Hokkien

Hokkien
Hokkien
Traditional Chinese	福建話
Simplified Chinese	福建话
Hanyu Pinyin
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Fújiànhuà
Hakka
Romanization	Fuk5-gien4-fa4
Yue: Cantonese
Yale Romanization	Fuk1-gin3-wa6
Southern Min
Hokkien POJ	Hok-kiàn-oē
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	福佬話
Simplified Chinese	福佬话
Hanyu Pinyin
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Fúlǎohuà
Hakka
Romanization	Fuk5-lau3-fa4
Yue: Cantonese
Yale Romanization	Fuk1-lou2-wa6
Southern Min
Hokkien POJ	Hok-ló-oē

Hokkien
Hokkien
泉漳 Choân-chiang/Chôan-Chiang ; 福建話 Hok-kiàn-oē ; 福佬話 Hok-ló-oē
Native to	People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, and other areas of Hoklo settlement
Region	Southern Fujian province, Taiwan, Southeast Asia
Native speakers	c. 47.3 million
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Chinese Min Southern Min Hokkien; ; ; ;
Official status
Official language in	None (Legislative bills have been proposed for Taiwanese to be one of the 'national languages' in the Republic of China); one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the ROC [1]
Regulated by	None (Republic of China Ministry of Education and some NGOs are influential in Taiwan)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	zh
ISO 639-2	chi (B) ; zho (T)
ISO 639-3	nan
	; Distribution of Minnan dialects.

Hokkien (simplified Chinese: 福建话; traditional Chinese: 福建話; pinyin: Fújiànhuà; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Hok-kiàn-oē) is a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in southern Fujian, Taiwan, and by many overseas Chinese throughout Southeast Asia. The language is also known by other terms such as Minnanyu (simplified Chinese: 闽南语; traditional Chinese: 閩南語; pinyin: MǐnNánYǔ; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Bân-lâm-gí)， Fulaohua (simplified Chinese: 福佬话; traditional Chinese: 福佬話; pinyin: Fúlǎohuà; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Hok-ló-oē), or Quanzhou–Zhangzhou,^{[citation needed]}.

It is closely related to Teochew, though mutual comprehension is difficult, and somewhat more distantly related to Hainanese, with which it shares only minimal intelligibility.

Hokkien includes a variety of dialects of which Amoy and Taiwanese prestige accent (based on Tainan variant^[2]) are considered standards, being in the middle of dialectic divides and thus enjoying the highest intelligibility amongst the varying dialects.

Geographic distribution

Hokkien originated in the Southern regions 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 have limited proficiency in Hokkien while some non-Hoklos speak it fluently.

There are many Hokkien speakers among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Many ethnic Chinese emigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian, and brought the language to what is now 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 community of ethnic Chinese in the Philippines, among whom it is also known as Lan-nang or Lán-lâng-oē ("Our people’s language"). Hokkien speakers form the largest group of Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Classification

Southern Fujian is home to three main Hokkien dialects. They are known by the geographic locations to which they correspond (listed north to south):

Chôan-chiu (Chinchew / Quanzhou) ([泉州] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help))
Ē-mn̂g (Amoy / Xiamen) ([廈門] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help))
Chiang-chiu (Changchew / Zhangzhou) ([漳州] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help))

As 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 Chinchew and Changchew 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 also originate from these variants.

Phonology

Hokkien has one of the most diverse phonologies amongst Chinese languages, with more consonants than standard Mandarin or Cantonese. Vowels, on the other hand, are more or less similar to that of Standard Mandarin.

Initials

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] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help)) vs. kuiⁿ ([關] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help))) 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] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help)) (meaning "is not"). Another example from Taiwanese is "boy" (da-bor) vs. "girl" (zha-bor), which differ in the second syllable in consonant voicing and in tone.

Finals

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).

