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"Pakkoan" (Northern Music), in contrast with "Lamkoan"
(Southern Music), generally means the school of singing or
opera genre that came from the north and was introduced into
Taiwan from China berofe the Sino-Japanese War beginn-ing in
1937. The idea of "the north", in the view of Taiwanese, can
notbe in accordance with the Chinese traditional idea of north
and south dividedby the Yangtze, but means areas excluding Fu-
jian (especially the southernFu-jian) and Guang-dung. It's
probably that Taiwanese, in general, can notdistinguish the
different schools of singing and opera genres. and vaguely
callthem "Pak- koan".
The language used in Pakkoan can be divided into "koann-oe"
(Mandarin) and"peh-oe" (vernacular). Koann-oe means the language
based on that of the sourceplace of Pakkoan, and peh-oe means
local language, that is the Southern Min inTaiwan. At present,
as to the using of local language in Pakkoan opera, there are
three types : 1) not using local language at all; 2) using local
language only in the dialogue of the role of comedian, and using
source place language in other situations; 3) using local
language in the dialogue throughout, and maintaining the source
place language in the song. The three types can
beregarded as three historical stages of localization of the
language used in Pakkoan. Appropriating the conception of
diglossia in social linguistics, the paper asserts that koann-oe
is high variety and peh-oe low variety. The local-ization of the
language used in Pakkoan is no less than the replacementof
highvariety by low variety. Pakkoan koann-oe is only used on
stage, and does not have the function of practical
communication. It can not get practicalsocial advantage but
only have the psychological superiority to use Pakkoan koann-oe.
When standard Mandarin became the real high variety in society,
Pakkoan koann- oe was regarded as "nonstandard" Mandarin, so the
considerationof understand- ing surpassed the superiority got by
using Pakkoan koann-oe. Taking Bu-hong-
hian, a Northern Music club in Sinkang, Chiai, for
researchobject, this paper makes primary description and
discussion about koann-oe used in Pakkoan. The initial system
of Pakkoan koann-oe accords withthat of Southern Min
completely, and the final system is so simple as to have only 25
finals; in the aspect of synchronism, the tone has last
distinctive function. The reason of the simplification of final
system and the lost of distinctive function of tone is that
Pakkoan koann-oe has neither intercourse function norformal
systematical education.
Through the comparison between pronunciation of Pakkoan koann-oe
and that of Middle Chinese, this paper, by way of consideration
of phonological condi- tions, makes a main conclusion of making
sure that Pakkoan koann-oe is abranchof Mandarin, and indicating
further that it's Southern-west Mandarin.There arethree main
conditions: 1) voiced initials in Middle Chinese havebecome
voice- less in Pakkoan Mandarin. They are aspirated or
unaspirated whenin even tone, and aspirated sounds are more than
the other. When in obliquetone, they are unaspirated. The
phenomenon of unaspiration when articulating even tone in
Pakkoan Mandarin is affected by Southern Min. It corresponds
withthe type of Mandarin that articulating even tone with
aspiration and oblique tone unaspi- ration. 2) In Pakkoan
Mandarin, syllabic endings of abrupt tone havelost,
corresponding with the condition of Mandarin. 3) Pakkkoan
Mandarin has aband- oned taking tone as distinctive feature, but
still remains the appearanceof tone. The four tones of upper
even, lower even, rising, falling can beroughly recognized in
Pakkoan Mandarin, and the abrupt tone in Middle Chinese belongs
to lower even tone in large. It is the most important character
of Southern- west Mandarin that the abrupt tone is incorporated
into lower eventone.
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