Phonetic features of the Hakka dialect of the Chinese language of Mei County

This work is devoted to the study of phonetic features of the Hakka dialect of the Chinese language of Mei County. The material for this article was videos from the Chinese social network Bilibili. The object of the study is the Hakka dialect of the Mei County Chinese language. The subject of the study is linguistic features. The article discusses in detail the structure of the phonetic system of the dialect, namely the features of the tonal system, the system of initials and finals. Special attention is paid to the features that are uncharacteristic for Mandarin: the difference in the number of tones, the specificity of sounds, combinations of sounds that are absent in the generally accepted dialect. The phonetic characteristics presented in the article are illustrated by examples from the speech of the Hakka dialect speaking people of Mei County. In this article, the authors are of the opinion that dialects are an integral part of Chinese culture that requires special attention. The relevance of the work is justified by the tendency to preserve dialects, therefore, it is aimed at popularizing the Hakka dialect, a detailed study of its aspects. The study analyzed the following points: the current dialect situation in China, the role of dialects as a component of the cultural code of the country, the phonetic structure of the Hakka dialect of Mei County, its connection with the language of the Tang era. A special contribution to the research of the topic is the systematization of the currently existing information in the form of tables, as well as a description of the phonetic features of the dialect.

dialect, Chinese dialectology, Hakka, Meixian county, preserving linguistic diversity, pronunciation, sound, tone, phonetic features, Mandarin