Fuzhou dialect
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| Fuzhou Dialect 福州話 Hók-ciŭ-uâ, 平話 Bàng-uâ |
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| Pronunciation: | IPA: [huʔ21 tsiu53 uɑ242], [paŋ21 uɑ242] | |
| Spoken in: | Fuzhou in People's Republic of China, Matsu Islands in Republic of China, Sibu, Miri, Sarikei, Bintulu, Yong Peng, Sitiawan and Ayer Tawar (in the Manjung district of the state of Perak in Malaysia), and some Chinese communities in the west, particularly in the china town of New York and London. | |
| Total speakers: | Less than ten million | |
| Language family: | Sino-Tibetan Chinese Min Min Dong Fuzhou Dialect |
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| Writing system: | Chinese characters and Romanized BUC | |
| Official status | ||
| Official language of: | none; one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the Matsu Islands, Republic of China [1] | |
| Regulated by: | no official regulation | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | zh | |
| ISO 639-2: | chi (B) | zho (T) |
| ISO/FDIS 639-3: | cdo | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Fuzhou dialect (Chinese characters: 福州話, Bàng-uâ-cê: Hók-ciŭ-uâ), also known as Foochow, Foochow dialect or Foochowese, is considered the standard dialect of Min Dong, which is a branch of Chinese mainly spoken in the Eastern part of Fujian Province (福建, BUC: Hók-gióng). Native speakers also call it Bàng-uâ (平話), which means the language that is spoken in everyday life.
Although traditionally called a dialect, Fuzhou dialect is a separate language in linguistic standard because it is not mutually intelligible with other branches of Min Language and other Chinese languages. Therefore, whether Fuzhou dialect is a dialect or a language is highly disputable.
In the People's Republic of China, Fuzhou dialect covers eleven cities and counties in all, viz.: Fuzhou (福州, BUC: Hók-ciŭ), Pingnan (屏南, BUC: Bìng-nàng), Gutian (古田, BUC: Kŭ-chèng), Luoyuan (羅源, BUC: Lò̤-nguòng), Minqing (閩清, BUC: Mìng-chiăng), Lianjiang (連江, BUC: Lièng-gŏng), Minhou (閩侯, BUC: Mìng-âiu), Changle (長樂, BUC: Diòng-lŏ̤h), Yongtai (永泰, BUC: Īng-tái), Fuqing (福清, BUC: Hók-chiăng) and Pingtan (平潭, BUC: Bìng-tàng).
Fuzhou dialect is also widely spoken in Sibu, Malaysia, where it has been called "New Fuzhou" due to the influx of immigrants there in the 1901. Similarly, the dialect has spread to the USA as a result of immigration in recent decades.
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[edit] History and status quo
After Han China's occupation of Minyue (閩越, BUC: Mìng-uŏk) in 110 BC, Han people began its reign in what is Fujian Province today. Having lost their nationalities, the aboriginal Minyue people, a branch of Yue peoples (百越, BUC: Báik-uŏk), were forced to speak Ancient Chinese and eventually assimilated into Chinese culture.
Fuzhou dialect came into being during the Tang Dynasty, and has been evolving separately as a branch of Chinese ever since. However, it is also worth noting that some fragments of the ancient Yue language have been well-preserved for thousands of years. Therefore, Fuzhou dialect is in fact a mixed language evolving from Ancient Chinese and the ancient Yue language. Since Fuzhou was open as a treaty port in 1842, some words from English have also been introduced into Fuzhou dialect.
By the end of the Qing Dynasty, Fuzhou society had become largely monolingual. After the Republic of China was established in 1911, Kuomintang began to popularize Mandarin Chinese in Fuzhou. After the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, CPC further banned the use of Fuzhou dialect in schools and limited the amount of Fuzhou dialect broadcast on electronic media.
The National Language movements carried out in Fuzhou by Kuomintang and CPC have been in fact based on the short-sighted principle that Mandarin Chinese and Fuzhou dialect are contradictory rather than complementary. For decades, the extreme language policy has greatly boosted the number of Mandarin Chinese speakers in Fuzhou, but has also led to the undesirable result that more and more children cannot speak their mother tongue fluently. Ironically, Fuzhou dialect is an endangered language in Fuzhou downtown areas. CPC has promised to take measures against its decline, but so far nothing concrete has been done.
[edit] Grammar
[edit] Phonetics
Phonetically, Fuzhou dialect is a tonal language, which has extensive sandhi rules in the initials, rimes, and the tones. In this view, Fuzhou dialect is the one of the most complicated languages of all branches of Chinese.
