| dc.description.abstract | The Meixian Hakka dialect is the representative of Hakka in the Han language. Today’s Meixian (Mei County) used to be the four counties governed by Jiaying provincial government in the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, the Meixian dialect spoken by the Hakka people who immigrated to Taiwan from the Jiaying province at the beginning of Qing Dynasty is called Sixian(four-counties) dialect. The pronunciation of Sixiandialect in the north and the south is slightly different. Thus, the Sixian dialect in Taiwan is separated into the north Sixian accent and the south Sixian accent.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, a large number of Hakka people migrated to south eastern Asia and showed economic strength which should not be underestimated. In this study, I collect the Meixian Hakka dialect of Sabah, where the largest proportion of Hakka people live, and compare it to the north Sixian accent, the south Sixian accent, and the Meixian dialect to present the Meixian dialects in four places at different migrating periods.
The corpus in this study includes the north Sixian accent, the south Sixian accent, the Meixian dialect, and the Malaysian Meixian Hakka (Sandakan). By analyzing the corpus of these four places, I will make a comparative study on the contemporary Meixian dialect, the Meixian dialect immigrated from Meixian to Taiwan at the beginning of Qing Dynasty, and the Meixian dialect migrating from Meixian to south eastern Asian after the establishment of the Republic of China. These Meixian Hakka dialects share the same origin, but they come from different areas, different migrating periods, and different language environments.
Through the academic data and the field research, I collect and organize the corpus. This study includes the corpus of 2,152 pronunciations and explains the 290 entries according to differences and common traits.
Besides, this study makes a comparison and contrast of the initial and final consonant and the ancient Chinese sound for these four dialects. Therefore, it can serve as completedata and a reference for the pronunciation corpus of the four varieties of Meixian Hakka dialects.
Keyword: Hakka, north Sixian accent, south Sixian accent, Meixian dialect, Malaysian Hakka | en_US |