| Meixian | |
|---|---|
| Meizhou | |
| Spoken in | Southern China, Taiwan |
| Region | Meixian |
| Language family | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Linguist List | hak-yue |
Meixian dialect (Moiyen), also known as Meizhou (梅州話) is the prestige dialect of Hakka Chinese and the primary form of Hakka on Taiwan. Ethnologue calls it Yue-Tai, and it also goes by the name Raoping.
Contents |
There are two series of stops and affricates in Hakka, both voiceless: tenuis /p t ts k/ and aspirated /pʰ tʰ tsʰ kʰ/.
| Labial | Dental | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | /m/ ⟨m⟩ | /n/ ⟨n⟩ | [ɲ] ⟨ng(i)⟩ ~ /ŋ/ ⟨ng⟩* | |||
| Plosive | plain | /p/ ⟨b⟩ | /t/ ⟨d⟩ | /k/ ⟨g⟩ | (ʔ) | |
| aspirated | /pʰ/ ⟨p⟩ | /tʰ/ ⟨t⟩ | /kʰ/ ⟨k⟩ | |||
| Affricate | plain | /ts/ ⟨z⟩ ~ [tɕ] ⟨j(i)⟩* | ||||
| aspirated | /tsʰ/ ⟨c⟩ ~ [tɕʰ] ⟨q(i)⟩* | |||||
| Fricative | /f/ ⟨f⟩ | /s/ ~ [ɕ] ⟨x(i)⟩* | /h/ ⟨h⟩ | |||
| Approximant | /ʋ/ ⟨v⟩ | /l/ ⟨l⟩ | /j/ ⟨y⟩ | |||
* When the initials /ts/ ⟨z⟩, /tsʰ/ ⟨c⟩, /s/ ⟨s⟩, and /ŋ/ ⟨ng⟩ are followed by a palatal medial /j/ ⟨i⟩, they become [tɕ] ⟨j⟩, [tɕʰ] ⟨q⟩, [ɕ] ⟨x⟩, and [ɲ] ⟨ng⟩, respectively.
Moiyen Hakka has seven vowels, [i ɨ ɛ a ə ɔ u], that are romanised as i, ê, a, e, o and u, respectively. The palatisation medial ([j]) is represented by i and the labialisation medial ([w]) is represented as u.
Moreover, Hakka rimes exhibits the final consonants found in Middle Chinese, namely [m, n, ŋ, p, t, k] which are romanised as m, n, ng, b, d, and g respectively in the official Moiyen romanisation.
| vowel | medial + vowel | -i | -u | -m | -n | -ŋ | -p | -t | -k | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Syllabics | m | ŋ | ||||||||
| a | ai | au | am | an | aŋ | ap | at | ak | ||
| ia | iai | iau | iam | ian | iaŋ | iap | iat | iak | ||
| ua | uai | uan | uaŋ | uat | uak | |||||
| ɛ | ɛu | ɛm | ɛn | ɛp | ɛt | |||||
| iɛ | iɛn | iɛt | ||||||||
| uɛ | uɛn | uɛt | ||||||||
| i | iu | im | in | ip | it | |||||
| ɔ | ɔi | ɔn | ɔŋ | ɔt | ɔk | |||||
| iɔ | iɔn | iɔŋ | iɔk | |||||||
| uɔ | uɔn | uɔŋ | uɔk | |||||||
| u | ui | un | uŋ | ut | uk | |||||
| iui | iun | iuŋ | iut | iuk | ||||||
| ɨ | əm | ən | əp | ət |
Moiyen has four tones, which are reduced to two before a final stop consonant. The Middle Chinese fully voiced initial characters became aspirated voiceless initial characters in Hakka. Before that happened, the four Middle Chinese 'tones', ping, shang, qu, ru, underwent a voicing split in the case of ping and ru, giving the dialect six tones in traditional accounts.
| Tone number | Tone name | Hanzi | Tone letters | number | English |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | yin ping | 陰平 | ˦ | 44 | high |
| 2 | yang ping | 陽平 | ˩ | 11 | low |
| 3 | shang | 上 | ˧˩ | 31 | low falling |
| 4 | qu | 去 | ˥˧ | 53 | high falling |
| 5 | yin ru | 陰入 | ˩ʔ | 1 | low checked |
| 6 | yang ru | 陽入 | ˥ʔ | 5 | high checked |
These so called yin-yang tonal splittings developed mainly as a consequence of the type of initial a Chinese character had during the Middle Chinese stage in the development of Chinese languages, with voiceless initial characters [p- t- k-] tending to become of the yin type, and the voiced initial characters [b- d- ɡ-] developing into the yang type. In modern Moiyen Hakka however, part of the Yin Ping tone characters have sonorant initials [m n ŋ l] originally from the Middle Chinese Shang tone characters and fully voiced Middle Chinese Qu tone characters, so the voiced/voiceless distinction should be taken only as a rule of thumb.
Hakka tone contours differs more as one moves away from Moiyen. For example the Yin Ping contour is ˧ (33) in Changting (長汀) and ˨˦ (24) in Sixian (四縣), Taiwan.
Hakka preserves all of the entering tones of Middle Chinese and it is split into two registers. Meixian has the following:
Middle Chinese entering tone syllables ending in [k] whose vowel clusters have become front high vowels like [i] and [ɛ] shifts to syllables with [t] finals in modern Hakka[1] as seen in the following table.
| Character | Guangyun Fanqie | Middle Chinese reconstruction[2] |
Hakka | Main meaning in English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 職 | 之翼切 | tɕĭək | tsit˩ | vocation, profession |
| 力 | 林直切 | lĭək | lit˥ | strength, power |
| 食 | 乗力切 | dʑʰĭək | sit˥ | eat, consume |
| 色 | 所力切 | ʃĭək | sɛt˩ | colour, hue |
| 德 | 多則切 | tək | tɛt˩ | virtue |
| 刻 | 苦得切 | kʰək | kʰɛt˩ | carve, engrave, a moment |
| 北 | 博墨切 | pək | pɛt˩ | north |
| 國 | 古或切 | kuək | kʷɛt˩ | country, state |
For Moiyen Hakka, the yin ping and qu tone characters exhibit sandhi when the following character has a lower pitch. The pitch of the yin ping tone changes from ˦ (44) to ˧˥ (35) when sandhi occurs. Similarly, the qu tone changes from ˥˧ (53) to ˦ (55) under sandhi. These are shown in red in the following table.
| + ˦ Yin Ping | + ˩ Yang Ping | + ˧˩ Shang | + ˥˧ Qu | + ˩ʔ Yin Ru | + ˥ʔ YangRu | + Neutral | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ˦ Yin Ping + | ˦.˦ | ˧˥.˩ | ˧˥.˧˩ | ˧˥.˥˧ | ˧˥.˩ʔ | ˦.˥ʔ | ˧˥.˧ |
| ˥˧ Qu + | ˥˧.˦ | ˥.˩ | ˥.˧˩ | ˥.˥˧ | ˥.˩ʔ | ˥˧.˥ʔ | ˥.˧ |
The neutral tone occurs in some postfixes. It has a mid pitch.
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