| Southern Hokkien Quanzhou–Zhangzhou |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| 泉漳閩語 Zuán–Ziāng Bbán'ggǔ 福佬話 Hō-ló-oē |
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| Spoken in | People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, United States, and other areas of Hoklo settlement | |||
| Region | Southern Fujian province, Taiwan, Southeast Asia | |||
| Ethnicity | Hoklo (Han Chinese) | |||
| Native speakers | c. 47.3 million[1] (2009) | |||
| Language family |
Sino-Tibetan
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| Official status | ||||
| Official language in | None (one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the Republic of China[2]) | |||
| Regulated by | None | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | – | |||
| Linguist List | nan-hok | |||
| nan-fuj (redundant) | ||||
| nan-fuk (redundant) | ||||
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Distribution of Minnan dialects. Hokkien is dark green.
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| Hokkien | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 闽南話 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 闽南话 | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Alternative Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 福佬話 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 福佬话 | ||||||||||||||||||
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' (traditional Chinese: 福佬話; simplified Chinese: 福佬话; pinyin: Fúlǎohuà; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Hō-ló-oē) or Quanzhou–Zhangzhou' (BP: Zuánziū–Ziāngziū) is a group of mutually intelligible Min Nan Chinese dialects spoken by many overseas Chinese throughout Southeast Asia. Its originated from the same dialect in southern Fujian and is mutually intelligible with the Hokkien in Taiwan. It is closely related to Teochew, though mutual comprehension is difficult, and somewhat more distantly related to Hainanese. The Amoy and Taiwanese prestige dialect (based on Tainan variant[3]) are considered standards.
Contents |
The term Hokkien is itself a term not used in Chinese as it would be no different than the name of Fujian province. In Chinese linguistics, these dialects are known by their classification under the Quanzhang Division (Chinese: 泉漳片; pinyin: Quánzhāng piàn) of Min Nan, which comes from the first characters of the two main Hokkien urban centers Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. The language is also known by other terms such as the more general Min Nan (traditional Chinese: 閩南語, 閩南話; simplified Chinese: 闽南语, 闽南话; pinyin: Mǐnnányǔ, Mǐnnánhuà; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Bân-lâm-gí,Bân-lâm-oē) or Southern Min, and Fulaohua (traditional Chinese: 福佬話; simplified Chinese: 福佬话; pinyin: Fúlǎohuà; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Hō-ló-oē).
Hokkien originated in the Southern region of Fujian province, an important centre for trade and migration, and has since been spread beyond China, being one of the most common Chinese languages overseas.
A form of Hokkien akin to that spoken in southern Fujian is also spoken in Taiwan, where it goes by the name Tâi-oân-oē or Hō-ló-oē. The ethnic group for which Hokkien is considered the native language is the Holo or Hoklo, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo people have limited proficiency in Hokkien while some non-Hoklos are fluent in the dialect.
There are many Hokkien speakers among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia as well as in the United States. Many ethnic Chinese emigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian, and brought the language to what is now Burma (Myanmar), Indonesia (the former Dutch East Indies) and present day Malaysia and Singapore (formerly Malaya and the British Straits Settlements). Many of the Hokkien dialects of this region are highly similar to Taiwanese and Amoy. Hokkien is reportedly the native language of up to 98.5% of the Chinese Filipino in the Philippines, among which is known locally as Lan-nang or Lán-lâng-oē ("Our people’s language"). Hokkien speakers form the largest group of Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Southern Fujian is home to three main Hokkien dialects. They are known by the geographic locations to which they correspond (listed north to south):
Since Amoy is the principal city of southern Fujian, its dialect is considered the most important, or even prestige accent. The Amoy dialect is a hybrid of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects. Amoy and the Amoy dialect have played an influential role in history, especially in the relations of Western nations with China, and was one of the most frequently learnt of all Chinese languages/dialects by Westerners during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century.
The variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants, and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Taiwanese is used by a majority of the population and bears much importance from a socio-political perspective, forming the second (and perhaps today most significant) major pole of the language. The variants of Hokkien in Southeast Asia, including Singaporean Hokkien, also originate from these variants.