[edit] Tones
There are seven original tones in Fuzhou dialect, which reserves the tonal system of Ancient Chinese:
| Name | Tonal value | Description | Example |
| Yīnpíng (陰平) | 55 | high level | 君 |
| Shǎngshēng (上聲) | 33 | middle level | 滾 |
| Yīnqù (陰去) | 213 | low falling and rising | 貢 |
| Yīnrù (陰入) | 24 | middle rising stopped | 谷 |
| Yángpíng (陽平) | 53 | high falling | 群 |
| Yángqù (陽去) | 242 | middle rising and falling | 郡 |
| Yángrù (陽入) | 5 | high level stopped | 掘 |
The sample characters are taken from the phonetical book Qīlínbāyīn (《戚林八音》, BUC: Chék-lìng-báik-ĭng), a very famous phonology book about Fuzhou dialect written in the Qing Dynasty.
In Qīlínbāyīn, Fuzhou dialect are described as having eight tones, and thatʰs how the book got its name (bāyīn means "eight tones"). Famous though it is, the name is somewhat misleading. In fact, a native speaker can never distinguish between Yīnshǎng (陰上) and Yángshǎng (陽上); therefore, only seven tones exist. *more research needs to be done in this area of eight tones. because i am a native speaker and i can distinguish between Yīnshǎng (陰上) and Yángshǎng (陽上) very clearly. Furthermore, all the Roman pinyin in this page are in Mandarin pinyin not in Fuzhou dialect pinyin.*
Yīnrù and Yángrù (or so-called entering tonal) characters are ended with either velar stop [k] or Glottal stop [ʔ].
Besides those seven tones listed above, two new tonal values, "21" (Bànyīnqù, 半陰去) and "35" (Bànyángqù, 半陽去) also occur in connected speech (see Tonal sandhi below).
[edit] Tonal sandhi
The rules of tonal sandhi (連讀變調) in Fuzhou dialect are complicated, even compared with those of other Chinese dialects. When two or more than two characters combine into a word, the tonal value of the last character does not change but those of its preceding characters change in most cases. For example, "獨", "立" and "日" are characters of Yángrù (陽入) with the same tonal value "5", and are pronounced as [tuʔ5], [liʔ5] and [niʔ5], respectively. When they combine into the word "獨立日" (Independence Day), "獨" changes its tonal value to "21", and "立" changes its to "33", therefore the pronunciation of the word is [tuʔ21 liʔ33 niʔ5].
The two-character tonal sandhi rules are shown in the table below:
| Yīnpíng (陰平, 55) |
Yángpíng (陽平, 53) |
Shǎngshēng (上聲, 33) |
Yīnqù (陰去, 213) |
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Yīnpíng (陰平, 55) |
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Yángpíng (陽平, 53) |
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Shǎngshēng (上聲, 33) |
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Yīnrùjiǎ (陰入甲) are those Yīnrù characters with Glottal stop and Yīnrùyǐ (陰入乙) with /k/.
However, the tonal sandhi rules of more than two characters are much more complicated than can be conveniently displayed in a single table.
[edit] Initials
There are seventeen initials in all:
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/kʰ/ (氣), /k/ (求) |
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The Chinese characters in the brackets are also sample characters from Qīlínbāyīn.
Most Chinese linguists argue that Fuzhou dialect should be described as possessing a null onset. In fact, any character that has a null onset begins with a glottal stop [ʔ].
Some older speakers find it difficult to distinguish between the initials /n/ and /l/].
No such labiodental phonemes as /f/ or /v/ exist in Fuzhou dialect, which is one of the most conspicuous characteristic shared by all branches in the Min Family, as well as Korean and Japanese.
[β] and [ʒ] only occur in connected speech (see Initial assimilation below).
[edit] Initial assimilation
In Fuzhou dialect, there are various kinds of initial assimilation (聲母類化), all of which are progressive. When two or more than two characters combine into a phrase, the initial of the first character stays unchanged while those of the following characters, in most cases, change to match its preceding phoneme, i.e., the coda of its preceding character.
| The Coda of the Former Character | The Initial Assimilation of the Latter Character |
| Null coda or /-ʔ/ |
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| /-ŋ/ |
/p/ and /pʰ/ change to [m];
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| /-k/ | Any initials remain unchanged. |
[edit] Rimes
The table below shows the eleven vowel phonemes of Fuzhou dialect.
| Front | fr. rounded | Back | |
| Close | /i/ | /y/ | /u/ |
| Close-mid | /e/ | /ø/ | /p/ |
| Open-mid | /ɛ/ | /œ/ | /ɔ/ |
| Open | /a/ | /ɑ/ |
Eleven vowel phonemes, together with the codas /-ŋ/ and /-ʔ/, combine into forty-six rimes.
