Page:The China Review, Or, Notes and Queries on the Far East, Volume 22 1RZBAQAAMAAJ.pdf/53

 two miles on the S. Bank to Ngan-shi-t'ong. It is surrounded by the Pok-lo, Tungkwun city, and 狹內 (or Ch'a-yün) dialects. Sheklung itself is reckoned the fifth or sixth largest trading-place in the province, though much reduced in importance, partly owing to the li-kin barriers. As a natural consequence many expressions from Canton or other parts of the Prefecture may be heard there which are not in any sense Tungkwun and which would not be understood by the women and children of the place. Some imported words have further really become a part of the local vocabulary e.g. ꜁k'isái 'wicked,' 'bad'&mdash;a word largely used in Hongkong and Singapore and said to originate from Höng-shán.

Let us follow roughly Mr. Ball's classification of dialectic changes, but begin first with the tones: for it is rather the changes in tone than the changes in sound that make the Tungkwun dialects difficult. Here Mr. Ball is (except on the 下平) always vague where he is not inaccurate.

Firstly.&mdash;Tones nominally the same are different in pitch, duration &c. There are at Sheklung nominally ten tones and actually nine different tones; there are six (or more accurately even) different pitches. Tones are naturally difficult to describe on paper, but the Cantonese tones and their difference from the Tungkwún can be expressed with fair accuracy in musical notation, as at the heading of this paper. Only two tones remain unchanged the 下平 and the 上入: the 中入 and approximately the 下入 still follows the pitch of the 上去 and 下去, but these tones are very different from the Cantonese tones of the same name. The 上去 amalgamates with the 下上 (see below): the 下去 is slightly below the pitch of the Cantonese 上去 and sounds very unmusical (lying between the E and the F on the musical scale); the 下入 is a shade lower (lying on the E). The 下平 is exactly the pitch of the Ca. 下去 but with the duration of a 平聲. Both the rising tones are, as Mr. Ball points out, lower than the Cantonese upper and lower rising: the 上上 begins a note lower and rises evenly without the crescendo of the Cantonese tone, while the 下上 (including the 上去) stops short a note lower and is very short, consisting of a note on the level of the (Tungkwun) 上平 'curled up' at the end. Finally there is a colloquial 變音 which is the same as the Cantonese upper even, i.e. the true upper and even tone (the 中平 miscalled), not the more usual tone which beginning equally high descends to the level of the lower even with such abruptness and brevity that the descent has hitherto escaped comment.