Goulou is one of the principal groups of Yue dialects. It is spoken around the Guangxi–

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

border, and includes the dialects of Yulin and

Bobai Bobai (; Zhuang: ') is a county of Guangxi, China. It is under the administration of Yulin city. Bobai was the home town of the linguist Wang Li, who described the Bobai dialect with its unusually large number of tones. Transportation The co ...

Dialects

Yulin dialect is representative, though Bobai is better known. *

Yulin dialect Goulou is one of the principal groups of Yue dialects. It is spoken around the Guangxi–Guangdong border, and includes the dialects of Yulin and Bobai. Dialects Yulin dialect is representative, though Bobai is better known. * Yulin dialect * ...

Bobai dialect Bobai is a Yue Chinese dialect spoken in Bobai County, Guangxi. It was documented by the Chinese linguist Wang Li, a native speaker, and is well known for its tone system. Tone Bobai dialect is widely cited as having the most tones of any var ...

* Guangning dialect * Huaiji dialect * Fengkai dialect * Deqing dialect * Yunan dialect *

Shanglin dialect Shanglin County (; Standard Zhuang: ) is a county of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China, it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Nanning, the capital of Guangxi. It borders the prefecture-level city of Laibin Laibin ...

* Binyang dialect *

Tengxian dialect Teng County or Tengxian (; za, Dwngz Yen) is a county of eastern Guangxi, China. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Wuzhou. , it had a population of 1,125,264 residing in an area of . The county is divided into a nor ...

Phonology

Initials

Finals

* Close vowel sounds may alternate between close vowel sounds and near-close vowel sounds .

Tone

Bobai dialect is widely cited as having the most tones of any variety of Chinese, though it actually only has six, the same as most Yue dialects. The reason for the claim is that Bobai makes a four-way tonal distinction in checked syllables, whereas most other Yue dialects have three. In Yulin dialect just to the north of Bobai, however, neither entering tone is split: there are just two entering tones, 7 and 8. Lee (1993) believes that Bobai is innovative in having split 8, whereas Yulin (along with several neighboring interior Yue dialects) is innovative in having merged a former split in 7: proto-Yue probably had 7a, 7b, and 8. Many Yue varieties exhibit a "changed tone" with some semantic content. Such tones occur in the Yulin dialect, in checked syllables only, marking diminutives. In such cases, the final stop -p, -t or -k is changed to a homorganic nasal -m, -n or -ŋ, respectively, and the pitch contour is also altered. This seems to be a trace of a now-lost suffix similar to ''ér'' (兒,

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...

''nye'') in other Chinese varieties.

References

Citations

Sources

* Gina Lee, 1993.
Comparative, diachronic and experimental perspectives on the interaction between tone and the vowel in Standard Cantonese
' *Hashimoto, Anne Yue, 1971. ''A Guide to the Teng-xian Dialect.'' Princeton University, N.J. Chinese Linguistics Project. * Ann Yue, 1979. ''The Teng-xian Dialect of Chinese: Its Phonology, Lexicon and Texts with Grammatical Notes.'' Computational Analysis of Asian and African Languages Monograph Series, No. 3. Yue Chinese Culture in Guangxi zh:玉林話 {{St-lang-stub