Shiqi dialect

{{Use mdy dates|date = February 2019}}

{{Short description|Dialect of Cantonese}}

{{Use American English|date = February 2019}}

{{Infobox language

|name=Shiqi

|nativename={{lang|yue-Hant|石岐話}}

|states=Southern China

|region=

|speakers=?

|familycolor=Sino-Tibetan

|fam2=Sinitic

|fam3=Chinese

|fam4=Yue

|fam5=Yuehai

|fam6=Zhongshan

|isoexception=dialect

|iso6=shiq

|glotto=none

|lingua=79-AAA-maf

}}

{{Chinese

|s=石岐话

|t=石岐話

|p=Shíqíhuà

|j=sek6 kei4 waa2

}}

The Shiqi dialect or Shekki dialect{{cite journal |last1=Chan |first1=Marjorie KM |title=A response to Boltz'notes on Cantonese dentilabialization |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |date=1982 |page=107-109}}{{cite journal |last1=Chong |first1=Douglas DL |title=Hawai'i's Nam Long: their background and identity as a Zhongshan subgroup |journal=Chinese America: History and Perspectives |date=2010 |page=13 |publisher=Chinese Historical Society of America}}{{cite journal |last1=Egerod |first1=Soren |title=A Short Study on the Namlong Dialects of Zhongshan Xian |journal=Rocznik Orientalistyczny |date=1991 |publisher=Polska Akademia Nauk}} is a dialect of Yue Chinese.{{Cite book |last=Lin |first=Baisong 林柏松 |title=Hànyǔ fāngyán lùnjí |date=1997 |publisher=Beijing yuyan wenhua daxue chubanshe |isbn=7-5619-0486-X |editor-last=Huang |editor-first=Jiajiao 黃家敎 |location=Beijing |language=zh |script-title=zh:汉语方言论集 |chapter=Shíqí fāngyīn |script-chapter=zh:石岐方音}} It is spoken by roughly 160,000 people in Zhongshan, Guangdong's Shiqi urban district. It differs slightly from Standard Cantonese, mainly in its pronunciation and lexicon.{{Cite news |date=2005-11-17 |title=(Fāngyán wénhuà) hézòu yī qū fāngyán jiāoxiǎngyuè |script-title=zh:(方言文化)合奏一曲方言交响乐 |language=zh |work=Nánfāng bàoyè |url=http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/southnews/zt/rdzt/bayz/200511170030.asp |access-date=2007-05-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930185115/http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/southnews/zt/rdzt/bayz/200511170030.asp |archive-date=2007-09-30 |script-work=zh:南方报业}}

Shiqi has the fewest tones of any Yue dialect, perhaps a Hakka influence.{{Cite thesis |last=Lee |first=Gina Maureen |title=Comparative, Diachronic and Experimental Perspectives on the Interaction Between Tone and the Vowel in Standard Cantonese |date=1993 |degree=PhD |publisher=The Ohio State University |url=http://linguistics.osu.edu/files/linguistics/dissertations/Lee1993.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120421023101/http://linguistics.osu.edu/files/linguistics/dissertations/Lee1993.pdf |archive-date=21 April 2012}}

:

class=wikitable !colspan=2|even	rising	going	colspan=2|entering
① {{IPA|˥}} 55	② {{IPA|˥˩}} 51	③ {{IPA|˩˧}} 13	⑤ {{IPA|˨}} 22	⑦a {{IPA|˥}} 5	⑧ {{IPA|˨}} 2

This appears to be due to mergers: the fact that the entering tone has split oddly suggests that it has split twice, as in Cantonese and Taishanese, but that tone ⑦b subsequently merged with ⑧.