Variants of Hokkien dialects can be traced to two sources of origin: Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. Both Amoy and Taiwanese are based on a mixture of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, while the rest of the Hokkien dialects spoken in South East Asia are either derived from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, or based on a mixture of both dialects.
During the Three Kingdoms period of ancient China, there was constant warfare occurring in the Central Plain of China. Northerners began to enter into Fujian region, causing the region to incorporate parts of northern Chinese dialects. However, the massive migration of northern Han Chinese into Fujian region mainly occurred after the Disaster of Yongjia. The Jìn court fled from the north to the south, causing large numbers of northern Han Chinese to move into Fujian region. They brought the old Chinese — spoken in Central Plain of China from prehistoric era to 3rd century AD — into Fujian. This then gradually evolved into the Quanzhou dialect.
In 677 (during the reign of Emperor Gaozong), Chen Zheng (陳政), together with his son Chen Yuanguang (陳元光), led a military expedition to pacify the rebellion in Fujian. They settled in Zhangzhou and brought the Middle Chinese phonology of northern China during the 7th century into Zhangzhou; In 885 AD (during the reign of Emperor Xizong of Tang), the two brothers Wang Chao (王潮) and Wang Shenzhi (王審知), led a military expedition force to pacify the Huang Chao rebellion. They brought the Middle Chinese phonology commonly spoken in Northern China into Zhangzhou. These two waves of migrations from the north generally brought the northern Middle Chinese languages into Fujian region. This then gradually evolved into the Zhangzhou dialect.
Xiamen dialect, sometimes known as Amoy, is the main dialect spoken in the Chinese city of Xiamen and its surrounding regions of Tong'an and Xiang'an, both of which are now included in the Greater Xiamen area. This dialect developed in the late Ming dynasty when Xiamen was increasingly taking over Quanzhou's position as the main port of trade in southeastern China. Quanzhou traders began travelling southwards to Xiamen to carry on their businesses while Zhangzhou peasants began traveling northwards to Xiamen in search of job opportunities. It is at this time when a need for a common language arose. The Quanzhou and Zhangzhou varieties are similar in many ways (as can be seen from the common place of Henan Luoyang where they originated), but due to differences in accents, communication can be a problem. Quanzhou businessmen considered their speech to be the prestige accent and considered Zhangzhou's to be a village dialect. Over the centuries, dialect leveling occurred and the two speeches mixed to produce the Amoy dialect.
Chinese scholars of late Ming and Qing had systematically studied the Hokkien dialects of those times and compiled a number of Chinese linguistics books about Hokkien. These include The Phonology of Quanzhou speech (彙音妙悟) by Huang Qian (黃謙), The Phonology of common Zhangzhou speech (彙集雅俗通十五音) by Xie Xiulan (謝秀嵐) etc.
Hokkien has one of the most diverse phonologies among Chinese languages, with more consonants than Standard Mandarin or Cantonese. Vowels are more or less similar to that of standard Mandarin. Hokkien dialects retain many pronunciations that are no longer found in other Chinese dialects. These include the retention of the /t/ initial, which is now /tʂ/ (Pinyin 'zh') in Mandarin (e.g. 'bamboo' 竹 is tik, but zhú in Mandarin), having disappeared before the sixth century in other Chinese dialects.[4]
Southern Min has aspirated, unaspirated as well as voiced consonant initials. This distinction makes Southern Min one of the harder dialects for non-native speakers to learn. For example, the words for opening and closing (khui (開) vs. kuiⁿ (關)) a door have the same vowel but differ only by aspiration of the initial and nasality of the vowel. In addition, Southern Min also has labial initial consonants such as m in m̄-sī (毋是) (meaning "is not").
Another example from Taiwanese is "boy" (cha-po·-kiáⁿ, 查埔囝) vs. "girl" (cha-bó·-kiáⁿ, 查某囝), which differ in the second syllable in consonant voicing and in tone.
Unlike Mandarin, Southern Min retains all the final consonants of Middle Chinese. While Mandarin only preserves the n and ŋ finals, Southern Min also preserves the m, p, t and k finals and developed the ʔ (glottal stop).