Vowels

Front

Near-front

Central

Near-back

Back

Close

[[Close front unrounded vowel|i]]([[Close front rounded vowel|y]])

[[Close central unrounded vowel|ɨ]]

[[Close back rounded vowel|u]]

[[Close-mid front unrounded vowel|e]]

[[Close-mid back rounded vowel|o]]([[Close-mid back unrounded vowel|ɤ]])

[[Mid central vowel|ə]]

[[Open-mid front unrounded vowel|ɛ]]

[[Open-mid back rounded vowel|ɔ]]

[[Near-open central vowel|ɐ]]

[[Open front unrounded vowel|a]]

Near‑close

Close‑mid

Mid

Open‑mid

Near‑open

Open

Tones

In general, Hokkien dialects have five to six tones, and tone sandhi is extensive. There are minor variations between the Tsuan-Tsiu and Tsiang-Tsiu tone systems. Taiwanese tones follow the schemes of Amoy and Changchew, depending on the area of Taiwan. See also Amoy dialect for more examples.

Tones		陰平	陽平	陰上	陽上	陰去	陽去	陰入	陽入
Tones		平		上		去		入
Tone Number		1	5	2	6	3	7	4	8
調值	Xiamen, Fujian	44	24	53	-	21	22	32	4
	Xiamen, Fujian	東 taŋ¹	銅 taŋ⁵	董 taŋ²	-	凍 taŋ³	動 taŋ⁷	觸 tak⁴	逐 tak⁸
	Taipei, Taiwan	44	24	53	-	11	33	32	4
	Taipei, Taiwan				-
	Tainan, Taiwan	44	23	41	-	21	33	32	44
	Tainan, Taiwan				-
	Zhangzhou, Fujian	34	13	53	-	21	22	32	121
	Zhangzhou, Fujian				-
	Quanzhou, Fujian	33	24	55	22	41		5	24
	Quanzhou, Fujian				-

^[3]

Comparison

Amoy speech (Xiamen) is a hybrid of Chinchew (Quanzhou) and Changchew (Zhangzhou) speech. Taiwanese is also a hybrid of these two dialects. Taiwanese in northern Taiwan tends to be based on Chinchew speech, whereas the Taiwanese spoken in southern Taiwan tends to be based on Changchew speech. There are minor variations in pronunciation and vocabulary between Chinchew and Changchew speech. The grammar is basically the same. Additionally, Taiwanese includes several dozen loanwords from Japanese. 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 languages.

Mutual intelligibility

Spoken: Chinchew (Quanzhou) speech, Xiamen (Amoy) speech, Changchew (Zhangzhou) speech and Taiwanese are mutually intelligible.

Teochew and Amoy Hokkien speech are 84% phonetically similar^[4] and 34% lexically similar,^[5] whereas Mandarin and Amoy Min Nan are 62% phonetically similar^[4] and 15% lexically similar.^[5] In comparison, German and English are 60% lexically similar.^[6]

Scripts and orthographies

Like most ethnic Chinese, whether from mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, or other parts of Southeast Asia, Hokkien speakers do not write their language with Chinese characters. Hence, the inventory used for Mandarin in not a complete match for Hokkien, and there are a number of informal characters which are unique to Hokkien (as is the case with Cantonese). Where standard Chinese ^{[disambiguation needed]} characters are used, they are not always etymological or genetic; the borrowing of similar-sounding or similar-meaning characters is a common practice. However, unlike Cantonese, Hokkien does not have a standardized character set and thus there is some variation in the characters used to express certain words. Currently, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China is formulating and releasing a standard character set to overcome these difficulties.

Romanization

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 (simplified Chinese: 白話字; traditional Chinese: 白話字). 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 AD), 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 (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 is known as Pumindian in the table below.

