The Yongzhou dialect (Chinese: 永州话; pinyin: Yǒngzhōuhuà) is a dialect of Xiang Chinese spoken in Yongzhou, Hunan Province.

Origin and Development

Before the Han Dynasty, Yongzhou was entirely a residential area for ancient indigenous ethnic groups such as the Yao people. There are still many of their descendants in the upper reaches of Xiao River today.^[1]

The population of the Yao people decreased greatly after the Han Dynasty, which may be due to the assimilation of the Yao people as a result of the large number of Han people migrating southward. When Liu Zongyuan came to Yongzhou in the Tang Dynasty, he said that the people here spoke very strangely and could not understand him at all. However, after a few years, his accent became the same as that of the locals in Yongzhou. Apparently people here switched to speaking Chinese during the Tang Dynasty, but the accent and vocabulary were quite special. Perhaps this is the origin of the modern Yongzhou dialect.^[2]

Then, many people from central and eastern Hunan moved into Yongzhou, making the Yongzhou dialect more biased towards Xiang dialect. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, a large number of people from Jiangxi immigrated, and Gan dialect also had an influence on Yongzhou dialect. For example, "dàng" is said in "here", which is consistent with the Taihe dialect in Jiangxi. In modern times, Yongzhou dialect has been greatly influenced by Southwest Mandarin and Mandarin Chinese.^[3]

References