In general, Hokkien dialects have 7 to 9 tones, and tone sandhi is extensive.[5] There are minor variations between the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou tone systems. Taiwanese tones follow the schemes of Amoy or Quanzhou, depending on the area of Taiwan. Both Amoy and Taiwanese Hokkien typically has 7 tones; the 9th tone is used only in special or foreign loan words. Quanzhou is the only Hokkien dialect with 8 tones, of which 6th tone is present.[6]
| Tones | 平 | 上 | 去 | 入 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 陰平 | 陽平 | 陰上 | 陽上 | 陰去 | 陽去 | 陰入 | 陽入 | ||
| Tone Number | 1 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 8 | |
| 調值 | Xiamen, Fujian | 44 | 24 | 53 | - | 21 | 22 | 32 | 4 |
| 東 taŋ1 | 銅 taŋ5 | 董 taŋ2 | - | 凍 taŋ3 | 動 taŋ7 | 觸 tak4 | 逐 tak8 | ||
| Taipei, Taiwan | 44 | 24 | 53 | - | 11 | 33 | 32 | 4 | |
| - | |||||||||
| Tainan, Taiwan | 44 | 23 | 41 | - | 21 | 33 | 32 | 44 | |
| - | |||||||||
| Zhangzhou, Fujian | 34 | 13 | 53 | - | 21 | 22 | 32 | 121 | |
| - | |||||||||
| Quanzhou, Fujian | 33 | 24 | 55 | 22 | 41 | 5 | 24 | ||
| - | |||||||||
The Amoy dialect (Xiamen) is a hybrid of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects. Taiwanese is also a hybrid of these two dialects. Taiwanese in northern Taiwan tends to be based on the Quanzhou variety, whereas the Taiwanese spoken in southern Taiwan tends to be based on Zhangzhou's. There are minor variations in pronunciation and vocabulary between Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects. The grammar is generally the same. Additionally, Taiwanese includes several dozen loanwords from Japanese as well as Taiwanese aboriginal languages. On the other hand, the variants spoken in Singapore and Malaysia have a substantial number of loanwords from Malay and to a lesser extent, from English and other Chinese dialects such as the closely related Teochew and some Cantonese.
The Quanzhou dialect, Xiamen dialect, Zhangzhou dialect, Taiwanese and Singaporean Hokkien are mutually intelligible.
The Min Nan varieties of Teochew and Amoy are 84% phonetically similar[7] and 34% lexically similar,[8] whereas Mandarin and Amoy Min Nan are 62% phonetically similar[7] and 15% lexically similar.[8] In comparison, German and English are 60% lexically similar.[9]
Hokkien dialects are analytic; in a sentence, the arrangement of words is important to its meaning.[10] A basic sentence follows the subject–verb–object pattern (i.e. a subject is followed by a verb then by an object), though this order is often violated because Hokkien dialects are topic-prominent. Unlike synthetic languages, seldom do words indicate time, gender and plural by inflection. Instead, these concepts are expressed through adverbs, aspect markers, and grammatical particles, or are deduced from the context. Different particles are added to a sentence to further specify its status or intonation.
A verb itself indicates no grammatical tense. The time can be explicitly shown with time-indicating adverbs. Certain exceptions exist, however, according to the pragmatic interpretation of a verb's meaning. Additionally, an optional aspect particle can be appended to a verb to indicate the state of an action. Appending interrogative or exclamative particles to a sentence turns a statement into a question or shows the attitudes of the speaker.
