Guangxi Jingxi Emerging Island Cantonese Dialect Investigation

Cantonese used by the residents in Xinxing Street, Hurun Town, Jingxi County of Guangxi Autonomous Region, forms a speech island surrounded by the Zhuang language. As has been mentioned, this solitary speech island is a result of both political (to escape the war) and economic migrantion (out of vendor activities).First, this thesis describes this emerging Cantonese phonologically to disclose the phonetic characteristics and displays the overall look of the speech island. Second, this thesis investigates the systematic changes which the emerging Cantonese has been through during its long-term exposure to the Nong language by comparing it with the latter. Third, this thesis analyzes the phonetic differences between this Xinxing Cantonese and Guangzhou Cantonese through a comparison between them to explain the characteristics of Chinese dialects’phonetic evolution in order to provide some useful data which can be referred to by speech island studies. Finally, this article describes the residents’usages and their attitudes toward the language in Xinxing Street, Hurun Town, Jingxi County of Guangxi by making use of field investigation and depth talk, and thus predicts the developmental trend of the emerging speech island.According to the investigation, the merging Contanese is a speech island surrounded by the Zhuang language, and has not developed evenly within itself; it is getting closer to the Nong language during its exposure to the latter, and is declining consequently.