This is a tiny excerpt from the section on dialect in the early Ch'ing work 廣東新語 Kóng-tong sin-gú
I came across this in some notes I made a few years ago I'm not going to use it any more, so I thought it would be just interesting to post, because it seems the Tan people in the 17th century are speaking some sort of Hainanese or Min! I suppose it all depends on how the author 屈大均 (1630-1696) is transliterating the sounds (into 17th century Cantonese or 17th century Nankingese?).
The quote is:
其蛋人則謂飯曰邁，箸曰梯，碗曰愛瓦，盆曰把浪，拿網曰今網。
The Tan people call 飯 (rice) 邁, (Hai-khau uses “mue31”) this would probably be “mai”
they call 箸 (chopsticks) 梯, (Hai-khau “?du23”) this could be ti (Chiang-chiu) or tu (Choan-chiu)
they call 碗 (bowl) 愛, (Hai-khau “ua213”)
they call, 瓦盆 (clay basin) 把浪 pa-lang? (this one is confusing)
they call, 拿網 (to hold a net) 今網 Tung-an dialect “kim” – or is it "gim" to hold in the hand (Douglas)
What the Tanka Spoke
Re: What the Tanka Spoke
Also a subject I find fascinating. Most scholars seem content to leave the Tanka in the footnotes, or brush past them with a few throwaway sentences.
I read a paper discussing how Tanka music included elements found nowhere else in China, or at least "Sino-China". The scholar's fieldwork was mostly done at Heunggongzai / Aberdeen. It's possible, or actually pretty likely, that the Tanka are remnants of a sea-going pre-Han population.
I'm under the impression that Tankas didn't all speak the same language.
The 把浪 word could possibly have been monosyllabic with a pl- consonant cluster. Tai-Kadai was spoken throughout the countryside. Why not offshore too?
In TW, we say gîm.
Lastly, I think we should keep in mind that some of what we think of as Bân features are actually just "very old Chinese", as in pre-Tang. These features don't show up much in Hakka or Yuet, but they seem to survive in pockets--the Kwongsai "Ping" language, the "Tuhua" languages of Hunan and Kwongtung, 儋州 on Hainam. Maybe Bân just happens to be the biggest of these pockets... And maybe the Tankas were holdovers too.
I read a paper discussing how Tanka music included elements found nowhere else in China, or at least "Sino-China". The scholar's fieldwork was mostly done at Heunggongzai / Aberdeen. It's possible, or actually pretty likely, that the Tanka are remnants of a sea-going pre-Han population.
I'm under the impression that Tankas didn't all speak the same language.
The 把浪 word could possibly have been monosyllabic with a pl- consonant cluster. Tai-Kadai was spoken throughout the countryside. Why not offshore too?
In TW, we say gîm.
Lastly, I think we should keep in mind that some of what we think of as Bân features are actually just "very old Chinese", as in pre-Tang. These features don't show up much in Hakka or Yuet, but they seem to survive in pockets--the Kwongsai "Ping" language, the "Tuhua" languages of Hunan and Kwongtung, 儋州 on Hainam. Maybe Bân just happens to be the biggest of these pockets... And maybe the Tankas were holdovers too.
Re: What the Tanka Spoke
I should add, (for the possibility that someone reads this) that in Hong Kong Cantonese taan-ka 蛋家 is an offensive to the people it addresses. They usually like to be called sui-sheung-yan 水上人. The only in-depth study I know of of modern boat people is by Barbara Ward "Varieties of the Conscious Model: The Fishermen of South China" in a book called "Through Other Eyes" published in 1989. David Faure's work also addresses their creation as a class of people (the unregistered people of the sea, as opposed to the Yao, the unregistered people of the mountains).
They are supposed to have a different accent from other Cantonese speakers.
My notes also said:
The T’ang dynasty poet Liu Pin-k’o 劉賓客 (772-842) wrote that the people who make their homes on rafts and boats speak a language different from Chinese.
I think it was 與華不同, but I forget. I didn't want to post it because I had lost the original quote.
Forgot to add
http://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E5%BB%A3%E ... 0%E8%AA%9E
This has a lot of the 廣東新語 online, the section on local forms of speech (including Teochiu) is in Chapter 11 文語 under “土言”
I actually am doubtful about the continuity of the group living on the water for hundreds of years. It may just be that the name Tanka was applied to people who chose a certain way of life. Then again, it is not impossible that they had some distinct ancestry, and have just lost their ancestral language like the Roma people of Britain, as opposed to those of continental Europe, who have retained theirs.
They are supposed to have a different accent from other Cantonese speakers.
My notes also said:
The T’ang dynasty poet Liu Pin-k’o 劉賓客 (772-842) wrote that the people who make their homes on rafts and boats speak a language different from Chinese.
I think it was 與華不同, but I forget. I didn't want to post it because I had lost the original quote.
Forgot to add
http://zh.wikisource.org/zh/%E5%BB%A3%E ... 0%E8%AA%9E
This has a lot of the 廣東新語 online, the section on local forms of speech (including Teochiu) is in Chapter 11 文語 under “土言”
I actually am doubtful about the continuity of the group living on the water for hundreds of years. It may just be that the name Tanka was applied to people who chose a certain way of life. Then again, it is not impossible that they had some distinct ancestry, and have just lost their ancestral language like the Roma people of Britain, as opposed to those of continental Europe, who have retained theirs.