| Baisha | |
| Native Name: | 白沙镇 |
| Native Name Lang: | zh-hans-CN |
| Settlement Type: | Town |
| Pushpin Map: | China Guangdong |
| Pushpin Label Position: | top |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location in Guangdong |
| Coordinates: | 22.2458°N 112.5947°W |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | People's Republic of China |
| Subdivision Type1: | Province |
| Subdivision Name1: | Guangdong |
| Subdivision Type2: | Prefecture-level city |
| Subdivision Name2: | Jiangmen |
| Subdivision Type3: | County-level city |
| Subdivision Name3: | Taishan |
| Unit Pref: | Metric |
| Area Total Km2: | 238 |
| Population Total: | 140000 |
| Population Density Km2: | auto |
| Timezone1: | China Standard |
| Utc Offset1: | +8 |
| Postal Code Type: | Postal code |
Baisha (; Taishanese: Bak-sa) is a town of Taishan, Guangdong province.[1], it has two residential communities and 18 villages under its administration.[2] It has a population of 140,000 residing in an area of 238km2.
Baisha town was the ancestral home of many of the first Chinese Canadians. Their descendants live all over Canada, and used to predominate before the 1980s in the Chinatowns of Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Banff and Edmonton, and US West Coast cities such as San Francisco and Seattle.
Citation: https://asian.library.ubc.ca/files/2011/08/Head-Tax-brochure2-1.pdf
Baisha Town is one of the few regions in northern Guangdong province where illegal rare earth mines were operating.[3] Baisha Town is rich in rare earth minerals such as dysprosium.[3]
The Baisha variant of Taishanese is fading amongst the descendants of Canadian-Chinese, as Cantonese and Mandarin become more dominant. Based on observations of Chinese-Canadian elders living in Edmonton between 1980 and 2005, it would seem that the Taishan language spoken in Baisha in the mid-20th century differed somewhat from that spoken in Taicheng (Hoiseng in the Hoisan language, 台城), the county seat of Taishan (Hoisan, 台山县). Indeed, the pronunciation was more or less the same as that of people living across the river in the next county, Kaiping (Hoiping in the Toisanese language, 开平). One notable difference can be seen in the shift of certain vowel sounds, as follows:
| English | Taishanese | Cantonese | Mandarin | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baisha | Taishan | Cantonese IPA | Jyutping | Traditional Chinese characters | Mandarin IPA | Pinyin | Simplified Chinese characters | ||
| blood | het | hut | pronounced as /hyːt˧/ | hyut | Chinese: 血 | pronounced as /ɕjɛ˨˩˦/ | Chinese: 血 | ||
| moon | nget | ngut | pronounced as /jyːt˨/ | jyut | Chinese: 月 | pronounced as /ɥɛ˥˩/ | Chinese: 月 | ||
| snow | hlet | hlut | pronounced as /syːt˧/ | syut | Chinese: 雪 | pronounced as /ɕɥɛ˨˩˦/ | Chinese: 雪 | ||
Besides the differences in some vowel sounds, the consonant pronounced as /[b]/ of Mandarin is usually realized as pronounced as /[v]/, and pronounced as /[p]/ as pronounced as /[h]/.
| English | Taishanese | Cantonese | Mandarin | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baisha | Taishan | Cantonese IPA | Jyutping | Traditional Chinese characters | Mandarin IPA | Pinyin | Simplified Chinese characters | ||
| (stomach) full | vow | bow | pronounced as /paːu̯˧˥/ | baau | Chinese: 飽 | pronounced as /pɑʊ˨˩˦/ | Chinese: 饱 | ||
| eight | vatt | batt | pronounced as /paːt˧/ | baat | Chinese: 八 | pronounced as /pa˥/ | Chinese: 八 | ||
| quilt | hi | pi | pronounced as /pʰei̯˩˧/ | pei | Chinese: 被 | pronounced as /peɪ˥˩tsɨ/ | Chinese: 被子 | ||
| wife | law hu | law pu | pronounced as /lou̯˩˧ pʰɔː˨˩ or lou̯˩˧ pʰɔː˩/ | lou po | Chinese: 老婆 | pronounced as /lɑʊ˨˩pʰo˧˥/ | Chinese: 老婆 | ||