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 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 Sitiawan & 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 Minyue language (閩越語) 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. But in 20th century, the number of Mandarin speakers has been greatly boosted, which shows a clear tendency that Mandarin will replace Fuzhou dialect as the daily language. There are 5 main reasons accounting for that phenomenon:
- Cultural identification: Fuzhou citizens generally identify themselves as Chinese, and most of them take it for granted that a Chinese should speak his national language only, and that all other regional dialects should be abandoned. These people have willingly given up teaching their children to speak the local language.
- Language policy: Mandarin Chinese is the only official language in China, so the use of Fuzhou dialect is discouraged in media, education and other formal occasions. The National Language movements carried out by Kuomintang and Communist Party had been in fact based on the short-sighted principle that Mandarin Chinese and Fuzhou dialect were contradictory rather than complementary.
- Low degree of mutual intelligibility: Fuzhou dialect is not mutually intelligible even within its many varieties. In order to communicate with people from other regions, Fuzhou dialect speakers would have to learn Mandarin.
- Population structure: The second half of the 20th century has witnessed a large immigration into Fuzhou, which greatly altered the structure of its population. Archaic and full of seemingly irregular changes, Fuzhou dialect is difficult for newcomers. Therefore, they and their offspring only speak Mandarin.
- Lack of self-confidence: Even some native speakers find it uncivilized. Such self-contempt can be attributed to the relatively lower economic status of Fuzhou.
In Fujian, Chinese government promised to take measures against the decline of Fuzhou dialect, but so far nothing concrete has been done. In Matsu, Taiwan, the teaching of Fuzhou dialect has been introduced into elementary schools.
[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 that's 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.
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] Words from Classical Chinese
Quite a few words from Classical Chinese have retained the original meanings for thousands of years, while their counterparts in Mandarin Chinese have either fallen out of daily use or changed to other meanings.
This table shows some Fuzhou dialect words from Classical Chinese, as contrasted to Mandarin Chinese:
| Meaning | Fuzhou dialect | BUC | Mandarin | Pinyin |
| eye | 目睭/目珠 | mĕ̤k-ciŭ ([møyʔ5 tsiu55]) | 眼睛 | yǎnjīng |
| you | 汝 | nṳ̄ ([ny33]) | 你 | nǐ |
| chopstick | 箸 | dê̤ṳ ([tøy242]) | 筷子 | kuàizi |
| to chase | 逐 | dṳ̆k ([tyʔ5]) | 追 | zhuī |
| wet | 潤 | nóng ([nouŋ213]) | 濕 | shī |
| black | 烏 | ŭ ([u55]) | 黑 | hēi |
And this table shows some words that are both used in Fuzhou dialect and Mandarin Chinese, while the meanings in Mandarin Chinese are changed:
| Word | BUC | Meaning in Classical Chinese and Fuzhou dialect | Pinyin | Meaning in Mandarin |
| 走 | cāu ([tsau33]) | to flee | zǒu | to walk |
| 細 | sá̤ ([sɑ213]) | tiny, small, young | xì | thin, slender |
| 說 | siók/suók ([suɔʔ24]) | to explain, to clarify | shuō | to speak, to talk |
| 懸 | gèng ([keiŋ53]) | tall, high | xuán | to hang, to suspend |
[edit] Words from Minyue language
Some daily used words, shared by all Min languages, came from the ancient Minyue language. Such as follows:
| Word | BUC | Meaning |
| 骹 | kă ([kha55]) | foot and leg |
| 囝 | giāng ([kiaŋ33]) | son, child, a small amount |
| 儂 | nè̤ng ([nøyŋ53]) | human |
| 刣 | tài ([thai53]) | to kill |
| 伓 | ng ([ŋ]) | not (negative prefix, never used separately) |
[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:
- kŏk, [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: Mìng-kiŏk 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.
- Fuzhou dialect phonology, by James Campbell.
- 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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| Traditional categories: | ||||
| Other: | ||||
| Unclassified: | ||||
| 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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| Subcategories of Mandarin: | Northeastern | Beijing | Ji-Lu | Jiao-Liao | Zhongyuan | Lan-Yin | Southwestern | Jianghuai | Dungan | |||
| Subcategories of Min: | Min Bei | Min Nan | |||
| Min Dong | Min Zhong | Hainanese | Puxian | | Shaojiang | ||||
| 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 | |||