Hokkien dialects preserve certain grammatical reflexes and patterns reminiscent of the broad stage of Archaic Chinese. This includes the serialization of verb phrases (direct linkage of verbs and verb phrases) and the infrequency of nominalization, both similar to Archaic Chinese grammar.[11]
Choice of grammatical function words also varies significantly among the Hokkien dialects. For instance, 乞 khit (denoting the causative, passive or dative) is retained in Jinjiang (also unique to the Jinjiang dialect is 度 thoo) and Jieyang, but not in Longxi and Xiamen, whose dialects use 互 (hoo) instead.[12]
Hokkien dialects differ in their preferred choice of pronouns. For instance, while the second person pronoun lí (你) is standard in Taiwanese Hokkien, the Teochew loanword lú (汝) is more common among Hokkien-speaking communities in Southeast Asia. The plural personal pronouns tend to be nasalized forms of the singular ones. Personal pronouns found in the Hokkien dialects are listed below:
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| First person | 我 góa |
阮1, 3gún, góan 咱2, 3 or 俺 lán or án 我儂 góa-lâng |
| Second person | 你 lí 汝 lú |
恁 lín 恁儂 lín lâng |
| Third person | 伊 i |
亻因 in 伊儂 i lâng |
Possessive pronouns are marked by the particle ê (的), or its literary version chi (之). Plural pronouns are typically unmarked (the nasalized final serves as the possessive indicator):[13]
Reflexive pronouns are made by appending the pronouns ka-kī, ka-tī (家己) or chū-kí (自己).
Hokkien dialects use a variety of differing demonstrative pronouns, which are as follows:
The interrogative pronouns are:
States and qualities are generally expressed using stative verbs that do not require the verb "to be":
With noun complements, the verb sī (是) serves as the verb "to be".
To indicate location, the words tī (佇) tiàm (踮), teh/leh (咧), which are collectively known as the locatives or sometimes coverbs in Chinese linguistics, are used to express "(to be) at":
Hokkien dialects have a variety of negation particles that are prefixed or affixed to the verbs they modify. There are five primary negation particles in Hokkien dialects:
Other negative particles include:
The particles m̄ (毋, 呣, 唔) is general and can negate almost any verb:
The particle mài (莫, 勿), a concatenation of m-ài (毋愛) is used to negate imperative commands:
The particle bô (無) indicates the past tense:
The verb 'to have', ū (有) is replaced by bô (無) when negated (not 無有):
The particle put (不) is used infrequently, mostly found in literary compounds and phrases:
The majority of Hokkien vocabulary is monosyllabic.[14] Many Hokkien words have cognates in other Chinese languages. That said, there are also many indigenous words that are unique to Hokkien and are not potentially of Sino-Tibetan origin, while others are shared by all the Min languages (e.g. 'congee' is 糜 mê, bôe, bê, not 粥 zhōu, as in other dialects).
As compared to Standard Chinese (Mandarin), Hokkien dialects prefer the usage the monosyllabic form of words, without suffixes. For instance, the Mandarin noun suffix 子 (zi) is not found in Hokkien words, while another noun suffix, 仔 (á) is used in many nouns. Examples are below:
In other bisyllabic morphemes, the syllables are inverted, as compared to Standard Chinese. Examples include the following:
In other cases, the same word can have different meanings in Hokkien and standard written Chinese. Similarly, depending on the region Hokkien is spoken in, loanwords from local languages (Malay, Tagalog, Burmese, among others), as well as other Chinese dialects (such as Southern Chinese dialects like Cantonese and Teochew), are commonly integrated into the vocabulary of Hokkien dialects.
The existence of literary and colloquial readings (文白異讀), called tha̍k-im (讀音), is a prominent feature of some Hokkien dialects and indeed in many Sinitic varieties in the south. The bulk of literary readings (文讀, bûn-tha̍k), based on pronunciations of the vernacular during the Tang dynasty, are mainly used in formal phrases and written language (e.g. philosophical concepts, surnames, and some place names), while the colloquial (or vernacular) ones (白讀, pe̍h-tha̍k) are basically used in spoken language and vulgar phrases. Literary readings are more similar to the pronunciations of the Tang standard of Middle Chinese than their colloquial equivalents.
However, some dialects of Hokkien, such as Penang Hokkien overwhelmingly favor colloquial readings. For example, in Penang Hokkien, the characters for 'university,' 大學, are pronounced toā-ȯh (colloquial readings for both characters), instead of the literary reading tāi-hȧk, which is common in Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese dialects.