| 'Simple Vowelsʰ | /a/ or /ɑ/(蝦/ or /罷) | /ɛ/ or /a/(街/ or /細) | /œ/ or /ɔ/(驢/ or /告) | /o/ or /ɔ/(哥/ or /抱) | /i/ or /ɛi/(喜/ or /氣) | /u/ or /ou/(苦/ or /怒) | /y/ or /øy/(豬/ or /箸) | ||||||||
| 'Compound Vowelsʰ | /ia/ or /iɑ/(寫/ or /夜) | /ie/ or /iɛ/(雞/ or /毅) | /iu/ or /ieu/(秋/ or /笑) | /ua/ or /uɑ/(花/ or /話) | /uo/ or /uɔ/(科/ or /課) | /yo/ or /yɔ/(橋/ or /銳) | /ai/ or /ɑi/(紙/ or /再) | /au/ or /ɑu/(郊/ or /校) | /ɛu/ or /ɑu/(溝/ or /構) | /øy/ or /ɔy/(催/ or /罪) | /uai/ or /uɑi/(我/ or /怪) | /ui/ or /uoi/(杯/ or /歲) | |||
| Nasal Coda /-ŋ/ | /aŋ/ or /ɑŋ/(三/ or /汗) | /iŋ/ or /ɛiŋ/(人/ or /任) | /uŋ/ or /ouŋ/(春/ or /鳳) | /yŋ/ or /øyŋ/(銀/ or /頌) | /iaŋ/ or /iɑŋ/(驚/ or /命) | /ieŋ/ or /iɛŋ/(天/ or /見) | /uaŋ/ or /uɑŋ/(歡/ or /換) | /uoŋ/ or /uɔŋ/(王/ or /象) | /yoŋ/ or /yɔŋ/(鄉/ or /樣) | /ɛiŋ/ or /aiŋ/(恒/ or /硬) | /ouŋ/ or /ɔuŋ/(湯/ or /寸) | /øyŋ/ or /ɔyŋ/(桶/ or /洞) | |||
| Glottal Coda /-ʔ/ | /aʔ/ or /ɑʔ/(盒/ or /鴨) | /øʔ/ or /œʔ/(扔/ or /嗝) | /eʔ/ or /ɛʔ/(漬/ or /咩) | /oʔ/ or /ɔʔ/(樂/ or /閣) | /iʔ/ or /ɛiʔ/(力/ or /乙) | /uʔ/ or /ouʔ/(勿/ or /福) | /yʔ/ or /øyʔ/(肉/ or /竹) | /iaʔ/ or /iɑʔ/(擲/ or /察) | /ieʔ/ or /iɛʔ/(熱/ or /鐵) | /uaʔ/ or /uɑʔ/(活/ or /法) | /uoʔ/ or /uɔʔ/(月/ or /郭) | /yoʔ/ or /yɔʔ/(藥/ or /弱) | /ɛiʔ/ or /aiʔ/(賊/ or /黑) | /ouʔ/ or /ɔuʔ/(學/ or /骨) | /øyʔ/ or /ɔyʔ/(讀/ or /角) |
As has been mentioned above, there are theoretically two different entering tonal codas in Fuzhou dialect: /-k/ and /-ʔ/. But for most Fuzhou dialect speakers, those two codas are only distinguishable when in the tonal sandhi or initial assimilation. Therefore, most Chinese linguists think that the coda [-k] has already disappeared in modern Fuzhou dialect.
[edit] Close/Open rimes
In the table above, all the rimes appear in pairs: The one to the left represents a close rime (緊韻), while the other represents an open rime (鬆韻). The close/open rimes are closely related with the tones. The characters with the tones of Yīnpíng (陰平), Shǎngshēng (上聲), Yángpíng (陽平) and Yángrù (陽入) have close rimes while those with the tones of Yīnqù (陰去), Yīnrù (陰入) and Yángqù (陽去) have the open rimes. In connected speech, an open rime shifts to its close counterpart in the tonal sandhi.
For instance, "福" is a Yīnrù character and is pronounced as [houʔ24] and "州" a Yīnpíng character with the pronunciation of [tsiu55]. When these two characters combine into the word "福州" (Fuzhou), "福" changes its tonal value from "24" to "21" and, simultaneously, shifts its rime from [-ouʔ to [-uʔ], so the phrase is pronounced as [huʔ21 tsiu55]. While in the word "中國" [tyŋ53 kuɔʔ24] (China), "中" is a Yīnpíng character and therefore its close rime never changes, though it does change its tonal value from "55" to "53" in the tonal sandhi.
The phenomenon of close/open rimes is unique to Fuzhou dialect and this feature makes it especially intricate and hardly intelligible even to other Min languages.
[edit] Vocabulary
[edit] Loan words from English
The First Opium War, also known as the First Anglo-Chinese War, was ended in 1842 with the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing, which forced the Qing government to open Fuzhou to all British traders and missionaries. Since then, quite a number of churches and Western-style schools have been established. Consequently, many English words came into Fuzhou dialect, but without fixed written forms in Chinese characters. The most frequently used words are listed below:
- kŏkʰ, [khouʔ5], noun, meaning "an article of dress", is from the word "coat";
- nă̤h, [nɛʔ5], noun, meaning "a barrier of meshwork cord or rope strung between two posts to divide a court in half, as in tennis and badminton", is from the word "net";
- pèng, [pheiŋ53], noun, meaning "a liquid mixture used as a decorative or protective coating", is from the word "paint";
- pĕng-giāng, [pheiŋ53 ŋiaŋ33, noun, meaning "a small sum of money", is from the word "penny";
- tă̤h, [thɛʔ5], noun, meaning "money", is from the word "take";
- gă̤-lō̤, [kɛ53 lo33], noun, meaning "girl" in a humorous way, is from the word "girl";
- sò̤, [so53], verb, meaning "to shoot (a basket)", is from the word "shoot";
- ă-gì, [a55 ki53], verb, meaning "to pause", is from the word "again".
- Mā-lăk-gă, [ma21 laʔ5 ka5], meaning "Southeastern Asian (esp. Singapore and Malaysia)", is from the word "Malacca".
[edit] Other features of Fuzhou dialect grammar
[edit] Comparison and contrast between Fuzhou dialect and its related languages
[edit] Fuzhou dialect and Mandarin Chinese
[edit] Fuzhou dialect and Min Nan
[edit] Writing system
[edit] Chinese characters
Most of the characters of Fuzhou dialect stemmed from Ancient Chinese and can therefore be written in Chinese characters. Many books published in Qing Dynasty have been written in this traditional way, such as Mǐndūbiéjì (《閩都別記》, BUC: Mìng-dŭ-biék-gé) and the Bible in Fuzhou dialect. However, Chinese characters as the writing system for Fuzhou dialect do have many shortcomings.
Firstly, a great number of characters are so unique to Fuzhou dialect that they can only be written in informal ways. For instance, the character "mâ̤", a negative word, hasn't got a unified form. Some people write it as "賣", which is also pronounced as "mâ̤" but has a totally irrelevant meaning; some people write it as "袂"; and others prefer to use a newly-created character combining "勿" and "會", but this character is not included in most fonts.
Secondly, Fuzhou dialect has been excluded from the educational system for many decades. As a result, many children take for granted that Fuzhou dialect does not have a formal writing system and when they have to write, they tend to misuse characters with the similar Mandarin Chinese pronunciation. For example, "會使 (â̤ sāi)", meaning "okey", are frequently written as "*阿塞" because it is pronounced almost the same way in Mandarin Chinese.
[edit] Romanized BUC
Main article: Romanized BUC
Romanized BUC, also known as Bàng-uâ-cê (平話字), is a romanization of Fuzhou dialect invented in the middle of 19th century by some Western missionaries.
This romanization was very popular in the first half of 20th century.
[edit] Literary and art forms
[edit] Min Opera
Main article: Min Opera
Min opera (閩劇, BUC: {{Unicode|Mìng-kiŏkʰ or 福州戲, BUC: Hók-ciŭ-hié) is a kind of Chinese opera which had been evolving for 300 years and became fixed in the early 20th century. Spoken and sung in Fuzhou dialect, Min Opera is extremely popular in the eastern part of Fujian Province.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Fuzhou dialect textbook: Elementary school textbook in Matsu.
- SĬNG GÔ IÓK CIÒNG CṲ̆: The Old and the New Testament, in romanized BUC.
- SĬNG IÓK CṲ̆: The New Testament, in romanized BUC.
- MĀ-TÁI HÓK-ĬNG: Matthew's Gospel, in romanized BUC.
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| Categories: |
Gan | Hakka | Hui | Jin | Mandarin | Min | Ping | Xiang | Wu | Cantonese |
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| Subcategories of Min: | Min Bei | Min Dong | Min Nan | Min Zhong | Puxian | Qiongwen | Shaojiang | |||
| Subcategories of Mandarin: | Northeastern | Beijing | Ji-Lu | Jiao-Liao | Zhongyuan | Lan-Yin | Southwestern | Jianghuai | Dungan | |||
| Note: The above is only one classification scheme among many. The categories in italics are not universally acknowledged to be independent categories. |
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| Comprehensive list of Chinese dialects | ||||
| Official spoken varieties: | Standard Mandarin | Standard Cantonese | |||
| Historical phonology: | Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Proto-Min | Proto-Mandarin | Haner | |||
| Chinese: written varieties | ||||
| Official written varieties: | Classical Chinese | Vernacular Chinese | |||
| Other varieties: | Written Vernacular Cantonese | |||
