Language is the carrier of culture, and culture is the connotation of language. They are interdependent and inseparable. As Mr. Luo Changpei said in China and China, "Language is the crystallization of a national culture. The past culture of this nation depends on it, and the future culture also depends on it. " Therefore, from the perspective of Miao language (mature Miao) in southwest Hunan, we can understand the unique and rich regional cultural characteristics of mature Miao culture in southwest Hunan and its historical process of development and evolution through language phenomena.
Pinghua is a self-styled dialect of Suining and Qingmiaoyi in Chengbu in southwest Hunan (some Qingmiaoyi in Chengbu claim to be benevolent, but they belong to the same dialect as Pinghua). Pinghua, a modern Miao language, is a kind of minority Chinese that has been basically sinicized, but some Miao languages remain at the bottom, which is an important symbol of the sinicization process of Miao people in southwest Hunan. The vocabulary system of a national language can most directly and sensitively reflect the cultural value orientation of the nation. This paper aims to explore the culture, customs and national psychology of Miao society in southwest Hunan through the investigation and study of Pinghua vocabulary. As American sociolinguist Ember said, "the language of a society can reflect its corresponding culture, and one of its ways is manifested in the vocabulary content or vocabulary." The corpus of this paper comes from more than 3,000 words of Pinghua in Guanxia Miao Township, Suining, which I personally investigated, and the vocabulary part of Li Lan's book "Qingyi Miao Dialect in Chengbu, Hunan" (2004). Next, we will talk about the cultural connotation of Miao "Pinghua" vocabulary from the aspects of regional characteristics, production and living customs, beliefs and national psychology.
First, the geographical characteristics of Miao people in western Hunan
Suining and Chengbu are located at the southern end of Xuefeng Mountain and the northern foot of Nanling Mountain. This area is full of mountains and rivers. The territory belongs to the subtropical mountainous climate, with hot ciel phantomhive, cold winter, mild and humid, and four distinct seasons. The territory is rich in forest resources, taking Suining as an example: the forest coverage rate in the county is as high as 68.3%, ranking first in the province. There are 143 species of trees and undergrowth in the "property" of Suining County Annals published during Tongzhi period of Qing Dynasty. Most Miao people live by mountains and rivers and have direct observation and understanding of the natural environment. For example, as one of the key bamboo producing counties in the whole province 17! In Pinghua, the names of "bamboo" are particularly rich, including: Phyllostachys pubescens, Cinnamomum cassia, Pleioblastus angustifolia, Phyllostachys pubescens, Fargesia sagittata, Phyllostachys pubescens, Phyllostachys purpurea, Pottery Bamboo, etc., as well as Zhu Jin Bamboo, Flower Bamboo and Fodor Bamboo with high ornamental value. As the saying goes, "relying on mountains to eat mountains", rich forest resources have also become a source of heat for people's daily life. According to Li Lan, there are ten names for firewood in Chengbu Qingmiaoyi dialect, such as: Chinese fir firewood, white oil (poplar) firewood, mulberry firewood, willow firewood, tung leaf firewood, peach firewood, plum firewood and cherry firewood.
Deep forests and valleys provide a good habitat for wild animals. The names of wild animals appear in Suining and Chengbu Miaoping dialect (human dialect), such as wild boar, old worm (tiger), hot woman (tigress), monkey, bear, hedgehog, leopard dog and weasel. It can be seen that the unique natural geographical features have infiltrated and enriched the Miao "Pinghua" vocabulary.
Second, the production and living customs of Miao people in Xiangxi
Although the policy of "returning home" was obviously oppressed by ethnic groups, it still played a very important role in improving the customs in Miao areas, such as prohibiting the marriage of uncles and nephews. After Xianfeng and Tongzhi, the Qing Dynasty further adopted an assimilation policy towards Miao people, claiming many times that all seedlings, whether raw or mature, should be shaved and their skin color changed. The living customs of Miao people in various places have changed obviously. In Suining, Tongdao, Chengbu and other places in southwest Hunan, the costumes of Miao people are no different from those of local Han people. After the Republic of China, fewer and fewer women wore skirts and more and more women wore underwear. Miao men no longer put their hair in a vertebral bun and wear earrings. There is no obvious difference between the production and living customs of Miao nationality in southwest Hunan and the local Han nationality.