The pronounced divergence between literary and colloquial pronunciations found in Hokkien dialects is attributed to the presence of several strata in the Min lexicon. The earliest, colloquial stratum is traced to the Han dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE); the second colloquial one comes from the period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420 - 589 CE); the third stratum of pronunciations (typically literary ones) comes from the Tang Dynasty and is based on the prestige dialect of Chang'an (modern day Xi'an), its capital.[15]
Some commonly seen sound shifts (colloquial → literary) are as follows:
This table displays some widely used characters in Hokkien that have both literary and colloquial readings:
| Word | Reading | Word | Reading | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Literary | Colloquial | Literary | Colloquial | ||
| 白 'white' | pek | pèh | 返 'return' | hoán | tńg |
| 面 'face' | biān | bīn | 學 'school' | ha̍k | o̍h |
| 書 'book' | su | chu | 人 'person' | jîn, lîn | lâng |
| 生 'life' | seŋ | seⁿ, siⁿ | 少 'few' | siáu | chió |
| 明 'bright' | bîng, bêng | bîn, mê, miâ | 轉 'turn' | choán | tńg |
This feature extends to Chinese numerals, which have both literary and colloquial readings. Literary readings are typically used when the numerals are read out loud (e.g. phone numbers), while colloquial readings are used for counting items.[16]
| Numeral | Reading | Numeral | Reading | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Literary | Colloquial | Literary | Colloquial | ||
| 〇 | 空 khòng |
零 lîng |
|||
| 一 | it | chit | 六 | lio̍k | la̍k |
| 二 | jī, lī | nn̄g, nō͘ | 七 | chhit | |
| 三 | sam | saⁿ | 八 | pat | peh, pueh |
| 四 | sù, sɨ | sì | 九 | kiú | káu |
| 五 | ngō | gō | 十 | si̍p | cha̍p |
Quite a few words from the variety of Old Chinese spoken in the state of Wu (where the ancestral language of Min and Wu dialect families originated and which was likely influenced by the Chinese spoken in the state of Chu which itself was not founded by Chinese speakers), and later words from Middle Chinese as well, have retained the original meanings in Hokkien, while many of their counterparts in Mandarin Chinese have either fallen out of daily use, have been substituted with other words (some of which are borrowed from other languages while others are new developments), or have developed newer meanings. The same may be said of Hokkien as well, since some lexical meaning evolved in step with Mandarin while others are wholly innovative developments.
This table shows some Hokkien dialect words from Classical Chinese, as contrasted to the written Chinese standard, Mandarin:
| Meaning | Hokkien | Mandarin | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hanji | POJ | Hanzi | Pinyin | |
| eye | 目睭/目珠 | ba̍k-chiu | 眼睛 | yǎnjīng |
| chopstick | 箸 | tī, tū | 筷子 | kuàizi |
| to chase | 逐 | jiok, lip | 追 | zhuī |
| wet | 潤 | jūn, lūn | 濕 | shī |
| black | 烏 | o͘ | 黑 | hēi |
| book | 冊 | chheh | 書 | shū |
For other words, the classical Chinese meanings of certain words, which are retained in Hokkien dialects, have evolved or deviated significantly in other Chinese dialects. The following table shows some words that are both used in both Hokkien dialects and Mandarin Chinese, while the meanings in Mandarin Chinese have been modified:
| Word | Hokkien | Mandarin | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| POJ | Meaning (and Classical Chinese) |
Pinyin | Meaning | |
| 走 | cáu | to flee | zǒu | to walk |
| 細 | sè, suè | tiny, small, young | xì | thin, slender |
| 鼎 | tiáⁿ | pot | dǐng | tripod |
| 食 | chia̍h | to eat | shí | food |
| 懸 | kuân | tall, high | xuán | to hang, to suspend |
| 喙 | chhuì | mouth | huì | beak |
Some commonly used words, shared by all Min languages, came from the ancient Minyue languages. They include the following examples (compared to the Fuzhou dialect, a Min Dong language:
| Word | Hokkien POJ | Foochow Romanized | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 骹 | kha ([kʰa˥]) | kă ([kʰa˥]) | foot and leg |
| 囝 | kiáⁿ ([kiã˥˩]) | giāng [kiaŋ˧] | son, child, whelp, a small amount |
| 睏 | khùn [kʰun˨˩] | káung [kʰɑuŋ˧] | to sleep |
| 骿 | phiaⁿ [pʰiã˥] | piăng [pʰiaŋ˥] | back, dorsum |
| 厝 | chhù [tsʰu˨˩] | chuó, chió [tsʰuɔ˥˧] | home, house |
| 刣 | thâi [tʰai˨˦] | tài [tʰai˥˧] | to kill, to slaughter |
1 lâng is now typically represented by 人 (literary reading jîn).
