PHONOLOGY OF A CANTONESE DIALECT OF THE NEW TERRITORIES: KAT HING WAI
LAURENT SAGART*
The walled village of Kat Hing Wai (hereafter KHW) near Kam Tin in the New Territories of Hong Kong is inhabited by a lineage of the Tang clan, whose founding ancestor is believed to have settled there in the 10th or 11th century, coming from Jishui in Jiangxi1. Their dialect, which they refer to as way2 t'aw2 wa4 or 'dialect of the (walled) villages', differs from Standard Cantonese (SC) in a number of respects, and some of its speakers have formed the notion that it is really a transplanted Jiangxi dialect. It is not, however, only in use among members of the Tang clan, or in the village of KHW: I have heard a very similar dialect spoken in the Lau Fau Shan peninsula. Furthermore, Dr. P. H. Hase informs me that most, if not all indigenous Cantonese speakers of the New Territories call their dialect 'dialect of the (walled) villages' or 斗話. While there seem to exist differences between the different branches of this dialect, especially between the varieties spoken in the N.W. plains around Yuen Long and in the Eastern N.T. around Tai Po and Kowloon, the nature and extent of such differences are not known. Consequently, the scope of the present paper is limited to the phonology of way2 t'au2 wa4 as spoken in KHW.
Sha Tin
I undertook a survey of the phonology of this dialect, which I believe has not so far been described, in October and November 19822. The informant, Mr. Tang Sau-man XXX, a 66-year-old native speaker of the 'dialect of the walled villages', was born and had always lived in KHW. He went to school in Kam Tin until the age of 18. The school was in the traditional Chinese style, and the courses were given in the local dialect by a teacher, himself a 'person of the walled villages' from 圍頭人.
* Dr. Sagart (Doctorat de 3o cycle Paris 7, 1977) is a full-time researcher with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris.