The Mix of Dialect and Guānhuà Elements in the Wú Folk Songs Collected in Féng Mènglóng’s Shāngē

In this chapter, SHÍ Rǔjié examines the mix of Wú dialect and Mandarin colloquial elements in the Shāngē 山歌 [Mountain songs], transcribed and compiled by Féng Mènglóng 馮夢龍 (1574–1646). Shāngē is a ten-chapter collection of often ribald folk songs transcribed primarily in the Wú dialect in which they were undoubtedly performed in their time. As such, the book provides a record of the Sūzhōu 蘇州 language of four centuries ago. The language used in the Shān-gē is essentially pure Wú dialect. However, this collection of songs actually contains a great deal of vocabulary and grammatical forms from Guānhuà 官話 (the Mandarin koinē, or tōng yǔ 通語 of the time), all generally mixed in with the Wú dialect forms. This underscores a realization observed when compiling A Dictionary of Wú Dialect in the Míng and Qīng Dynasties : it is well-nigh impossible to find literature that was written entirely in dialect in the pre-modern period. This chapter provides a detailed examination of identifiable Wú and Mandarin forms in the Shān-gē and considers the causes and implications of the linguistic mélange within Féng Mènglóng’s compilation.

Art · Linguistics · Literature · Mandarin Chinese · Vocabulary · China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies