Abstract: The folk ballad in “Li Dialect”, a ethnic ballad widely sung in Yangshan area, is an important intangible cultural heritage of Yangshan Area, Hainan Province. The ballad language in “Li Dialect” has unique features and wide range of contents and themes, reflecting people’s labor, production, love and longing for a better life in Yangshan. However, the “Li Dialect” has no written characters; therefore, the mode of transmission is mainly carried out by means of oral transmission from generation to generation, so that many ballads have already failed to be handed down from past generations at present. The newly-discovered Folk Ballads records the lyrics in a unique way called “Big Chinese Characters” by the local people, which perfected the study of ballad language of Hainan ethnic minorities, filled the gap of written records and folk oral literature of “Li Dialect” in Yangshan area and provided a writing carrier with the phenomenon of loanwords in “Li Dialect”. Therefore, the book, an important national cultural treasure in Yangshan of Hainan, is of great value to the study and inheritance of “Li Dialect” and its folk ballads as well as the culture of “Li Dialect” in Yangshan area

Key words: Folk Ballads, Yangshan area, “Li Dialect”, folk ballads, linguistic features