Fuzhou dialect

Fuzhou dialect (福州話, Foochow Romanized: ), also known as Foochow dialect, Foochow, Foochowese, Fuzhounese, or Fuzhouhua, is considered the standard dialect of Min Dong, which is a branch of Min Chinese mainly spoken in the eastern part of Fujian Province. Native speakers also call it Bàng-uâ (平話), meaning the language spoken in everyday life. In Singapore and Malaysia, the language is known as Hokchiu, which is the Min Dong pronunciation of Fuzhou.

Although it is traditionally called a 'dialect', Fuzhou can be variously considered a dialect or a language depending on whether one bases their definition on social or linguistic criteria. By linguistic criteria, the Fuzhou dialect is technically a separate language, as it is not mutually intelligible with other Min languages - let alone other Sinitic (Chinese) languages.

Centered in Fuzhou City, the Fuzhou dialect covers eleven cities and counties: Fuzhou (福州), Pingnan (屏南), Gutian (古田), Luoyuan (羅源), Minqing (閩清), Lianjiang (連江, Matsu included), Minhou (閩侯), Changle (長樂), Yongtai (永泰), Fuqing (福清) and Pingtan (平潭). Fuzhou dialect is also the second local language in northern and middle Fujian cities and counties, like Nanping (南平), Shaowu (邵武), Shunchang (順昌), Sanming (三明) and Youxi (尤溪).

Fuzhou dialect is also widely spoken in some regions abroad, especially in Southeastern Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. The city of Sibu in Malaysia is called "New Fuzhou" due to the influx of immigrants there in the early 1900s. Similarly, the language has spread to the USA, UK, Australia and Japan as a result of immigration in recent decades.

History

Formation

After the Qin Dynasty conquered the Minyue (Chinese: 闽越) people of southeast China in 110 BC, Han Chinese people began settling what is now Fujian Province. The aboriginal Minyue people - a branch of Baiyue (Chinese: 百越; literally "The Hundred Yue") people who inhabitated most of southern China - were gradually assimilated into Chinese culture.^[1] The Old Chinese language brought by the mass influx of Han immigrants from Northern area gradually mixed with the local Minyue language, from which the Fuzhou dialect and other Min Chinese languages evolved.^[2]

The famous book Qī Lín Bāyīn (戚林八音, Foochow Romanized: Chék Lìng Báik-ĭng), which was compiled in the 17th century, is the first and the most full-scale rime book that provides a systematic guide to character reading for people speaking or learning the Fuzhou dialect. It once served to standardize the language and is still widely quoted as an authoritative reference book in modern academic research in Min Chinese phonology.

Studies by Western missionaries

In 1842, Fuzhou was open to Westerners as a treaty port after the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing. But due to the language barrier, however, the first Christian missionary base in this city did not take place without difficulties. In order to convert Fuzhou people, those missionaries found it very necessary to make a careful study of the Fuzhou dialect. Their most notable works are listed below:^[3]

• 1856, M. C. White: The Chinese language spoken at Fuh Chau
• 1870, R. S. Maclay & C. C. Baldwin: An alphabetic dictionary of the Chinese language in the Foochow dialect
• 1871, C. C. Baldwin: Manual of the Foochow dialect
• 1891, T. B. Adam: An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect
• 1893, Charles Hartwell: Three Character Classic of Gospel in the Foochow Colloquial
• 1898, R. S. Maclay & C. C. Baldwin: An Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language of the Foochow Dialect, 2nd edition
• 1905, T. B. Adam: An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect, 2nd edition
• 1906, The Foochow translation of the complete Bible ([2], [3])
• 1923, T. B. Adam & L. P. Peet: An English-Chinese dictionary of the Foochow dialect, 2nd edition
• 1929, R. S. Maclay & C. C. Baldwin (revised and enlarged by S. H. Leger): Dictionary of the Foochow dialect

Studies by Japanese scholars

During the Second World War, some Japanese scholars became passionate about studying Fuzhou dialect, believing that it could be beneficial to the rule of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. One of their most famous works was the Japanese-Chinese Translation: Fuzhou Dialect (日華對譯: 福州語) published in 1940 in Taipei, in which katakana was used to represent Fuzhou pronunciation.

Status quo

By the end of the Qing Dynasty, Fuzhou society had been largely monolingual. But for decades the Chinese government has discouraged the use of the colloquial in school education and in media, so the number of Mandarin speakers has been greatly boosted. Recent reports indicate that less than 50% of young people in Fuzhou are able to speak the language.^[4]

In Mainland China, the Fuzhou dialect has been officially listed as an Intangible Cultural Heritage^[5] and promotion work is being systematically carried out to preserve its use. In Matsu, currently controlled by the Republic of China located in Taiwan, the teaching of Fuzhou dialect has been successfully introduced into elementary schools.

Grammar

This section is about Standard Fuzhou dialect only. See Regional variations for a discussion of other dialects.

Phonetics

Like all Chinese languages, the Fuzhou dialect is a tonal language, and has extensive sandhi rules in the initials, rimes, and tones. These complicated rules make Fuzhou dialect one of the most difficult Chinese languages.^[6]

Tones

There are seven original tones in Fuzhou dialect, compared with the eight tones of Middle Chinese:

The sample characters are taken from the Qī Lín Bāyīn.

In Qī Lín Bāyīn, the Fuzhou dialect is described as having eight tones, which explains how the book got its title (Bāyīn means "eight tones"). That name, however, is somewhat misleading, because Ĭng-siōng (陰上) and Iòng-siōng (陽上) are identical in tone contour; therefore, only seven tones exist.

Ĭng-ĭk and Iòng-ĭk (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, "˨˩" (Buáng-ĭng-ké̤ṳ, 半陰去) and ˧˥ (Buáng-iòng-ké̤ṳ, 半陽去) occur in connected speech (see Tonal sandhi below).

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 remains stable but those of its preceding characters change in most cases (regressive assimilation). For example, "獨", "立" and "日" are characters of Iòng-ĭk (陽入) with the same tonal value ˥, and are pronounced [tuʔ˥], [liʔ˥], and [niʔ˥], respectively. When combined together as the phrase "獨立日" (Independence Day), "獨" changes its tonal value to ˨˩, and "立" changes its to ˧, therefore the pronunciation as a whole is [tuʔ˨˩ liʔ˧ niʔ˥].

The two-character tonal sandhi rules are shown in the table below (the rows give the first character's original citation tone, while the columns give the citation tone of the second character):

Ĭng-ĭk-gák (陰入甲) are Ĭng-ĭk (陰入) characters ending with /k/ and Ĭng-ĭk-ék (陰入乙) are those with /ʔ/. ^[7] Both are usually realized as the glottal stop by most modern speakers of the Fuzhou dialect, but the distinction is made both in the above tone sandhi behavior and in initial assimilation.

However, the tonal sandhi rules of more than two characters display further complexities.

Initials

There are seventeen initials in all:

The Chinese characters in the brackets are also sample characters from Qī Lín Bāyīn.

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 speakers find it difficult to distinguish between the initials /n/ and /l/.

No labiodental phonemes, such as /f/ or /v/, exist in Fuzhou dialect, which is one of the most conspicuous characteristics shared by all branches in the Min Family.

[β] and [ʒ] exist only in connected speech (see Initial assimilation below).

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 word, 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.

Rimes

The table below shows the eleven vowel phonemes of Fuzhou dialect.

In Fuzhou dialect codas /-m/, /-n/, and /-ŋ/ have all merged as /-ŋ/; and /-p/, /-t/, /-k/ have all merged as /-ʔ/. Eleven vowel phonemes, together with the codas /-ŋ/ and /-ʔ/, are organized into forty-six rimes.

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.

Close/Open rimes

All rimes come in pairs in the above table: 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. As single characters, the tones of Ĭng-bìng (陰平), Siōng-siăng (上聲), Iòng-bìng (陽平) and Iòng-ĭk (陽入) have close rimes while Ĭng-ké̤ṳ (陰去), Ĭng-ĭk (陰入) and Iòng-ké̤ṳ (陽去) have the open rimes. In connected speech, an open rime shifts to its close counterpart in the tonal sandhi.

For instance, "福" (hók) is a Ĭng-ĭk character and is pronounced [houʔ˨˦] and "州" (ciŭ) a Ĭng-bìng character with the pronunciation of [tsiu˥]. When these two characters combine into the word "福州" (Hók-ciŭ, Fuzhou), "福" changes its tonal value from ˨˦ to ˨˩ and, simultaneously, shifts its rime from [-ouʔ] to [-uʔ], so the phrase is pronounced [huʔ˨˩ tsiu˥]. While in the word "中國" [tyŋ˥˧ kuɔʔ˨˦] (Dṳ̆ng-guók, China), "中" is a Ĭng-bìng character and therefore its close rime never changes, though it does change its tonal value from ˥ to ˥˧ in the tonal sandhi.

The phenomenon of close/open rimes is nearly unique to the Fuzhou dialect and this feature makes it especially intricate and hardly intelligible even to other Min languages. A similar phenomenon occurs in Mandarin (Beijing dialect), where the triphthongs /wei/ and /jou/ are raised to /wi/ and /ju/ in the first two tones (and are always so spelled in the latter fashion in all four tones in the Pinyin transcription).

Phonological features

Vocabulary

Most words in Fuzhou dialect have cognates in other Chinese languages, so a non-Fuzhou speaker would find it much easier to understand Fuzhou dialect written in Chinese characters than spoken in conversation. However, false friends do exist: for example, "莫細膩" (mŏ̤h sá̤-nê) means "don't be too polite" or "make yourself at home", "我對手汝洗碗" (nguāi dó̤i-chiū nṳ̄ sā̤ uāng) means "I help you wash dishes", "伊共伊老媽嚟冤家" (ĭ gâe̤ng ĭ lâu-mā lā̤ uŏng-gă) means "he and his wife are quarreling (with each other)", etc. Mere knowledge of Mandarin vocabulary does not help one catch the meaning of these sentences.

The majority of Fuzhou dialect vocabulary dates back to more than 1,200 years ago. Some daily-used words are even preserved as they were in the Tang Dynasty, which can be illustrated by a poem of a famous Chinese poet Gu Kuang (顧況).^[8] In his poem Jiǎn (囝), Gu Kuang explicitly noted:

囝，音蹇。閩俗呼子為囝，父為郎罷。
"囝 is pronounced as 蹇. In Fujian vernacular son is called 囝, and father 郎罷."

In Fuzhou dialect, "囝" (giāng) and "郎罷" (nòng-mâ) are still in use today, without any slightest change.

Words from Ancient Chinese

Quite a few words from Ancient Chinese (mainly Ancient Wu and Ancient Chu) have retained the original meanings for thousands of years, while their counterparts in Mandarin Chinese have either fallen out of daily use or varied to different meanings.

This table shows some Fuzhou dialect words from Classical Chinese, as contrasted to Mandarin Chinese:

¹ "看" (káng) is also used as the verb "to look" in Fuzhou dialect.

² "養" (iōng) in Fuzhou dialect means "give birth to (a child)".

And this table shows some words that are both used in Fuzhou dialect and Mandarin Chinese, while the meanings in Mandarin Chinese have altered:

Words from Minyue language

Some daily used words, shared by all Min languages, came from the ancient Minyue language. Such as follows:

The literary and colloquial readings

The literary and colloquial readings (文白異讀) is a feature commonly found in all Chinese dialects throughout China. The literary readings (文讀) are mainly used in formal phrases and written language, while the colloquial ones (白讀) are basically used in vulgar phrases and spoken language.

