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《现代汉语方言音库 • 成都话音档》has two listings for 虾 one that says:

xa⁵⁵ 又ɕia⁵⁵

xa⁵⁵ can pretty much be pinyinized as ha1 - for simplification here.

And there is of course a second entry that says:

ɕia⁵⁵ 又xa⁵⁵

Now of course it looks like I've answered my own question - seeing as the name of the book is 成都话音档. But, ha1 is not a pronunciation I've heard before for 虾 in Sichuanese and most people don't believe that it even exists. I'm curious as to where this pronunciation is still maintained in Sichuan.

It's certainly part of the vestiges of 湖广填川.

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  • Is this an influence of e.g.「下」having two pronunciations (ha4 / xia4)? Or maybe it's the way「蝦」in「蝦蟆」is pronounced? – dROOOze Oct 6 '18 at 3:59
  • More likely to be from Cantonese, I think. – Mou某♦ Oct 6 '18 at 4:05
  • 在我所在的湖南方言区，虾、下都发ha，夏、瑕之类发xia – Toosky Hierot Oct 6 '18 at 4:48
  • 湘语 is a possibility too. – Mou某♦ Oct 6 '18 at 6:24
  • A typo here: did you mean "湖广滇川"? /// This pronunciation also exists in other places. I myself would say “等下子” [wait a minute] as in "den ha zi" [tone omitted since I do not know how to indicate them occurred in dialects] in dialect, where in Putonghua “下” is actually "xià". Also other people would say hāzi to indicate 虾子 in my hometown [I myself do not use that]. I think this pronunciation would be frequently encountered in the district of dialect that lie in the south of the Changjiang River. Maybe they have similar origins. – xbh Oct 9 '18 at 9:41
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It does not exist any more in Chengdu dialect (my mother's tongue), but I think if you regard Chongqing dialect as a part of Sichuanese, there must be somewhere.

The only usage of 'ha' in Chengdu dialect is in 蛤蟆 but it is ha2, and it does not seem to be a native word in Sichuanese but imported from Standard Chinese. We traditionally use 赖克宝 instead.

The dialects in some place in Chongqing sometimes pronounce 解决 as gai3 jio2. And I believe that this is because they mostly keep the original dialect inherited from Hubei/Hunan dialect. So 虾 must be pronounced as ha1 there.

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  • Your point about “toad” could be correct, as it is sometimes written 虾蟆. – Mou某♦ May 7 '20 at 9:23

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