A Quantitative Analysis of the Relationship Between Hakka and Gan Dialects
摘要
The relationship between Hakka and Gan dialects is a classic issue in dialect classification. Since the 1930s, many scholars have conducted detailed and in-depth discussions on this issue. Even the study of Gan dialect is largely based on the comparison of Hakka and Gan dialects. This paper examined and determined the relationship between Hakka and Gan dialects using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), hierarchical clustering analysis, and Multidimensional Scaling (MDS). We conducted a quantitative analysis of 22 Hakka and Gan dialect phonetic materials. The phonetic features were weighted using AHP to obtain the average parameters. The average parameter matrix of the dialect points was then subjected to hierarchical clustering analysis and MDS analysis, yielding dendrograms and MDS distance models. The results indicate that the Gan and Hakka dialect groups are interwoven and intermingled, with no significant statistical evidence supporting the independence of the two dialect groups.