Two mutually unintelligible languages divide Jieyang’s own residents, Chaoshan Min in the plains and Hakka in the hills, both officially counted simply as dialects of Chinese, despite having no more in common with each other than either has with Cantonese or Mandarin.
潮汕话与客家话,分别通行于揭阳的平原与山区,二者互不相通,官方却仅将其笼统归为汉语方言;而实际上,这两者彼此之间的差异,并不亚于它们分别与粤语或普通话之间的差异。
The word for “I” alone shows the gap; it is ua in Chaoshan Min and ngai in Hakka, two sounds with no obvious relationship at all, despite both languages sharing the same written character, 我.
单是”我”这个字,便足以体现两者之间的鸿沟;潮汕话读作”ua”,客家话读作”ngai”,两个发音之间几乎看不出任何关联,尽管二者书写时用的都是同一个汉字。
Chaoshan Min belongs to the Southern Min language family, the same branch that produced Hokkien and Taiwanese, and is spoken by roughly 83.7 percent of Jieyang’s population across the fertile plains and semi-mountainous districts; Hakka, by contrast, descends from ancient Central Plains Chinese carried south by successive waves of migration, and accounts for about 14.4 percent of residents, concentrated in ten mountain townships of Jiexi county along with scattered pockets of Puning, Huilai and Jiedong.
潮汕话属于闽南语系,与福建话、台湾话同属一脉,通行于揭阳约百分之八十三点七的人口所居住的肥沃平原与半山区地带;相比之下,客家话则源自古代中原汉语,是历代移民南迁携带而来,使用者约占全市人口的百分之十四点四,主要集中在揭西县十个山区乡镇,以及普宁、惠来、揭东等地的零星聚居点。
According to Jieyang’s own local gazetteer, the Hakka who settled these hills migrated from Meixian, Xingning, Fengshun, Wuhua and Dapu, all part of the neighbouring Hakka heartland of Meizhou, while the Chaoshan-speaking majority trace the beginnings of large-scale settlement in the plains back to the Qin conquest of Nanyue in 214 BC.
据揭阳地方志记载,定居这些山区的客家人,先民迁自梅县、兴宁、丰顺、五华与大埔等地,均属邻近的客家腹地梅州;而占人口多数的潮汕话使用者,则将平原地区大规模定居的开端,追溯至公元前二一四年秦朝平定南越之时。
Villages Where People Switch Languages Mid-Conversation
有些村落里,人们会在交谈中随口切换语言
A small number of originally Hakka villages sit close enough to Chaoshan-speaking neighbours that residents have grown up fluent in both, changing language according to whom they are speaking with; according to the same gazetteer, these bilingual villages make up only about 1.8 percent of Jieyang’s total population, a narrow linguistic seam running through the hills where the two groups meet.
少数原本讲客家话的村落,因与潮汕话聚居区相邻过近,当地居民自幼便同时习得两种语言,视交谈对象随口切换;据同一份地方志记载,这类”双语村”仅占揭阳全市人口的约百分之一点八,是两大族群交界之处,一道贯穿山区的狭窄语言接缝。
According to the city’s own 2024 economic communiqué, Jieyang’s GDP reached ¥253 billion that year, up 3.9 percent, with per capita output at ¥44,632; the permanent population stood at 5.6821 million, up 28,500 on the year before, with an urbanisation rate of 52.62 percent.
据该市自身发布的二零二四年经济统计公报显示,当年揭阳市GDP达二千五百二十九点七亿元,同比增长百分之三点九,人均产值为四万四千六百三十二元;常住人口为五百六十八点二一万人,较上年增加二点八五万人,城镇化率为百分之五十二点六二。
Getting to Jieyang means a short flight into Jieyang Chaoshan International Airport, shared with neighbouring Chaozhou and Shantou, or a rail journey along the Guangzhou-Meizhou-Shantou line, which happens to run directly through both the Chaoshan plains and the Hakka hill country the city straddles.
前往揭阳,可乘飞机抵达与邻近的潮州、汕头共用的揭阳潮汕国际机场,也可乘坐广梅汕铁路前往,这条铁路线恰好贯穿了揭阳境内的潮汕平原与客家山区这两大片区。
Two residents of the same prefecture-level city, born less than an hour’s drive apart, may still need to fall back on Mandarin simply to understand one another.
同属一座地级市、出生地相距不过一小时车程的两位居民,彼此交谈时,却仍可能需要借助普通话,才能真正听懂对方。
