The Weitou dialect (;
Jyutping
Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK), an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme. The LSHK advocates fo ...
: Waitau Waa) is a dialect of
Yue Chinese
Yue () is a group of similar Sinitic languages spoken in Southern China, particularly in Liangguang (the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces).
The name Cantonese is often used for the whole group, but linguists prefer to reserve that name for ...
. It forms part of the Guan–Bao (莞寶片; ,
Dongguan
Dongguan (; ) is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, China. An important industrial city in the Pearl River Delta, Dongguan borders the provincial capital of Guangzhou to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, Shenzhen to the ...
–
Bao'an) branch of
Yuehai. It is spoken by older generations in
Luohu
Luohu District is a district of Shenzhen, China, located north of the New Territories of Hong Kong, east of Futian District, southeast of Longgang District, southwest of Pingshan District, and west of Yantian District. It is one of the oldest ...
and
Futian
Futian District () is one of the nine districts comprising the city of Shenzhen, China. The district is home to the government and Municipal Committee of Shenzhen, as well as the city's central business district (CBD).
Name
There are two theor ...
districts in
Shenzhen
Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...
, and by those in the
New Territories
The New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of Hong Kong. Historically, it ...
,
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
.
The Weitou dialect can be heard in
Hong Kong TV dramas and movies, and is usually used to depict characters who come from
walled villages. For example, in the 1992 movie ''
Now You See Love, Now You Don't'', the chief character, played by
Chow Yun-fat
Chow Yun-fat (born 18 May 1955), previously known as Donald Chow, is a Hong Kong actor. He is perhaps best known for his collaborations with filmmaker John Woo in the five Hong Kong action heroic bloodshed films: '' A Better Tomorrow'', '' A ...
who himself grew up in
Lamma Island
Lamma Island, also known as Y Island or Pok Liu Chau or simply Pok Liu, is the third largest island in Hong Kong. Administratively, it is part of the Islands District.
Name
Lamma Island was named Lamma only because of a chart reading error by ...
, consistently speaks the Weitou dialect.
In a more general sense, ''Weitouhua'' can refer to any
variety 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 m ...
spoken in the villages of Hong Kong, including
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
and rural Yue dialects. In contrast, most Hong Kong residents speak standard Cantonese, while most Shenzhen residents speak Mandarin.
Phonology
Zhang & Zhuang (2003:21-4) records the phonological systems of three varieties of the Weitou dialect spoken in Hong Kong. Following is Fan Tin's (),
San Tin
San Tin () is a loosely defined area in Yuen Long District in New Territories, Hong Kong that is part of the San Tin constituency. Unlike Hong Kong's highly urbanised areas, San Tin is sparsely populated due to its marshlands.
San Tin is loca ...
(in
IPA).
There are four
tone contour
A tone contour, or contour tone, is a tone in a tonal language which shifts from one pitch to another over the course of the syllable or word. Tone contours are especially common in East, Southeast Asia, West Africa, Nilo-Saharan languages, Kh ...
s, when the "
entering tones" (stopped syllables) are ignored:
References
* Zhang Shaungqing 張雙慶 & Zhuang Chusheng 莊初昇 (2003). ''Xianggang xinjie fangyan'' (香港新界方言 "The Dialects of the New Territories, Hong Kong"). Hong Kong: Commercial Press. .
External links
* 黄建全
《深圳平湖围头话音系分析》2005。
深圳新闻网。
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weitou Dialect
Cantonese language
Languages of Hong Kong
New Territories