香港地名“灣”的特殊讀法

“灣”字在香港粵語讀陰平 [wan⁵⁵]，但在“土瓜灣”“長沙灣”“銅鑼灣”三個地名中會讀成陽平（低降調）[wan²¹]。本文考察舊地圖轉寫、變調規則、例外讀音等證據後，指出這特殊讀音很有可能來自語言接觸。香港境內和周邊的漢語方言中，圍頭話、水上話、客家話都沒有低變調機制；恰巧四邑話有低變調現象，而“灣”字的聲、韻也與香港粵語相若。雖然“灣”在現代的各種四邑方言調值和香港粵語稍微不同，但也有可能是低降調特殊讀法的來源。
The character waan1 is read with the tonal category yin-ping [wan⁵⁵] in Hong Kong Cantonese, but is exceptionally read as yang-ping (low-falling) [wan²¹] in three local place names: “tou2 gwaa1 waan4”, “coeng4 saa1 waan4”, “tung4 lo4 waan4”. Evidence from romanisation in old maps, sound-change rules, and other exceptions reveals that the low-falling “changed-tone” is likely to be the result of language contact. Among Sinitic dialects spoken in Hong Kong and nearby regions, Punti (aka. Weitou), Tanka and Hakka do not have mechanisms to change a syllable into a low-register tone. Coincidentally, Sze-yap has lexical tone sound change rules that cause certain words to be pronounced with a low-register tone; also the pronunciation of “waan1” is segmentally close to Hong Kong Cantonese. Despite minor differences with Hong Kong Cantonese in terms of tone realisation, Sze-yap dialects are a plausible source of this exceptional low-falling changed-tone. Copyright © 2021 吳多泰中國語文研究中心.