What language is Minnan dialect? Some people say it's "Fulao dialect" and some people say it's "raccoon dialect" as far back as 1500 years ago, or even earlier. In order to escape the war, the Han people in Luoshui Central Plains of the Yellow River moved to Gwangju, Henan Province. Their culture was brought here by their descendants, then moved to Minnan, and finally crossed the Strait to Taiwan Province Province.
Minnan, Taiwan Province Province and other places inherit this culture in the way that we are used to calling it "Minnan dialect". In the long history of the traditional culture of the motherland, the significance of Minnan language lies in that our ancestors avoided the language reform brought about by the ethnic integration of the Central Plains during the great migration, and completely preserved the ancient Chinese pronunciation of the Han Dynasty, that is, the standard pronunciation of the Central Plains, which is nothing more than the classics of Minnan language that we can't use up now. The following is the crystallization of national wisdom such as San, Qian, Da Xue, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Analects of Confucius, The Book of Songs, Shangshu, The Book of Rites and Tang Poetry, among which The Analects of Confucius is full of philosophy of life.
What's more worth mentioning is that the language used in the translation of Buddhist scriptures at that time was the Central Plains Chinese in the early Tang Dynasty, and the "Heluo dialect" used in Minnan dialect was the "mother tongue" of Central Plains Chinese in the Tang Dynasty. Later, Buddhist scriptures were spread to the Japanese by Japanese students with katakana, but it is useless so far. Today, when Japanese students read Buddhist scriptures and recite poems, they all read Buddhist scriptures in Minnan dialect, pronounce them in Chinese and recite poems, which is enough to explain why many Buddhist scriptures are transliterated or translated freely in Putonghua, but they are easy to understand in Minnan dialect. This is why many mages often lament that the loss of Chinese pronunciation in Minnan dialect is a great loss to those who recite Buddhist scriptures.
Proud, today's Minnan language has become one of the representatives of 60 major languages on the earth, and it has also been recorded on the gold-plated record of the "Releaser" spacecraft launched by the United States in 1997, looking for bosom friends in the vast galaxy.
Take Minnan as the frame of reference of Chinese.
Professor Li Rulong, an expert in language studies and the School of Humanities of Xiamen University, said that Minnan dialect contains many elements of ancient Chinese, whether in pronunciation, vocabulary or grammar. In this regard, relevant experts have made a relatively full comparison. Learning ancient Chinese and mastering the accent of Fujian dialect, especially Minnan dialect, has more advantages than understanding dialects in other regions. For example, "Ding" usually refers to an iron pot in ancient Chinese, and the pronunciation of Minnan dialect is consistent with that of ancient Chinese. But people in other places are not as convenient to understand as people in southern Fujian.
Professor Li said that modern industrial Chinese, which evolved from ancient Chinese, has a deep relationship with Minnan dialect. If we can master the characteristics of Minnan language and compare it with modern Chinese, we can accelerate the understanding and mastery of modern Chinese. In early Chinese teaching, we usually start with pronunciation, and then understand the meaning and meaning of words from the perspective of the connection between Putonghua and dialects. Now this method has been forgotten or even abandoned. Many people think that dialects will interfere with Chinese learning, but this is actually a misunderstanding. For example, if you don't understand or speak Minnan dialect, your Mandarin may not be standard. A problem worthy of attention is that in the current Chinese teaching in primary and secondary schools, most teachers are good at the comparative teaching of dialects and Chinese, and exclude the function and role of dialect-assisted teaching. Professor Li said that splendid Chinese culture is mainly expressed in Chinese, but it also contains excellent regional cultural characteristics expressed in different dialects. He believes that mastering Minnan dialect can not only provide a good frame of reference for Chinese learning, but also help to understand and understand Minnan culture.