Danzhou Mountain Songs
Nov 5th, 2007 by LKS
In a previous post, I tried to translate a “mountain poem” written by a Danzhou local named Li Hua. I wasn’t entirely successful, but the unique style and dialect of the poem has motivated me to find out more about this Hainan dialect.
My first discovery amongst English websites was the following: Dongpo. While the poem displayed here was written in 1128 A.D., the number of characters per line are simliar to Li Hua’s. Another obvious connection is the name of the poet: Dongpo (东坡), who apparently was exiled to Danzhou. Dongpo, of course, was the name of the school that Li Hua satirized in his poem earlier this year, and it would make sense that the school would be named after the poet.
Chinese websites on Danzhou dialect or Mountain Songs are surprisingly scarce, but here is a list of some that are relevant:
An audio file of Danzhou songs (Real Media Format)
A forum with Danzhou dialect.
A site that appears to host informal Danzhou “Mountain Song” contests.
This page includes some modern Danzhou mountain songs regarding internet surfing…
The Danzhou government website was predictably mercantile, with most of the webiste’s effort devoted to attracting capital.
UPDATE: The following website states clearly that nang2 (囊) is the Danzhou equivalent of (能). So now we’re getting somewhere.
