Amoy dialect

Amoy (Chinese: 廈門話; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ē-mn̂g-ōe or Ē-mûiⁿ-ōa), also known as Amoy Min, Xiamenese or Xiamen dialect, is a Hokkien dialect spoken in Southern Fujian province (in Southeast China), in the area centered on the city of Xiamen. Amoy Min is often known by its Hokkien or Min Nan in Southeast Asia. It is one of the most widely researched varieties of Min Nan,^[2] and has historically come to be one of the more standardized varieties.^[3]

Spoken Amoy and Taiwanese are both mixtures of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou speech.^[4] As such, they are very closely aligned phonologically. However, there are some subtle differences between the two, as a result of physical separation and other historical factors. The lexical differences between the two are slightly more pronounced. Generally speaking the Hokkien dialects of Amoy, Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia are mutually intelligible.

History

In 1842, as a result of the signing of the Treaty of Nanking, Xiamen (Amoy) was designated as a trading port. Xiamen and Gulangyu islands rapidly developed, which resulted in a large influx of people from neighboring areas such as Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. The mixture of these various accents formed the basis for Amoy.

Over the last several centuries, a large number of Hoklo people from these same areas migrated to Taiwan during Dutch rule and Qing rule. Eventually, the mixture of accents spoken in Taiwan became popularly known as Taiwanese during Japanese rule. As in British and American English, there are subtle lexical and phonological differences between modern Taiwanese and Amoy; however, these differences do not generally pose any barriers to communication. Amoy speakers also spread to Southeast Asia, where it became widely known as Hokkien.

Special characteristics

Spoken Amoy Min preserves many of the sounds and words from Old Chinese. However, the vocabulary of Amoy was also influenced in its early stages by the languages of the Minyue peoples.^[5] Spoken Amoy is known for its extensive use of nasalization.

Unlike Mandarin, Amoy distinguishes between voiced and voiceless unaspirated initial consonants (Mandarin has no voicing of initial consonants). Unlike English, it differentiates between unaspirated and aspirated voiceless initial consonants (as Mandarin does too). In less technical terms, native Amoy speakers have little difficulty in hearing the difference between the following syllables:

However, these fully voiced consonants did not derive from the Early Middle Chinese voiced obstruents, but rather from fortition of nasal initials.^[6]

Accents

A comparison between Amoy and other Min Nan dialects can be found there.

Tones

Amoy is similar to other Min Nan dialects in that it makes use of five tones, though only two in checked syllables. The tones are traditionally numbered from 1 through 8, with 4 and 8 being the checked tones, but those numbered 2 and 6 are identical in most regions.

Tone sandhi

Amoy has extremely extensive tone sandhi (tone-changing) rules: in an utterance, only the last syllable pronounced is not affected by the rules. What an 'utterance' is, in the context of this language, is an ongoing topic for linguistic research. For the purpose of this article, an utterance may be considered a word, a phrase, or a short sentence. The diagram illustrates the rules that govern the pronunciation of a tone on each of the syllables affected (that is, all but the last in an utterance):

Literary and colloquial readings

Like other varieties of Min Nan, Amoy has complex rules for literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters. For example, the character for big, 大, has a vernacular reading of tōa ([tua˧]), but a literary reading of tāi ([tai˧]). Because of the loose nature of the rules governing when to use a given pronunciation, a learner of Amoy must often simply memorize the appropriate reading for a word on a case by case basis. For single-syllable words, it is more common to use the vernacular pronunciation. This situation is comparable to the on and kun readings of Japanese.

The vernacular readings are generally thought to predate the literary readings; the literary readings appear to have evolved from Middle Chinese. The following chart illustrates some of the more commonly seen sound shifts:

Vocabulary

For further information, read the article: Swadesh list

The Swadesh word list, developed by the linguist Morris Swadesh, is used as a tool to study the evolution of languages. It contains a set of basic words which can be found in every language.

• The Amoy Min Nan Swadesh list
• The Sino-Tibetan Swadesh lists (Mandarin, Cantonese, Amoy, Teochew, Hakka, Burmese)

Grammar

Amoy grammar shares a similar structure to other Chinese dialects, although it is slightly more complex than Mandarin. Moreover, equivalent Amoy and Mandarin particles are usually not cognates.

Complement constructions

Amoy complement constructions are roughly parallel to Mandarin ones, although there are variations in the choice of lexical term. The following are examples of constructions that Amoy employs.

In the case of adverbs:

English: He runs quickly.

Amoy: i cháu ē kín (伊走會緊)

Mandarin: tā pǎo de kuài (他跑得快)

Gloss: He-runs-obtains-quick.