Loanwords are not unusual among Hokkien dialects, as speakers readily adopted indigenous terms of the languages they came in contact with. As a result, there is a plethora of loanwords that are not mutually comprehensible among Hokkien dialects.
Taiwanese Hokkien, as a result of linguistic contact with Japanese[17] and aboriginal languages, contains many loanwords from these languages. Among these include the following examples:
Singaporean Hokkien and Malaysian Hokkien dialects like Penang Hokkien tend to draw loanwords from Malay, English as well as other Chinese dialects, primarily Teochew. Examples include:
After the Opium War in 1842, Xiamen (Amoy) became one of the major treaty ports to be opened for trade with the outside world. From mid 19th century onwards, Xiamen slowly developed to become the political, economical and cultural center of the Hokkien-speaking region in China. This caused Amoy dialect to gradually become the "Prestige Standard Hokkien", thus replacing the position of dialect variants from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. Up to today, it is still being regarded as the representative Standard Hokkien dialect. From mid 19th century till the end of World War II, western diplomats usually learned Amoy Hokkien as the preferred dialect if they were to communicate with the Hokkien-speaking populace in China or South-East Asia. In the 1940s and 1950s, Taiwan also held Amoy Hokkien as its standard and tended to incline itself towards Amoy dialect.
However, from 1980s onwards, the development of Hokkien entertainment and media industry in Taiwan caused the Hokkien cultural hub to shift from Xiamen to Taiwan. The flourishing Hokkien entertainment and media industry from Taiwan in the 1990s and early 21st century led Taiwan to emerge as the new significant cultural hub for Hokkien.
In 1990s, marked by the liberalization of language development and mother tongue movement in Taiwan, Taiwanese Hokkien had undergone a fast pace in its development. In 1993, Taiwan became the first region in the world to implement the teaching of Taiwanese Hokkien in Taiwanese schools. In 2001, the local Taiwanese language program was further extended to all schools in Taiwan, and Taiwanese Hokkien became one of the compulsory local Taiwanese languages to be learned in schools.[18] The mother tongue movement in Taiwan even influenced Xiamen (Amoy) to the point that in 2010, Xiamen also began to implement the teaching of Hokkien dialect in its schools.[19] In 2007, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan also completed the standardization of Chinese characters used for writing Hokkien and developed Tai-lo as the standard Hokkien pronunciation and romanization guide. A number of universities in Taiwan also offer Hokkien degree courses for training Hokkien language talents to work for the Hokkien media industry and education. Taiwan also has its own Hokkien literary and cultural circles whereby Hokkien poets and writers compose poetry or literature in Hokkien on a regular basis.
Thus by the 21st century, Taiwan has truly emerged as one of the most significant Hokkien cultural hub of the world. Although Amoy Hokkien continued to be regarded as the historical "Prestige Standard Hokkien", the historical changes and development in Taiwan had led Taiwanese Hokkien to become the more influential pole of the Hokkien dialect after mid 20th century. Today, Taiwanese prestige dialect (Taiyu Youshiqiang/Tongxinqiang 台語優勢腔/通行腔), which is based on Tainan variant and heard on Taiwanese Hokkien media, has also become one of the major "Standard Hokkien" along with Amoy.