Vowels
IPA	a	ap	at	ak	aʔ	ã	ɔ	ɔk	ɔ̃	ə	o	e	ẽ	i	iɛn	iəŋ
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	a	ap	at	ak	ah	aⁿ	o͘	ok	oⁿ	o	o	e	eⁿ	i	ian	eng
Revised TLPA	a	ap	at	ak	ah	aN	oo	ok	ooN	o	o	e	eN	i	ian	ing
TLPA	a	ap	at	ak	ah	ann	oo	ok	oonn	o	o	e	enn	i	ian	ing
BP	a	ap	at	ak	ah	na	oo	ok	noo	o	o	e	ne	i	ian	ing
MLT	a	ab/ap	ad/at	ag/ak	aq/ah	va	o	og/ok	vo	ø	ø	e	ve	i	ien	eng
DT	a	āp/ap	āt/at	āk/ak	āh/ah	ann/aⁿ	o	ok	onn/oⁿ	or	or	e	enn/eⁿ	i	ian/en	ing
Taiwanese kana	アア	アㇷ゚	アッ	アㇰ	アァ	アア	オオ	オㇰ	オオ	オオ	ヲヲ	エエ	エエ	イイ	イェヌ	イェン
Extended bopomofo	ㄚ	ㄚㆴ	ㄚㆵ	ㄚㆻ	ㄚㆷ	ㆩ	ㆦ	ㆦㆻ	ㆧ	ㄜ	ㄛ	ㆤ	ㆥ	ㄧ	ㄧㄢ	ㄧㄥ
Tâi-lô	a	ap	at	ak	ah	ann	oo	ok	onn	o	o	e	enn	i	ian	ing
Example (traditional Chinese)	亞洲	壓力	警察	沃水	牛肉	三十	烏色	中國		澳洲	澳洲	下晡		醫學	鉛筆	英國
Example (simplified Chinese)	亚洲	压力	警察	沃水	牛肉	三十	乌色	中国		澳洲	澳洲	下晡		医学	铅笔	英国

Vowels
IPA	iək	ĩ	ai	aĩ	au	am	ɔm	m̩	ɔŋ	ŋ̍	u	ua	ue	uai	uan	ɨ	(i)ũ
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	ek	iⁿ	ai	aiⁿ	au	am	om	m	ong	ng	u	oa	oe	oai	oan	i	(i)uⁿ
Revised TLPA	ik	iN	ai	aiN	au	am	om	m	ong	ng	u	ua	ue	uai	uan	ir	(i)uN
TLPA	ik	inn	ai	ainn	au	am	om	m	ong	ng	u	ua	ue	uai	uan	ir	(i)unn
BP	ik	ni	ai	nai	au	am	om	m	ong	ng	u	ua	ue	uai	uan	i	n(i)u
MLT	eg/ek	vi	ai	vai	au	am	om	m	ong	ng	u	oa	oe	oai	oan	i	v(i)u
DT	ik	inn/iⁿ	ai	ainn/aiⁿ	au	am	om	m	ong	ng	u	ua	ue	uai	uan	i	(i)unn/uⁿ
Taiwanese kana	イェㇰ	イイ	アイ	アイ	アウ	アム	オム	ム	オン	ン	ウウ	ヲア	ヲエ	ヲァイ	ヲァヌ	ウウ	ウウ
Extended bopomofo	ㄧㆻ	ㆪ	ㄞ	ㆮ	ㆯ	ㆰ	ㆱ	ㆬ	ㆲ	ㆭ	ㄨ	ㄨㄚ	ㄨㆤ	ㄨㄞ	ㄨㄢ	ㆨ	ㆫ
Tâi-lô	ik	inn	ai	ainn	au	am	om	m	ong	ng	u	ua	ue	uai	uan	ir	(i)unn
Example (traditional Chinese)	翻譯	病院	愛情		歐洲	暗時		阿姆	王梨	黃色	有無	歌曲	講話	奇怪	人員	豬肉	舀水
Example (simplified Chinese)	翻译	病院	爱情		欧洲	暗时		阿姆	王梨	黄色	有无	歌曲	讲话	奇怪	人员	猪肉	舀水