In the case of the adverb "very":

English: He runs very quickly.

Amoy: i cháu chiok kín (伊走足緊)

Mandarin: tā pǎo de hěn kuài (他跑得很快)

Gloss: He-runs-obtains-quick.

English: He does not run quickly.

Amoy: i cháu bē kín (伊走未緊)

Mandarin: tā pǎo bù kuài (他跑不快)

Gloss: He-runs-not-quick

English: He can see.

Amoy: i khòaⁿ ē tio̍h (伊看會著)

Mandarin: tā kàn de dào (他看得到)

Gloss: He-see-obtains-already-achieved

For the negative,

English: He cannot see.

Amoy: i khòaⁿ bē tio̍h (伊看未著)

Mandarin: tā kàn bù dào (他看不到)

Gloss: He-sees-not-already achieved

For the adverb "so," Amoy uses kah (甲) instead of Mandarin de (得):

English: He was so startled, that he could not speak.

Amoy: i kiaⁿ "kah" ōe mā kóng boē chhut-lâi (伊驚甲話每講未出來)

Mandarin: tā xià de huà dōu shuō bù chūlái (他嚇得話都說不出來)

Gloss: He-startled-to-the point of-words-also-say-not-come out

Negative particles

Negative particle syntax is parallel to Mandarin about 70% of the time, although lexical terms used differ from those in Mandarin. For many lexical particles, there is no single standard Hanji character to represent these terms (e.g. m̄, a negative particle, can be variously represented by 毋, 呣, and 唔), but the most commonly used ones are presented below in examples. The following are commonly used negative particles:

1. m̄ (毋, 呣, 唔) - is not + noun (Mandarin 不, bù)

   i m̄-sī gún lāu-bú. (伊毋是阮老母) She is not my mother.

2. m̄ - does not + verb/will not + verb (Mandarin 不, bù)

   i m̄ lâi. (伊毋來) He will not come.

3. verb + bē (未 or 袂) + particle - is not able to (Mandarin 不, bù)

   góa khòaⁿ-bē-tio̍h. (我看未著) I am not able to see it.

4. bē (未) + helping verb - cannot (opposite of ē 會, is able to/Mandarin 不, bù)

   i bē-hiáu kóng Eng-gú. (伊未曉講英語) He can't speak English.

   • helping verbs that go with bē (未)

     bē-sái (未使) - is not permitted to (Mandarin 不可以 bù kěyǐ)

     bē-hiáu (未曉) - does not know how to (Mandarin 不会, búhuì)

     bē-tàng (未當) - not able to (Mandarin 不能, bùnéng)

5. mài (莫, 勿, or 嘜) - do not (imperative) (Mandarin 別, bié)

   mài kóng! (莫講) Don't speak!

6. bô (無) - do not + helping verb (Mandarin 不, bù)

   i bô beh lâi. (伊無侎來) He is not going to come.

   • helping verbs that go with bô (無):

     beh (侎 or 欲) - want to + verb; will + verb

     ài (愛) - must + verb

     èng-kai (應該) - should + verb

     kah-ì (合意) - like to + verb

7. bô (無) - does not have (Mandarin 沒有, méiyǒu)

   i bô chîⁿ. (伊無錢) He does not have any money.

8. bô - did not (Mandarin 沒有, méiyǒu)

   i bô lâi. (伊無來) He did not come.

9. bô (無) - is not + adjective (Mandarin 不, bù)

   i bô súi. (伊無婎 or 伊無媠) She is not beautiful.

   • Hó (good) is an exception, as it can use both m̄ and bô.

Common particles

Commonly seen particles include:

• 與 (hō·) - indicates passive voice (Mandarin 被, bèi)

  i hō· lâng phiàn khì (伊與人騙去) - They were cheated

• 共 (kā) - identifies the object (Mandarin 把, bǎ)

  i kā chîⁿ kau hō· lí (伊共錢交與你) - He handed the money to you

• 加 (ke) - "more"

  i ke chia̍h chi̍t óaⁿ (伊加食一碗) - He ate one more bowl

• 共 (kā) - identifies the object

  góa kā lí kóng (我共你講) - I'm telling you

• 濟 (choē) - "more"

  i ū khah choē ê pêng-iú (伊有較濟的朋友) - He has comparatively many friends

Romanization

A number of Romanization schemes have been devised for Amoy. Pe̍h-ōe-jī is one of the oldest and best established. However, the Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet has become the romanization of choice for many of the recent textbooks and dictionaries from Taiwan.

