Zōhai dialect

The Zōhai dialect [坎海丞言; ぞうはい じょうげん] is one of the most difficult for Standard speakers to understand. In fact, in many ways it is unrecognisable to Standard Kantonese and is more closely related to the indigenous language of Sunpaku. Today, most Zōhai natives speak the Zōhai dialect, although a number of people still speak the Sunpaku language, mostly the elderly. The standardized and centralized education system, the media, business and social contact with mainlanders and previous attempts from Kanton to suppress the native languages, have resulted in Zōkuban declining dramatically and undergoing significant language shift into Kantonese. 
As for the Zōhai dialect, it has been described as a linguistic bridge between Kantonese and Sunpaku. There are features in this dialect which can be linked to both languages. This is why it is so confusing for either a Sunpaku speaker or a Standard Kantonese speaker to hear Zōhai; it’s neither here nor there. It is thought that the Zōhai speech originated in the 17th century, and was spoken in communities of those who used both Kantonese and Sunpaku. With the decline of the latter, the Zōhai dialect became more popular and widely-used - so much so that some mainlanders think that the Zōhai speech is actually Sunpaku. This is a great source of annoyance for native Sunpaku speakers.
== Features ==
* - /j/ coming after /n/ will result in a /hj/ sound. Therefore, the word 言 [genyo, language] becomes /gen.hjo/. This feature is inherited from Ganyaman.
* - The dictionary conjugations for verbs and adjectives in Standard Kantonese, -っと and -って, are the present tense forms in the Zōhai dialect. This can make speakers sound a little uneducated and impolite.
* - Intervocalic, beginning and ending /g/ is very likely to become /ŋ/.
* - In direct adjectives, the particle of -い changes to -の. E.g. beautiful woman = 亮の女.
* - The past tense conjugation of both verbs and adjectives is the same. The copula -く becomes -っくり.
* - The present tense copula for adjectives is -ね or -ねえ.
* - An ending /a, o/ sound is likely to become /ə/ and reduced much.
* - The directional particle -に becomes -ん. For nouns that end with ん-, it becomes -いん. 
* E.g. 画いん去っと = I’m going to the capital. Or, 岩んそぼっくり = I left it in the field.
* - The Zōhai dialect is known for its colourful array of cursewords. Perhaps the most famous is さっきん, meaning ‘damn’, but literally translating to ‘sea anenome’. It [apparently] comes from the experience of a diver reaching out to grasp the spiky, stinging creature and realising that it was more dangerous than it looked.
* - The volitional mood is expressed with the copula -ろうしん. This is inherited directly from Zōkuban -ろうしゃん.
* - The Zōhai dialect makes use of the ふぁ sound [fa], which is found in Zōkuban, along with つぉ [tso].
== Common vocabulary ==
* のり - I, me [neutral]
* こうり - you [neutral]
* らん - no
* いい - yes
* そぼ - forgetting, leaving behind
* ぬめ - stew, soup
* まぜ - hair
* おいやあ - don’t, stop
* ここい - cute, lovely
* みしゃ - unpleasant, disagreeable
* かば - attitude, moxie, mouth, insolence
* はお - seaside, shore, beach