Dapeng dialect in Shenzhen, China

The Dapeng dialect is a minor dialect spoken by 3,000 to 5,500 speakers (as of 2014) in the Dapeng peninsula, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China, on the South China Sea coast. It is a hybrid derived from a mixture of Cantonese and Hakka, two of the major dialects of Chinese in Southern China. The resemblance to both source dialects pertains to all three major linguistic structures: phonology, lexicon, and syntax. Compared with the Dapeng phonology, which presents a complex hybrid of the two source dialects, the Dapeng lexicon and syntax reflect slightly more similarity to Cantonese. This collection is the first comprehensive documentation of the Dapeng dialect. Twenty native speakers of the Dapeng dialect were interviewed, with the participants’ age ranging from 22 to 84, roughly half male and half female. For an in-depth analysis of the Dapeng dialect on its structure, formation process, and vitality, please reference:

Chen, L. (2016). Dapeng Dialect: An Undocumented Cantonese-Hakka Mixed Language in Southern China. Ph.D. dissertation, The Ohio State University. Retrieved from http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1469032185.