Hainanese

Bible in Hainan Romanised (Genesis), published by the Bible Society of Great Britain.

Hainanese (simplified Chinese: 海南话; traditional Chinese: 海南話; pinyin: Hǎinán huà), also known as Qióng Wén (simplified Chinese: 琼文; traditional Chinese: 瓊文) or Qióng yǔ (瓊語/琼语), is a variety of Min Nan Chinese spoken in the southern Chinese island province of Hainan, and is a part of a language family that sometimes includes Leizhou Min, spoken on the neighboring mainland Leizhou Peninsula. "Hainanese" is also used to describe the language of the Li people living in Hainan, but generally refers to the Chinese dialect spoken in Hainan.

Hainanese is mutually unintelligible with other Min Nan varieties, such as Teochew and Hokkien–Taiwanese, which has led to it being occasionally designated as Qiongwen Min, a separate language from Min Nan.

Phonology

Hainanese has a simple vowel system .

Hainanese notably has a series of implosive consonants, which it acquired through contact with surrounding languages, probably Hlai.

The phonological system of Hainanese corresponds well with that of Hokkien, but it has had some restructuring. In particular, etymological *anterior plain stops have undergone implosivization (*p > [ɓ], *t > [ɗ], etymological *aspirated stops have spirantized (*pʰ > [f], *tʰ > [h], *cʰ > [ɕ] *kʰ > [x]), and etymological *s have hardened into stops (*s > [t]), and *h > [ɦ]. Additionally, some dialects have [ɡ], and [ʑ] is allophonic with /j/.

References

Further reading

• Solnit, David B. (1982). "Linguistic Contact in Ancient South China: The Case of Hainan Chinese, Be, and Vietnamese". Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 8: 219–230. 

External links

• Learn hainanese

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