Zhejiang Tongxiang Dialect Speech Research

Tongxiang is located in Hang-Jia-Hu Plain in the north of Zhejiang. Tongxiang dialect belongs to Su Shanghai Ka branch, is an important branch of northern Wu dialect. Due to the special geographic, located in the junction of Su Shanghai Ka and Tiaoxi dialect, Tongxiang dialect has more particularity than the general Wu dialect branch. In this paper, we took the Tongxiang dialect pronunciation as the research object and mainly studied the following four aspects. Tongxiang dialect pronunciation system, Comparison between Mandarin and dialect, Comparison between ancient and modern, internal differences and adjacent dialect differences. In this paper, we made a comprehensive description of Tongxiang dialect’s initials, finals and tones,compare the Tongxiang dialect with Mandarin Chinese and ancient Chinese, summarize the relationship between Tongxiang dialect and them and try to give linguistic explanations of these phenomenon. Meanwhile, we also investigated the literary and colloquial readings and difference between the new and old, compare the difference between the adjacent dialect.