Sound Change In China

Sound change is inevitable in all languages and often appears to be random and unsystematic as individual words undergo the progress at difference pace (Matthews and Yip, 2011). While some sounds of a dialect gradually disappear as in the case of “ngoi3” replacing “oi3” for the word 愛 “love”, some new sounds will be created. As in the case of Hong Kong Cantonese, it is believed that the phenomenon of phonological variation and change appeared as early as 1949 upon an influx of immigrants from China (Wen Wei Po, 30 January 2009). This topic has aroused interest from scholars over the past thirty years to conduct various kinds of studies. Bauer (1979) conducted a pioneer study in the alveolarization of Cantonese, i.e. the sound change from Standard

Young speakers nowadays habitually replace n-initial with l-initial, no matter in formal or informal settings (Cheung, 2002). Some people argued this might be due to the influence of teachers and new anchors, who inadvertently uttered these sound changes (Ho, 1995).

In summary, the more common types of non-tonal phonological variation as identified from previous studies can be listed as follows:

1. At syllable-initial position

a. n- to l-

The most common examples would be substitution of l for n at the syllable onset like nei5 ->lei5 for 你 “you”. This sound change was first documented by Chao Yuen Ren and Wong Shek Ling in the 1930s when it was still underway. In some isolated cases the syllable-initial n- was found to be preserved in some university undergraduate speakers, especially those who showed hyper-corrective tendencies (Yeung, 1980; Bauer, 1982; Bourgerie, 1990).

b. ng- to ∅-

Syncope of ng at the syllable onset like ng5 to o5 for 我 “I” especially for young speakers.

c. ∅- to