Consonants
IPA	p	b	pʰ	m	t	tʰ	n	nŋ	l	k	ɡ	kʰ	h	tɕi	ʑi	tɕʰi	ɕi	ts	dz	tsʰ	s
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	p	b	ph	m	t	th	n	nng	l	k	g	kh	h	chi	ji	chhi	si	ch	j	chh	s
Revised TLPA	p	b	ph	m	t	th	n	nng	l	k	g	kh	h	zi	ji	ci	si	z	j	c	s
TLPA	p	b	ph	m	t	th	n	nng	l	k	g	kh	h	zi	ji	ci	si	z	j	c	s
BP	b	bb	p	bb	d	t	n	lng	l	g	gg	k	h	zi	li	ci	si	z	l	c	s
MLT	p	b	ph	m	t	th	n	nng	l	k	g	kh	h	ci	ji	chi	si	z	j	zh	s
DT	b	bh	p	m	d	t	n	nng	l	g	gh	k	h	zi	r	ci	si	z	r	c	s
Taiwanese kana	パア	バア	パ̣ア	マア	タア	タ̣ア	ナア	ヌン	ラア	カア	ガア	カ̣ア	ハア	チイ	ジイ	チ̣イ	シイ	サア	ザア	サ̣ア	サア
Extended bopomofo	ㄅ	ㆠ	ㄆ	ㄇ	ㄉ	ㄊ	ㄋ	ㄋㆭ	ㄌ	ㄍ	ㆣ	ㄎ	ㄏ	ㄐ	ㆢ	ㄑ	ㄒ	ㄗ	ㆡ	ㄘ	ㄙ
Tâi-lô	p	b	ph	m	t	th	n	nng	l	k	g	kh	h	tsi	ji	tshi	si	ts	j	tsh	s
Example (traditional Chinese)	報紙	閩南	普通	請問	豬肉	普通	過年	雞卵	樂觀	價值	牛奶	客廳	煩惱	支持	漢字	支持	是否	報紙	熱天	參加	司法
Example (simplified Chinese)	报纸	闽南	普通	请问	猪肉	普通	过年	鸡卵	乐观	价值	牛奶	客厅	烦恼	支持	汉字	支持	是否	报纸	热天	参加	司法

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˧	ap˥ at˥ ak˥ aʔ˥	a˥˥	a˨
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	a	á	à	ap at ak ah	â		ā	a̍p a̍t a̍k a̍h		--a
TLPA (and Revised TLPA)	a1	a2	a3	ap4 at4 ak4 ah4	a5	a6	a7	ap8 at8 ak8 ah8	a9	a0
BP	ā	ǎ	à	āp āt āk āh	á		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		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	アㇷ゚アッアㇰアァ
Extended bopomofo	ㄚ	ㄚˋ	ㄚ˪	ㄚㆴ ㄚㆵ ㄚㆻ ㄚㆷ	ㄚˊ		ㄚ˫	ㄚㆴ˙ ㄚㆵ˙ ㄚㆻ˙ ㄚㆷ˙
Tâi-lô	a	á	à	ah	â	ǎ	ā	a̍h	a̋	--ah
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	昨昏	入去
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	昨昏	入去

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).

Computing

Hokkien is registered as "Southern Min" per RFC 3066 as zh-min-nan [2].

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.

References

^ http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size
^ http://baike.baidu.com/view/340828.htm
^ 周長楫，《閩南方言大詞典》，福建人民出版社，2006年:17, 28頁。ISBN 7-211-03896-9。
^ ^a ^b glossika Southern Min Language phonetics
^ ^a ^b glossika Southern Min Language Cite error: The named reference "lex" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
^ Ethnologue: German

External links

當代泉州音字彙, a dictionary of Chinchew speech
台語-華語線頂辭典, Taiwanese-Mandarin on-line dictionary
臺灣本土語言互譯及語音合成系統, Taiwanese-Hakka-Mandarin on-line conversion
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!)

Template:Southern Min Languages

[1] ttp://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size

[2] ttp://baike.baidu.com/view/340828.htm

[3] 周長楫，《閩南方言大詞典》，福建人民出版社，2006年:17, 28頁。ISBN 7-211-03896-9。

[phonetics-4] ssika Southern Min Language phonetics

[lex-5] ssika Southern Min Language Cite error: The named reference "lex" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).

[6] Ethnologue: German

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