This table displays some widely used characters in Fuzhou dialect which have both literary and colloquial readings:

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, some English words came into Fuzhou dialect, but without fixed written forms in Chinese characters. The most frequently used words are listed below:^[9]

• kŏk, [khouʔ˥], noun, meaning "an article of dress", is from the word "coat";
• nă̤h, [nɛʔ˥], noun, meaning "a meshwork barrier in tennis or badminton", is from the word "net";
• pèng, [pheiŋ˥˧], noun, meaning "oil paint", is from the word "paint";
• pĕng-giāng, [pheiŋ˥˧ ŋiaŋ˧, noun, meaning "a small sum of money", is from the word "penny";
• tă̤h, [thɛʔ˥], noun, meaning "money", is from the word "take";
• gă̤-lō̤, [kɛ˥˧ lo˧], noun, meaning "girl" in a humorous way, is from the word "girl";
• sò̤, [so˥˧], verb, meaning "to shoot (a basket)", is from the word "shoot";
• ă-gì, [a˥ ki˥˧], verb, meaning "to pause (usually a game)", is from the word "again".
• Mā-lăk-gă, [ma˨˩ laʔ˥ ka˥], meaning "Southeastern Asian (esp. Singapore and Malaysia)", is from the word "Malacca".

Other features of Fuzhou dialect grammar

Examples

Some common phrases in Fuzhou dialect:

• Fuzhou dialect: 福州話 Hók-ciŭ-uâ [huʔ˨˩ tsiu˥˧ uɑ˨˦˨] ( listen)
• Hello: 汝好 [ny˧ ho˧]
• Good-bye: 再見 [tsai˥˧ kiɛŋ˨˩˧]
• Please: 請 [tshiaŋ˧]; 起動 [khi˥ lɔyŋ˨˦˨]
• Thank you: 謝謝 [sia˥˧ liɑ˨˦˨]; 起動 Kī-dâe̤ng [khi˥ lɔyŋ˨˦˨]
• Sorry: 對不住 [tøy˨˩ puʔ˥ tsøy˨˦˨]
• This: 嚽 [tsui˥˧]; 啫 [tsia˧]; 茲 [tsi˧]
• That: 噲 [hui˥˧]; 嘻 [hia˧]; 許 [hi˧]
• How much?: 偌 (niŏh-uâi) [nuai˨˦˨] ([nuoʔ˨˩ uɑi˨˦˨])
• Yes: 正是 [tsiaŋ˥˧ nɛi˨˦˨]; 無綻 [mo˨˩ lɑŋ˨˦˨]; 著 (Duŏh) [tyoʔ˥] ([tuoʔ˥])
• No: 伓是 [ŋ˥˧ nɛi˨˦˨]; 綻 [tɑŋ˨˦˨]; 賣著 (Mâ̤ duŏh) [me˥ tyoʔ˥] ([me˥ tuoʔ˥])
• I don't understand: 我賣會意 [ŋuai˧ me˨˩ hui˥˧ ɛi˨˩˧]
• What's his name?: 伊名什乇？ [i˥ miaŋ˥˧ sie˨˩ nɔʔ˨˦]
• Where's the hotel?: 賓館洽底所？ [piŋ˥˧ kuaŋ˧ kaʔ˥ tie˨˦ nœ˧]
• How can I go to the school?: 去學校怎樣行？ [kho˥˧ haʔ˨˩ hɑu˨˦˨ tsuoŋ˥ yɔŋ˨˦˨ kiaŋ˥˧]
• Do you speak Fuzhou dialect?: 汝會講福州話賣？ [ny˧ e˥˧ kouŋ˧ huʔ˨˩ tsiu˥˧ uɑ˨˦˨ ma˨˦˨]
• Do you speak English?: 汝會講英語賣？ [ny˧ e˥˧ kouŋ˧ iŋ˥˧ ŋy˧ ma˨˦˨]

Regional variations

Fuqing dialect

Writing system

Chinese characters

Most of the characters of Fuzhou dialect stem 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 the famous Mǐndū Biéjì (閩都別記, Foochow Romanized: Mìng-dŭ Biék-gé). However, Chinese characters as the writing system for Fuzhou dialect do have many shortcomings.

