Re: Hakka: General Li Zong Ren?

[CHUNG Yoon-Ngan <chungyn@mozart.collective.com.au>]

Dear Hakka Friends,

Please help me to answer Mr Kim.
Actually I do not know much about this dialectal languages
and do not know how to answer Mr Kim.

On Wed, 20 May 1998, Seongchan Kim wrote:

> Dear Chung Yoon-ngan
> 
> Your letter is very interesting.  I'm a Korean.
> Please answer my following  questions.
> 1. Is there any Guangxi Province level dialect(language)?
>     we are told that there are Guangdong hua(Cantonese), Hunan hua,
>     South-western Mandarin, Xiang hua and Wu hua in Province level
>     language in Southern China.  I've never heard the "Guangxi
> Language."
>     I think "Guangxi dialect" you told is a village or Xian-level local
> tongue(Bendi-hua).
> 2. In Hainan Irland, there are people from Guangxi aborigines(such as
> Zhuang people),
>     and having immigrated from Guangdong, and Hakkas in 19c.
>     They settled each villages, or lived together in a same village. And
> every
>     village or town or Xian or lineage group has its local tongue in 19c.
> 
>     When the Guangxi natives and the other two who have no education
>     meet each other,  they can hear and understand?
>     How much they understand?
> 3. If this three dialect-speaking people can't  hear to understand each
> other,
>    how many days or months does it take for them to hear to understand
> each other
>    under the circumstance without any radio, TV, or elemetary school
> education?
> 4. If  the Guangxi aborigines, and Cantonese and Hakkas having lived long
> in
>     Guangxi West River region gathered 10 thousands and went  together
> into
>     Hunan , Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang  in 1850s',
>     how much this three groups could  hear to understand  the Hunan
> people
>     who lived near the Guangdong and Jiangxi Province, and the peole
>     of the other Provinces?
>     Is it really right that the oral languages(dialects) can't
> communicate each other
>     without help of written languge in Southern China?
> 5. It is said that Hakka language can't be understood to non-Hakkas.
>     But  Hakkas had come from North China. Local gazetteers say that
> some words and sounds
>     of the Hakka language are like more or less those of the Northern
> Mandarin.
>     How  much the Hakkas without any education can hear to understand
> Northern Mandarin?
>     How  much the Northerners of China without any education can hear to
> understand Hakkas?
>     Not at all?  How many days or months does it take for them to
> understand each other?
> If you don't know, please ask your Hainanese friend and wonderful
> linguist Lim.
> 
> Sincerely
> Seong-chan Kim