呢幾日喺英文嘅維基百科上關於粵語嘅文章(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_%28linguistics%29)入邊見到噉樣一段:
However, Mandarin's vowel system is somewhat more conservative than Cantonese's, in that many diphthongs preserved in Mandarin have merged or been lost in Cantonese. Also, Mandarin makes a three-way distinction among alveolar, alveopalatal, and retroflex fricatives, distinctions that are not made by modern Cantonese. For example, jiang (將) and zhang
(張) are two distinct syllables in Mandarin or old Cantonese, but in
modern Cantonese they have the same sound, "jeung1". The loss of
distinction between the alveolar and the alveolopalatal sibilants in
Cantonese occurred in the mid-19th centuries and was documented in many
Cantonese dictionaries and pronunciation guides published prior to the
1950s. A Tonic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialect by Williams (1856), writes: The
initials "ch" and "ts" are constantly confounded, and some persons are
absolutely unable to detect the difference, more frequently calling the
words under "ts" as "ch", than contrariwise. A Pocket Dictionary of Cantonese by Cowles (1914) adds: "s" initial may be heard for "sh" initial and vice versa.
其大概意思係話,粵語曾經有類似普通話中嘅齒槽-硬顎塞擦音(即普通話拼音嘅j q呢兩個音),但係喺十九世紀中葉嘅時候,齒槽-硬顎塞擦音消失咗並且同齒槽塞擦音混合。
我個人並唔係學語言學嘅,但係有啲興趣並且有些少了解。我以前聽潮汕、福建來嘅同學講嘢,發現佢哋會發出呢種齒槽-硬顎音,後尾接觸到梅州、廣西、江西嘅客家人同江西講贛州話嘅人,都發現佢哋嘅語言有呢種音。而家睇到呢篇文章之後,我認為,某種講普通話入邊嘅j、q、x係來自北方少數民族語言影響嘅講法係唔啱嘅,呢啲音應該係古代漢語就有嘅音,只不過喺各種語言發展嘅過程之中,被粵語拋棄咗而喺其他嘅方言中重有保留。
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