Goulou Yue

Goulou is one of the principal dialects of Yue (Cantonese). 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
• Guangning dialect
• Huaiji dialect
• Fengkai dialect
• Deqing dialect
• Yunan dialect
• Shanglin dialect
• Binyang dialect
• Tengxian dialect

Tone

Bobai dialect is widely cited as having the most tones of any variety of Chinese, though in fact it 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.

References

• Gina Lee, 1993. Comparative, diachronic and experimental perspectives on the interaction between tone and the vowel in Standard Cantonese
• 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