Hokkien dialects are typically written using Chinese characters (漢字, Hàn-jī). However, the written script was and remains adapted to the literary form, which is based on classical Chinese, not the vernacular and spoken form. Furthermore, the character inventory used for Mandarin (standard written Chinese) does not correspond to Hokkien words, and there are a large number of informal characters (替字, thè-jī or thuè-jī; 'substitute characters') which are unique to Hokkien (as is the case with Cantonese). For instance, about 20 to 25% of Taiwanese morphemes lack an appropriate or standard Chinese character.[20]
While most Hokkien morphemes have standard designated characters, they are not always etymological or phono-semantic. Similar-sounding, similar-meaning or rare characters are commonly borrowed or substituted to represent a particular morpheme. Examples include "beautiful" (美 bí is the literary form), whose vernacular morpheme suí is represented by characters like 媠 (an obsolete character), 婎 (a vernacular reading of this character) and even 水 (transliteration of the sound suí), or "tall" (高 ko is the literary form), whose morpheme kuân is 懸.[21] Common grammatical particles are not exempt; the negation particle m̄ (not) is variously represented by 毋, 呣 or 唔, among others. In other cases, characters are invented to represent a particular morpheme (a common example is the non-standard character 亻因 i, which represents the personal pronoun "you"). In addition, some characters have multiple and unrelated pronunciations, adapted to represent Hokkien words, such as 肉 for bah ("meat"), although it also has distinct colloquial and literary readings as well (hi̍k and jio̍k, lio̍k respectively).[13] Another case is the word 'to eat,' chia̍h, which is often transcribed in Taiwanese newspapers and media as 呷 (a Mandarin transliteration, xiā, to approximate the Hokkien term), even though its recommended character in dictionaries is 食.[22]
Moreover, unlike Cantonese, Hokkien does not have a universally accepted standardized character set. Thus, there is some variation in the characters used to express certain words and characters can be ambiguous in meaning. In 2007, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China formulated and released a standard character set to overcome these difficulties.[23] These standard Chinese characters for writing Taiwanese Hokkien are now taught in schools in Taiwan.
Hokkien, especially Taiwanese, is sometimes transcribed with the Latin alphabet using one of several Romanized orthographies. Of these the most popular is Pe̍h-ōe-jī (traditional Chinese: 白話字; simplified Chinese: 白话字; pinyin: Báihuàzì). POJ was developed first by Presbyterian missionaries in China and later by the indigenous Presbyterian Church in Taiwan; use of the orthography has been actively promoted since the late 19th century. The use of a mixed orthography of Han characters and romanization is also seen, though remains uncommon. Other Latin-based orthographies also exist.
Minnan texts, all Hokkien, can be dated back to the 16th century. One example is the Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china, presumably written after 1587 by the Spanish Dominicans in the Philippines. Another is a Ming Dynasty script of a play called Romance of the Lychee Mirror (1566), supposedly the earliest Southern Min colloquial text. Xiamen University has also developed a romanisation system based on Pinyin, which has been published in a dictionary called the Minnan Fangyan-Putonghua Cidian (閩南方言普通話詞典) and a language teaching book, which is used to teach the language to foreigners and Chinese non-speakers. This system is known as Pumindian.
Taiwan has also developed a romanization system for Taiwanese Hokkien derived from Pe̍h-ōe-jī.[24] It is known as Tai-lo and since 2006 has been officially promoted by Taiwan's Ministry of Education and taught in Taiwanese schools.
Hokkien is registered as "Southern Min" per RFC 3066 as zh-min-nan.[25]
When writing Hokkien in Chinese characters, some writers create 'new' characters when they consider it impossible to use directly or borrow existing ones; this corresponds to similar practices in character usage in Cantonese, Vietnamese chữ nôm, Korean hanja and Japanese kanji. These are usually not encoded in Unicode (or the corresponding ISO/IEC 10646: Universal Character Set), thus creating problems in computer processing.
All Latin characters required by Pe̍h-ōe-jī can be represented using Unicode (or the corresponding ISO/IEC 10646: Universal Character Set), using precomposed or combining (diacritics) characters. Prior to June 2004, the vowel akin to but more open than o, written with a dot above right, was not encoded. The usual workaround was to use the (stand-alone; spacing) character Interpunct (U+00B7, ·) or less commonly the combining character dot above (U+0307). As these are far from ideal, since 1997 proposals have been submitted to the ISO/IEC working group in charge of ISO/IEC 10646—namely, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2—to encode a new combining character dot above right. This is now officially assigned to U+0358 (see documents N1593, N2507, N2628, N2699, and N2713). Font support is expected to follow.
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