Gan, Hakka and the formation of Chinese dialects

Laurent Sagart (1)

1 CRLAO - Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale

the author argues that Hakka and southern Gan are sister dialects, as they share several innovations not found elsewhere; that they arose out of the Chinese dialect spoken in central Jiangxi in Song times, a stratified dialect which included a non-Chinese substratum, probably Miao-Yao; an archaic layer; and a more recent layer with an important Late Middle Chinese component. It is claimed that the linguistic boundary between southern Gan and Hakka arose secondarily due to the effect of an old administrative and geographical boundary. It is also argued that Hakka devoicing
took place in the south, when Hakka was in contact with the Miao-Yao language She, and that the old dialect of the city of Ganzhou may have played an important role in the formation of Hakka.

Mots clés: Chinese; dialects; Gan; Hakka; classification; innovations

Domaines: Linguistique

Laurent Sagart. Gan, Hakka and the formation of Chinese dialects. Dah-an Ho. Dialect Variations in Chinese, Academia Sinica, pp.129-154, 2002. ⟨halshs-00095941⟩