLL: Please help me in Nantong dialect

I remember arriving in Tongcheng in the early fall of 1997. As soon as I got off the bus, I was overwhelmed by the sound of Nantong. There were several students from Nantong in my class. During the break, I listened to their interesting conversations in Nantong dialect, but we knew nothing about it. It was really depressing.

In the past few years of living in Nantong, I have had more contact with Nantong people, and gradually understood some basic Nantong dialect, so I had the desire to learn Nantong dialect. Since working in Nantong, I have no difficulty in speaking Nantong dialect. Although the Nantong dialect I speak still has the accent of my hometown, it is enough for Nantong people to guess where I am from. I am a little proud of myself when I think about some people who have lived in Nantong for decades and have only stayed at listening. But when I think back to the scenes of learning Nantong dialect, I can't help but laugh.

I remember when I was in college, a friend of mine rented a house outside to improve his food and to be able to surf the Internet freely. Every weekend, the task of buying vegetables was given to me. Most of the people who were doing business nearby were from other places, and you had to speak Mandarin with them, bargaining and paying, and there was no problem. But the people who set up stalls to sell vegetables were all farmers in the suburbs. If you were not careful when buying vegetables with them in Nantong dialect, you would suffer a loss. I remember the winter of my sophomore year. Maybe because I hadn't bought vegetables for a long time, I didn't know much about the price of vegetables. When an old lady weighed about a pound of vegetables, she asked for "two poles". I thought it was two yuan. I thought to myself, it was winter after all, and the price of vegetables had risen. I didn't think much about it and gave two silver coins. Later I learned that the so-called "two poles" were just two cents.

When I went to the internship school, I felt good about my Nanchang dialect. But I still made a joke. One day, I was alone in the office. I heard the phone ring and quickly answered it. The other party asked: "Who are you?" I said: "I'm a trainee." The other party said: "You are a trainee, how come you don't understand?" "You are familiar with it, why don't I understand it?" After a long time of arguing, I finally couldn't help it and said loudly that I was an intern.

The joke of eating at my girlfriend's grandmother's house made many people want to vomit their food on the spot. In my hometown, we call grandmother "Nana" or "Nana", while in Nantong, we call grandmother by gritting our teeth and shouting "Na Na" (sound), and call wife "Na Na" (sound). That day, I wanted to call my girlfriend's grandmother, and I shouted "Na Na" for a long time, but no one answered me. Everyone didn't understand who I was calling. When I said what I meant, everyone laughed so hard that tears flowed down their cheeks, but I wanted to find a hole to crawl into.

Of course, Nantong people say Nantong too much, and if they speak Mandarin rashly, they will make a fool of themselves. There was a principal who wanted to say that we were on the same boat during the flag-raising ceremony, but ended up saying that we were on the same bed, and the teachers and students present almost laughed to death.

Times are changing, and many new words can no longer be expressed in Nantong dialect. So, if you listen to people from Nantong speaking now, they will suddenly switch to speaking Mandarin. Think about it, language also needs to develop with the times.

Origin of Nantong dialect:

Nantong is located in the southern part of the Yellow Sea and the northern bank of the Yangtze River estuary. It is surrounded by water on three sides and land on one side, shaped like a diamond-shaped peninsula. It faces Suzhou and Shanghai across the river to the south, borders Taizhou to the west, and Yancheng to the north. The area around Nantong was formerly the sea area at the mouth of the river, and it became a sand state during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Due to its unique geographical location and backward transportation conditions, Nantong was almost isolated from the outside world in ancient times.

The formation of Nantong dialect, which is popular in the urban area of ​​Nantong and some areas of Tongzhou City, can be traced back to the Sui and Tang Dynasties. At that time, the main population of Nantong was composed of refugees and soldiers from all over the country. The complex language factors brought by various places took root here, which can be regarded as the prototype of Nantong dialect. From the middle of the Tang Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, there was a large-scale migration of people from Shanxi, Henan and Shandong to the south. Some of them moved to Nantong via Huaiyang. The northern Mandarin they brought with them continued to blend and multiply with the local dialect (not Wu dialect, but a hybrid language, but a southern dialect). Modern Nantong dialect belongs to the Jianghuai dialect (northern dialect), but has a strong Wu dialect color. It is a transitional dialect between the Jianghuai dialect and the Wu dialect.

A very prominent feature of Nantong dialect is that the ancient voiced initials are all pronounced as aspirated voiceless sounds regardless of level and oblique tones. Based on this, it is excluded from the Wu dialect, which has well-preserved voiced initials. This feature is similar to the dialects of nearby Taizhou, Rudong, Rugao, Xinghua, Dongtai, etc., so the dialects in this area are classified as the Tongtai dialect of Jianghuai dialect (Jianghuai Mandarin). But in fact, there are significant differences between Nantong dialect and other dialects of Tongtai dialect, mainly in the finals.

