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The ''Linguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects'' (), edited by Cao Zhiyun and published in 2008 in three volumes, is a
dialect atlas A linguistic map is a thematic map showing the geographic distribution of the speakers of a language, or isoglosses of a dialect continuum of the same language, or language family. A collection of such maps is a linguistic atlas. The earliest su ...
documenting the geography of
varieties of Chinese Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of main ...
. Unlike the ''
Language Atlas of China The ''Language Atlas of China'' (), published in two parts in 1987 and 1989, maps the distribution of both the varieties of Chinese and minority languages of China. It was a collaborative effort by the Australian Academy of the Humanities and th ...
'' (1987), which aims to map the boundaries of both minority languages and Chinese dialect groups, the new atlas is a collection of
map A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Althou ...
s of various features of dialects, in the tradition of the '' Atlas linguistique de la France'' and its successors.


Methods

The project spanned 8 years, from 2001 to 2007. A year of preparatory work began in December 2001, including selecting survey sites, codifying fieldwork procedures and conducting trial surveys. The 930 sites throughout China and Taiwan were selected so that there was usually one site per county in southeast China and one site in every three or four counties in the
Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
and Jin areas, preferably in non-contiguous counties. Thus, for example, there were 92 sites each in
Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
and
Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...
, but only 19 in
Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...
and 21 in
Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see § Name) is a landlocked province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), Ning ...
. The metropolitan district of each of 36 cities – provincial capitals plus
Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trade ...
,
Xiamen Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong'an, ...
and
Meizhou Meizhou (, Hakka Chinese: Mòichû) is a prefecture-level city in eastern Guangdong province, China. It has an area of , and a population of 3,873,239 million as of the 2020 census. It comprises Meijiang District, Meixian District, Xingning Cit ...
– was included as a survey site. The remaining 894 sites were generally chosen to be representative of rural dialects of their county, so dialect islands were omitted. A questionnaire was compiled, to elicit the pronunciation of 425 characters representing common Chinese morphemes, the local term for 470 items and the local form of 110 grammatical forms. Of the 930 sites selected, 91 sites were identified as key sites representing various dialect subgroups, to be subject to additional surveys. At these sites
tone sandhi Tone sandhi is a phonological change occurring in tonal languages, in which the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes change based on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes. It usually simplifies a bidirectional tone into a ...
phenomena were to be investigated, and a much longer character list would be used. Fieldwork was conducted between December 2002 and December 2006, and the resulting data entered into a
geographic information system A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with software tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing those data. In a ...
. The 46 fieldworkers, 34 of whom held doctoral degrees in Chinese dialectology, were assigned to areas they were already familiar with. A single informant was used from each site, typically a male born between 1931 and 1945 who had spent almost all of his life at the site. This was in line with the usual practice in
dialect geography Language geography is the branch of human geography that studies the geographic distribution of language(s) or its constituent elements. Linguistic geography can also refer to studies of how people talk about the landscape. For example, toponymy i ...
elsewhere in the world of using nonmobile, older, rural males (NORMs), as such informants are considered more likely to reflect the traditional speech of the area. The maps were compiled and collated throughout 2007.


Contents

The finished work consists of 510 maps, each containing data for all 930 sites, in three volumes: # ''Yǔyīn juǎn'' 语音卷 honetics . These 205 maps trace various significant
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
developments from earlier forms of Chinese, such as the development of the tonal categories,
voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound product ...
d initial
obstruent An obstruent () is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well a ...
s, initial consonants in
palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
environments and consonantal codas. # ''Cíhuì juǎn'' 词汇卷 exicon . Most of the 203
lexicon A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word (), neuter of () meaning 'of or for w ...
maps show the particular expression used at each site for a given concept, displayed as
Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji ...
standing for cognate morphemes. # ''Yǔfǎ juǎn'' 语法卷, rammar . The 102
grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...
maps show the distribution of different syntactic constructions or grammatical morphemes. In each map of the atlas, the different forms are classified, but the classifications are not explained, and must be deduced by the reader. A digital version of the atlas is in preparation, to include additional maps and the full survey data.


See also

*
Language of China There are several hundred languages in China. The predominant language is Standard Chinese, which is based on central Mandarin, but there are hundreds of related Chinese languages, collectively known as ''Hanyu'' (, 'Han language'), that are sp ...
*
Demographics of the People's Republic of China '' The demographics of China demonstrate a huge population with a relatively small youth component, partially a result of China's one-child policy. China's population reached 1 billion in late 1981. As of December 2021, China's population stoo ...
*
Languages of Hong Kong The Basic Law of Hong Kong states that English and Chinese are the two official languages of Hong Kong. During the British colonial era, English was the sole official language until 1978 but has remained a strong second language in Hong Kong. ...
*
Languages of Macau Macau is an autonomous territory within China. A Portuguese colony until 1999, Macau has a diverse culture firmly rooted in Cantonese culture, with a mix of influences from East Asia and Western Europe. Macau is known for being the largest gambl ...


References


Citations


Sources

* * Translation of , with an additional section on future plans. * * *


Further reading

* *


External links


The Commercial Press description
{{DEFAULTSORT:Linguistic Atlas Of Chinese Dialects Dialectology Varieties of Chinese Chinese dialects Books about China