Firstly, a great number of characters are unique to Fuzhou dialect, so that they can only be written in informal ways. For instance, the character "mâ̤", a negative word, has no common form. Some write it as "賣" or "袂", both of which share with it an identical pronunciation but has a totally irrelevant meaning; 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 if not all take for granted that Fuzhou dialect does not have a formal writing system and when they have to write it, they tend to misuse characters with a similar Mandarin Chinese enunciation. For example, "會使 (â̤ sāi)", meaning "okay", are frequently written as "阿塞" because they are uttered almost in the same way.

Foochow Romanized

Foochow Romanized, also known as Bàng-uâ-cê (平話字, BUC for short) or Hók-ciŭ-uâ Lò̤-mā-cê (福州話羅馬字), is a romanized orthography for Fuzhou dialect adopted in the middle of 19th century by American and English missionaries. It had varied at different times, and became standardized several decades later. Foochow Romanized was mainly used inside of Church circles, and was taught in some Mission Schools in Fuzhou.^[10]

Mǐnqiāng Kuàizì

Mǐnqiāng Kuàizì (閩腔快字, Foochow Romanized: Mìng-kiŏng Kuái-cê), literally meaning "Fujian Colloquial Fast Characters", is a Qieyin System (切音系統) for Fuzhou dialect designed by Chinese scholar and calligrapher Li Jiesan (力捷三) in 1896.

Literary and art forms

See also

• Qī Lín Bāyīn
• Foochow Romanized
• Min Chinese
• Min Dong
• Min Nan
• Chinatown, Brooklyn
• Chinatown, Flushing
• Chinatown, Manhattan
• Manhattan's Little Fuzhou

References

Further reading

• Robert Samuel Maclay, C. C. Baldwin (1870). An alphabetic dictionary of the Chinese language in the Foochow dialect. FOOCHOW: Methodist Episcopal mission press. pp. 1107. http://books.google.com/books?id=kFk-AQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. (Original from the University of California)
• Robert Samuel Maclay, C. C. Baldwin (1870). An alphabetic dictionary of the Chinese language in the Foochow dialect. FOOCHOW: Methodist Episcopal mission press. pp. 1107. http://books.google.com/books?id=hmsuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. (Original from Harvard University)
• Caleb C. Baldwin (1871). A manual of the Foochow dialect. FOOCHOW: Methodist Episcopal Mission Press. pp. 256. http://books.google.com/books?id=wvpDAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-07-06. (Original from Columbia University)

Books and other sources

• Cathryn Donohue: The tone-vowel interaction in Fuzhou revisited, Australian National University
• Chen, Leo & Norman, Jerry: An Introduction to the Foochow Dialect, San Francisco State Coll., CA, 1965.
• Chen, Leo: Foochow-English, English-Foochow glossary, San Francisco, Calif. : Asian Language Publication, c1969.
• Li Zhuqing: Fuzhou-English Dictionary, Dunwoody Press (1998).
• Li Zhuqing: Fuzhou Phonology and Grammar, Dunwoody Press (2002).

External links

• Fuzhou Dialect Textbook: Elementary school textbook in Matsu.
• Fuzhou dialect phonology, by James Campbell.
• An alphabetic dictionary of the Chinese language in the Foochow dialect (1870) (download linkPDF (83 MB)), by R.S. Maclay and C.C. Baldwin.
• An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect (download linkPDF (8.48 MB)), by T.B. Adam, 1905
• Five Languages Translator
• Fuzhou Dialect Resources