Mr. Wen Duanzheng (2003) pointed out: "The old folk custom has disappeared, and the general trend is that the dialect words reflecting this folk custom gradually disappear. In fact, some dialect words sometimes do not disappear completely with the disappearance of folk customs, and they are more stable than the folk customs that form them. " There are also some words in Miao Pinghua in southwest Hunan, which reflect some production and living customs of local Miao people that have disappeared or are disappearing.
For example, in the past, the Miao people in Chengbu and Suining often teamed up to hunt in the mountains when they had nothing to do, which was called "mountain hunting" and "mountain catching". When hunting, worship "Meishan God" first. During hunting, all contact is signaled by the plum blossom tube. After the prey is killed, it is distributed according to the principle of "everyone who sees it has a share". The first shot down the beast or the first stab to death the beast is divided into animal heads and animal skins. The way to chop off an animal's head is to crush the animal's ear backwards and chop it where it goes. A gun repairer can divide a catty of animal meat more than the average hunter, which is called "dividing the muzzle meat". The collar is also divided into two laps. Whoever finds the footprints of prey first has four feet. The rest of the people who participated in the hunting and met at the scene were equally distributed according to the number of people. Even if women pass by with their children, they should be given two copies. Now, due to the implementation of the national environmental protection law, hunting activities are gradually decreasing, and the above-mentioned folk words that preserve ancient heritage are gradually fading out of people's daily language.
For another example, during the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, Miao young men and women in southwest Hunan had the forms of marriage proposal, such as "jumping on the moon to seek a spouse", "jumping on the drum to choose a spouse", "loving songs" and "tryst with cursive symbols". After liberation, with the implementation of the new marriage law and the increasingly diversified forms of communication between young men and women, these forms have gradually disappeared, and only a few elderly people still vaguely remember those words related to old folk customs.
Of course, a considerable number of words active in Miao Pinghua in southwest Hunan still reflect the unique and rich ethnic, folk and regional customs of Miao nationality. The following are some folk words of Miao nationality in Suining recorded by the author:
Rice flour meat Rice flour meat is the most popular delicacy at the festival banquet in Guanzhai Miao Village. When the guests come, the food on the table will be rich, but if there is no rice, noodles and meat, it will be considered shameful. Rice flour meat is prepared by mixing pork cut into small pieces with fried rice flour, spiced powder, salt, monosodium glutamate and other seasonings, mixing well, and steaming in retort. A cage, ranging from five to six pounds per cage. Many villages have the habit of picking vegetables. People at the table only eat side dishes, but rice flour meat is picked up with bamboo sticks and taken away. If there are any absent guests. The owner should also clip a thread for it and deliver it to his home in person. Therefore, there is a local saying: you can't count as a mountain man if you can't eat a string of rice flour meat.
Black rice is black rice. It is steamed with a kind of leaf juice (called black rice by Miao people) and soaked glutinous rice, with a blue-black color and a fragrant taste. The eighth day of the fourth lunar month is the "Daughter's Day" for Miao Yang in Guanxia and even the whole county. On this day, girls, whether they are married or in boudoir, will eat black rice.
When the Miao family is shut down for a banquet, capable women in the neighborhood will be invited to attend the banquet, which is similar to the work of a hotel waiter, responsible for delivering food and entertaining a table of guests, but the difference is that the banquet also enjoys the same treatment as a formal guest; Meat dishes are the main dishes of Miao banquet. The host will decide how many kilograms of meat to use for a table according to his own economic situation. Generally, a table is five kilograms of meat and a table is nine people. The host will divide the meat into nine parts, so there is also a value seat.
The Dragon Boat Festival of the Tenth Five-Year Plan is also an important festival for the Miao people. They will visit relatives and welcome friends. In order to avoid the collision between you and me, two surnames, Su and Yang, were established locally: Yang celebrated on the fifth day of May and Su celebrated on the fifteenth day of May, thus avoiding this embarrassment.
Third, the beliefs and customs of Miao people in Xiangxi.
Miao people in southwest Hunan have long lived in deep mountains and forests. They explained the grotesque topography, various natural phenomena, the changes of celestial bodies, the misfortune and happiness of the world with the traditional culture and traditional concepts of the Miao nationality. They regarded the human heart as the foundation of things, so they had a pious psychology of worshipping everything. There are ancestor worship, Pan Hu worship, nature worship and artificial objects worship in Suining and Chengbu Miao people's beliefs and customs. Due to the limitation of space, here is only a brief talk about Tiger Pan worship.