Main features of Nantong dialect:

1. When encountering stop consonants and affricates, all voiced initials are aspirated regardless of level or unlevel tone. However, Mandarin and Yangzhou dialects (Hongchao dialect of Jianghuai dialect) do not aspirate unlevel tone. For example, in ancient Chinese, the two groups of words "瓶" (bottle) and "病" (disease) and "同" (same) and "动" (movement) are homophones with different tones. "瓶" (bottle) and "同" (same) are level tones, and are pronounced as "ping" (ping) in Mandarin. "病" (disease) and "动" are departing tones (unlevel tones), and are pronounced as "bing" (bing) and "动" (dong) in Mandarin, which are homophones with "并 (merged)" and "凝" (frozen). However, in Nantong dialect, they are still homophones with different tones. "病" (blight) and "动" are also pronounced as "ping" (ping) and "同" (tong), and are not confused with "并" (frozen). Similarly, "姨" (uncle) and "就" are pronounced as qieu (qieu), "毒" (poison) is pronounced as "toq", "袋" (bag) is pronounced as "tae", and so on. This can be said to be the most obvious feature of Nantong dialect and other Tongtai dialects.

2. Ma Kai is pronounced as a or uo, for example, the characters "che cuo", "zhe zuo", "she suo", "xie xia", "xie qia", "jie jia", etc.

3. The rhyme of Xianshanshetan and the first character of Jian group are also divided into two rhymes, an and un, such as "guan gun", "gan gun", "juan jyun", "dan tan", "xian xin", "tian tin", "qian qin", "xian xin". In Nantong dialect, "gan gun" and "guan gun" are homophones, while in Hongchao dialect (Yangzhou), the rhyme of Xianshanshetan and the first character of Jian group are also pronounced an, so gan gaen and guan gun are different in pronunciation.

4. Nantong dialect has 7 tones, except for Shangsheng, the rest of Ping, Qu and Ru are divided into Yin and Yang. Jianghuai Mandarin Hongchao dialect generally has only 5 tones.

5. The Nantong dialect retains more Wu dialect vocabulary than other Jianghuai Mandarin dialects.

6. In Nantong dialect, the rhyme of Liushehou is pronounced as ei, such as: Lou is pronounced as lei, Shou is pronounced as sei. Many northern Wu dialects also have this feature.

Some comparisons between Nantong dialect and Mandarin:

Falling down - losing face

Nakanzi - scolding a child for being naughty

Foreign box - same as above

Cat Spirit - Method

Renerdeng - Awesome People

Nutcrackers - powerful, powerful

Chewing crickets - nagging

X Shrimp Head - Same as above

Cough pile - nonsense

Zaden - strong

Ugly background - no manners

Hard-headed

Ciba Laha, Laba Shuqiao, Cihu Sude - Stupid and foolish

Shenba Suoqiao - clever

What a mess, what a root -- very

Yes, ok, ok - is there, is it good, is it ok

Maoxu - Tears

How to deal with it?

What's up? - How is it?

Goutanli - Riverside

Biao Biao - Take a look

Straw sandals (a kind of shortbread)

Drooling

Small jacket (clothes)

Grid rack (like this)

Old (very good)

Cat Dragon (ugly, not pretty)

Morning Rice (long time ago)

Very small

Nutstick (powerful)

Heehee Web (Spider Web)

Square (clean)

Leaf grass (lively)

Guoguoer (a clothes drying rack)

Waistband (apron)

Xi Na Kan Zi (scold the child)

Thin box (insult to a child)

Xibeishovel (insult to a child)

Hello, Daiga (hello everyone)

Groove Vendor (formerly)

Wass (all)

Chaofanzi (past)

Grain-free (smart)

Dirty, unkempt

Shen Zhi Wu Zhi (can't sit still, glib-tongued)

Dead or alive (nonsense)

Black (scary)

Nonsense

Lean on the dragon rope, pile up, and drive (brain touches the line)

What the hell? (Are you coming home?)

Dead wrong card (secretly frame someone)

Huozi (similar to the fourth tone of "Hua Zi", meaning disaster or trouble)

Chewing maggots (talking nonsense)

Nest (stool)

Stool (Locust)

Qiaxu (urination)

The lamb was sold for one dollar (I don't remember)

Cotton stool (cotton coat)

Pool (Toilet)

Na Na (wife)

In the old good actor~~ Dai and Duo Guangguang (very interesting, share with everyone!)

Old Lingfan (clean)

Making Four Lawo (Splashing)

Bitterness Four (Waste)

Too much difference

Don't be anxious when you lose

Look (the day before yesterday)

Zan Zan Er (relaxed)

Too far away

Zuo Si La Wo (faking death and living on the pretense of death)

Bitter Four (Fooling)

Look (the day before yesterday)

Sea (Crab)

Push the rice place (almost)

Getting angry (lighting a lamp)

Pig head (pig tongue)

Immortal Recipe (something I hate)

Oblique (bad)

Go to Larry (where to go)

To do something bad

Playing tricks on people

Roll mud (what)

Labor (common people)

This kid is always nice! (This kid is always nice!)

What to do?

Silent (anxious)

Cousin thief (insult)

Duixin (dumpling filling)

Madman (calling people)

Can't do boring things

Moqianqian (Moqu) means wasting time doing boring things

Guaiguai Long Didong (so amazing)

Mara vine (small hole)

Paerde (small stool)

My Pot (Armhole)

Hyunbalaha (very ugly)

Very stupid

Frozen (idiot)

8th Black (Fool)