In Xingtai area, Shahe dialect has distinctive local characteristics. As soon as Shahe people speak, people can recognize them as Shahe people. There are some short stories that tease and tease Shahe dialect in the society. One said that Shahe cadres reported on their work and talked about one, two, three, four questions, and then they said "ye". After being reminded, they quickly changed their words to "First" and ended up saying "di'ye". One said that there are documents in the central and provincial news departments, and radio and television units will not recruit Shahe people. The author explores textual research. The former rumor is purely a joke after drinking tea and drinking wine, but it is true that Shahe dialect sometimes reads the single vowel I as the compound vowel ie. The latter rumor is a myth. Children in Shahe generally speak Mandarin after entering school, and their fluency in Mandarin is no different from that in other counties. The author, a native of Shahe, studied in Beijing Broadcasting Institute in 1961s, and there were several Shahe people among his classmates. Shahe people work in radio and television units at all levels, and they are engaged in broadcasting work everywhere. At present, Shahe dialect with a strong accent is limited to middle-aged and elderly people in remote villages.

there is a little story, which is a true fact. One of my classmates was admitted to the Chinese Department of Nankai University in the 1961s. When he first entered the school, he spoke with some Shahe accent. A professor who taught ancient Chinese was very interested, and specially asked this classmate to recite Tang poetry and Song poetry in the strong Shahe dialect in class. The professor said with emotion: "I have been talking about ancient Chinese phonology for many years, which is difficult for students to understand. I didn't expect so many ancient Chinese phonology to be preserved in Shahe dialect." Shahe dialect is really a living fossil of ancient Chinese! "

What are the characteristics of Shahe dialect, which are different from other counties and cities? What is its function, which is called the living fossil of ancient Chinese by Professor Nankai? The author tries to summarize that Shahe dialect has the following characteristics only in terms of phonology and intonation: < P > First, the generalization of the vowel e. In Shahe dialect, the vowel e is widely used. In many words, whether it is a single vowel or a complex vowel, e can be used instead. For example:

instead of a, the number "eight" is pronounced as "be" and "Yaozhen" is pronounced as "de Yaozhen";

instead of o, "exploitation" is pronounced as "be cut" and "touching" is pronounced as "caressing me";

instead of u, the adverb "bu" is pronounced as "be" and "happiness" as "fortunately Fe";

instead of ao, "drinking medicine" is pronounced as "drinking ye" and "steps" is pronounced as "jie step";

instead of ei, "Beijing" is pronounced "bie Jing" and "black" is pronounced "he color";

instead of ou, "sister-in-law" is pronounced as "zhue Ai", "kowtow" is pronounced as "ke Tou", and so on.

in another case, if the vowel is i,u, in Shahe dialect, the original vowel is followed by e, and the vowel is changed to ie,ue.

For example, I is changed to ie: the number "one" is pronounced as "ye" and "gratitude" is pronounced as "feeling Jie";

another example: u is changed to ue: "green" is pronounced as "lue color" and "chrysanthemum" is pronounced as "jue flower";

The second is to keep a large number of Rusheng words. There are four tones in ancient Chinese. In modern Chinese (Putonghua), the entering tone has disappeared, and the flat tone is divided into two tones: Yin Ping and Yang Ping. However, in Shahe dialect, there are a large number of Rusheng words, such as one, seven, eight, eat, black and pronounce. The vowels of these words are all E in Shahe dialect, pronounced as ye, qie, be, che, he and fe. The pronunciation of these words is short and powerful, and the radio is urgent.

Many ancient poems are filled with rhyme, such as Bai Juyi's Pipa Trip and Yue Fei's Manjianghong. Reading in modern Mandarin, in some places, sounds and rhymes are incongruous and slightly stiff. However, if you recite it in Shahe dialect and read out the Rusheng characters, it will be catchy, and the sad and sorrowful feelings in poetry will be vividly displayed.

the third is to distinguish the sharp group sounds. In ancient Chinese, the sharp group sounds are clearly distinguished. Group sound, that is, the initial consonants J, Q and X of lingual sound are combined with the initial vowels I and U; Sharp sounds, that is, the initials z, c and s of the tip of the tongue are combined with the vowels starting with I, u or I and u. In modern Mandarin, the sharp sound has been abolished and the sharp group has merged. However, the sharp group sounds are still clearly distinguished in Shahe dialect. Mandarin has replaced the group phonetic characters of the sharp phonetic characters, and it still retains its original appearance in Shahe dialect. J, Q, and X of the spliced group sound characters are still spliced according to the archaic sounds Z, C, and S.

J is still spelled as z, such as "focus" reading "ziao point" and "drinking" reading "drinking ziu";

q is still spelled as c, such as "husband and wife" pronounced as "husband ci" and "ten million" pronounced as "cian wan";

x is still spelled as s, such as "East si" for "things" and "siao dialect" for "jokes".

the fourth is to keep the compound words and compound words. A consonant is a compound word, that is, the consonant of the previous word and the vowel of the latter word are combined into one word. In the Song Dynasty, Shen Kuo's Notes on Mengxi said: In the old saying, two sounds have been combined into one word, such as "can't" as "stupid" and "why not" as "stupid". Nowadays, a small number of homophones have been passed down in Chinese, such as idioms with ulterior motives and wasted efforts. Among them, "Yi" is the consonant of "impossible" and "Zhu" is the consonant of "to" or "to". There are many consonants and consonants in Shahe dialect. For example, "don't use" means "bing" and "don't use" means "biao". These homophones are also common in other counties and cities, but there are all unique homophones in Shahe, such as:

daughter-in-law (xi'fu), pronounced "xiu";

yi'shang, pronounced "Yang";

the fifth is the mixture of vowels en and ei. In Shahe dialect, the distinction between two similar vowels, en and ei, is not clear, and en is often pronounced as ei. For example, "spring" is pronounced as "blowing the sky", "opening the door" is pronounced as "opening coal", "contradiction" is pronounced as "spear team" and so on.

six is the universal use of the word "de". In Shahe dialect, the word "de" is widely used. Generally speaking, there are the following situations:

The word "Zi" as a noun suffix in Putonghua is used in Shahe dialect. Such as: table, chair, child, nose, fat and so on. The noun "zi" cannot be used in Putonghua, and "de" can also be used in Shahe dialect. Such as cloth bags, nephews, etc. The most commonly used is to call a wife a daughter-in-law, and the chorus is "Xiu".

In the past, it was customary to use the word "de" when naming children in Shahe rural areas, such as Jiang, Hai, Niu, Red and Black. Nowadays, with the general improvement of cultural quality, such names are rare, and most of them are more elegant.

The features of Shahe dialect, apart from the phonetic parts mentioned above, also have some unique features in popular vocabulary and phrases, so I won't go into details for lack of space. In addition, due to a large number of entering tone characters in Shahe dialect, this paper involves pinyin characters, all of which are unmarked.