Hunan Peng's poem "Drinking Suining Tower for Wan Shijun" says: "? There are scorpions in Zhang Ling. It is said that it is Pan Hufu? " Fengmen Zhang Ling, now the Miao nationality township in Suining County, is said to be the place where Tiger Pan lives. Suining Miao people have always had the custom of respecting dogs and loving them. When burning incense, they asked the Bodhisattva to bless their children as healthy as dogs. Children take nicknames and love the word "dog", and children love "dog hat". Children are called "dogs crossing the bridge" on their birthdays and "being a dog" when they are sick. When eating, the first bowl of rice in the pot should be fed to the dog, and the first day of July every year is actually a dog respect day. This is a kind of "dog totem" worship, a concrete manifestation of Pan Hu worship, and shows the national characteristics of Miao traditional culture.
Fourth, the national psychology of Miao nationality in Xiangxi
As mentioned earlier, the Miao "Pinghua" in southwest Hunan bears the mature Miao culture. On the one hand, it accepts and spreads the advanced science and technology culture of the Han nationality in the Central Plains, on the other hand, it sticks to the "gene" of Miao culture in a deep level. As far as Pinghua is concerned, it is the product of Miao people in southwest Hunan abandoning their mother tongue and switching to the dominant language-Chinese, which is itself the result of the collision and blending of Miao and Chinese cultures. It can be inferred from some archaic words preserved in Pinghua that Miao people in southwest Hunan may have been exposed to Chinese culture since the Middle Ages. For example: walk (run), walk (walk), face (face), nest (ugly), middle eye (beauty), return (back), ou (teacup), handkerchief (towel), dress (dress), sing (make a promise) Li Lan judges the personal pronoun "I, you, him" in Mandarin.
It can be seen that the Miao people in southwest Hunan have a long and far-reaching history of contact with Chinese culture, and even the phenomenon of language conversion has taken place. On the other hand, as far as national psychology is concerned, Miao people in southwest Hunan who speak Pinghua (people's dialect) all think that their ancestors are Miao people rather than Han people. This sense of national identity is very strong and clear, which is manifested in the following aspects:
The first #, about the recognition of your own language. The author will meet such people in Suining and Chengbu, and they often insist that what they say is the real Miao language. Some words in Pinghua are also very emotional. For example: guests: Han nationality, Han nationality; Hakka: Chinese, Chinese; Reading foreign books: reading chinese books, etc. In addition, from the linguistic point of view, some components of Miao language are preserved as the bottom words of "Pinghua". For example, the "Yi language" of Chengbu Miao people is read in different ways. When used alone, it is literary and artistic, which is consistent with Chinese. When collocated with quantifiers, such as "Yi" of "Ziyi", it is white, which corresponds to Miao language in other places. It is clear that pronunciation is the bottom of the original Miao language, and the written sound is from Chinese to Miao language. It can be seen that the Miao people in southwest Hunan originally spoke Miao language, but influenced by Chinese, they switched to Chinese. But this change is long and gradual, and it is difficult for users to achieve it.
Second, the recognition of Miao culture. It should be said that the Miao people in southwest Hunan who hold "Pinghua" today are basically sinicized in language and clothing, and most of their production and living customs are not obviously different from those of the Han people. However, some traditional customs still retain the cultural characteristics of the Miao nationality. For example, the Miao people in Mao Ping, Lanrong, Dong Peng and Dayang in Chengbu still have the custom of "Miao Year", which is also called "October Festival" and "Celebrating Drum Tower", that is, on the tenth or tenth day of the tenth lunar month, Miao villages will hold activities to worship their ancestors and celebrate the bumper harvest of grain. For another example, all the "ripe seedlings" are very pious in offering sacrifices to their ancestors. "It is better to kill their bodies than to dig their graves." Tracing back to "mature seedlings" means "raw seedlings". They are obsessed with their ancestors, but in fact they are obsessed with their feelings.
To sum up, language is the carrier of culture, and culture is the connotation of language. The language of any nation bears the profound cultural connotation of that nation. Judging from the historical development process, "mature seedlings" is an irresistible development trend of "growing seedlings". Therefore, as the carrier of the "mature Miao" culture in southwest Hunan, it is of both academic and social value to continue in-depth investigation and research from its perspective.
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