Tones

Tone name	Yin level 陰平(1)	Yin rising 陰上(2)	Yin departing 陰去(3)	Yin entering 陰入(4)	Yang level 陽平(5)	Yang rising 陽上(6)	Yang departing 陽去(7)	Yang entering 陽入(8)	High rising (9)	Neutral tone (0)
IPA	a˥	a˥˧	a˨˩	ap˩ at˩ ak˩ aʔ˩	a˧˥	a˥˧	a˧	ap˥ at˥ ak˥ aʔ˥	a˥˥	a˨
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	a	á	à	ap at ak ah	â	á	ā	a̍p a̍t a̍k a̍h		--a
Revised TLPA, TLPA	a1	a2	a3	ap4 at4 ak4 ah4	a5	a2 (6=2)	a7	ap8 at8 ak8 ah8	a9	a0
BP	ā	ǎ	à	āp āt āk āh	á	ǎ	â	áp át ák áh
MLT	af	ar	ax	ab ad ag aq	aa	aar	a	ap at ak ah		~a
DT	a	à	â	āp āt āk āh	ǎ	à	ā	ap at ak ah	á	å
Taiwanese kana (normal vowels)	アア	アア	アア	アㇷ゚ アッ アㇰ アァ	アア	アア	アア	アㇷ゚ アッ アㇰ アァ
Taiwanese kana (nasal vowels)	アア	アア	アア	アㇷ゚ アッ アㇰ アァ	アア	アア	アア	アㇷ゚ アッ アㇰ アァ
Extended bopomofo	ㄚ	ㄚˋ	ㄚ˪	ㄚㆴ ㄚㆵ ㄚㆶ ㄚㆷ	ㄚˊ	ㄚˋ	ㄚ˫	ㄚㆴ˙ ㄚㆵ˙ ㄚㆶ˙ ㄚㆷ˙
Tâi-lô	a	á	à	ah	â	á (ǎ)	ā	a̍h	a̋	--a
Example (traditional Chinese)	公司	報紙	興趣	血壓 警察 中國 牛肉	人員		草地	配合 法律 文學 歇熱	社子	進去
Example (simplified Chinese)	公司	报纸	兴趣	血压 警察 中国 牛肉	人员		草地	配合 法律 文学 歇热	社子	进去

• Note: The bopomofo extended characters in the zhuyin row require a UTF-8 font capable of displaying Unicode values 31A0–31B7 (ex. Code2000 true type font).

See also

• Languages of China
• Min Nan
• Quanzhou
• Zhangzhou
• Taiwanese
• Penang Hokkien
• Lan-nang
• Languages of Taiwan
• Chinese in Singapore
• Written Hokkien
• Amoy Min Nan Swadesh list
• Sino-Tibetan Swadesh lists

References

Sources

• To understand the beauty of Taiwanese (愛說台語五千年 -- 台語聲韻之美) (in Mandarin and Taiwanese). ISBN 978-986-7101-47-1.  CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link)
• A vocabulary and sentence structure comparison between Mandarin, Taiwanese and English (華台英詞彙句式對照集) (in Mandarin, Taiwanese, and English). ISBN 957-11-3822-3.  CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link)
• Papers on Southern Min Syntax (閩南語語法研究試論) (in Mandarin/Min Nan/English). ISBN 957-15-0948-5.  CS1 maint: Unrecognized language (link)
• Douglas, Carstairs (1899) [1873]. Chinese-English dictionary of the vernacular or spoken language of Amoy (2nd ed.). London: Presbyterian Church of England. OL 25126855M. 
• Barclay, Thomas (1923). Supplement to Dictionary of the vernacular or spoken language of Amoy. Shanghai: The Commercial press, limited. 
• MacGowan, John (1898). A manual of the Amoy colloquial ... (4th ed.). Amoy: Chui Keng Ton. OCLC 41546744. Retrieved 2014-12-15. 

External links

Chinese (Min Nan) edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look up Appendix:Min Nan Swadesh list in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• {Why it is Called Amoy}, Why Minnan is called "Amoy"
• listen to the news in Amoy Min Nan (site is in Chinese script)
• Database of Pronunciations of Chinese Dialects (in English, Chinese and Japanese)
• Glossika - Chinese Languages and Dialects
• Voyager - Spacecraft - Golden Record - Greetings From Earth - Amoy, includes translation and sound clip

  (The voyager clip says: Thài-khong pêng-iú, lín-hó. Lín chia̍h-pá--bē? Ū-êng, to̍h lâi gún chia chē--ô·! 太空朋友，恁好。恁食飽未？有閒著來阮遮坐哦!)