Fu'an dialect

The Fu'an dialect (福安話) is a dialect of Eastern Min, which is a branch of Min Chinese spoken mainly in the eastern part of Fujian Province, China.

Fu'an
Native to	Southern China
Region	Ningde, Fu'an, Shouning, Zhouning and Zherong, Fujian province
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Min Coastal Min Eastern Min Funing Fu'an
Early forms	Proto-Sino-Tibetan Old Chinese[a] Proto-Min
Writing system	Chinese characters
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
ISO 639-6	fuua
Glottolog	None
Linguasphere	79-AAA-ibc

The Fu'an dialect covers two city and three counties: Ningde, Fu'an, Shouning, Zhouning and Zherong County.

Phonology

The Fu'an dialect has 18 initials, 50 rimes and 7 tones.

Initials

	Labial		Dental	Alveolar		Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
Stop	p	pʰ		t	tʰ			k	kʰ	ʔ
Nasal	m			n				ŋ
Fricative	(β)	(f)	θ			(ʒ)	(ç)		x
Affricate				ts	tsʰ
Lateral				l
Approximant							j	ɰ

Rimes

Open syllable	i	u	e	ɛ	ø	œ	o	ɔ	a
		ui	ei					ɔi	ai
									uai
	iu		eu	ɛu			ou		au
									iau
Nasal coda	iŋ (in, im)	uŋ (un, um)			øŋ (øn, øm)	œŋ (œn, œm)			aŋ (an, am)
							ioŋ (ion, iom)		iaŋ (ian, iam)
									uaŋ (uan, uam)
				ɛŋ (ɛn, ɛm)			ouŋ (oun, oum)	ɔuŋ (ɔun, ɔum)
Glottal coda	iʔ	uʔ			øʔ	œʔ	oʔ	ɔʔ	aʔ
							ioʔ		iaʔ
									uaʔ
			eiʔ	ɛiʔ			ouʔ	ɔuʔ
Nasal	m̝	n̝	ŋ̍	hŋ̍

Tones

No.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Tone name	dark level 陰平	light level 陽平	rising 上聲	dark departing 陰去	light departing 陽去	dark entering 陰入	light entering 陽入
Tone contour	˧˧˨ 332	˨ 22	˦˨ 42	˧˥ 35	˨˧ 23	˥ 5	˨ 2

Progressive assimilation

The Coda of the Former Syllable	The initial assimilation of the Latter Syllable
Null coda	/k/, /kʰ/ and /h/ change to null initial; /ts/, /tsʰ/ and /s/ change to null initial, /l/ or /ʒ/.
coda /-ŋ/	/t/, /tʰ/ change to /n/; /p/, /pʰ/ change to /m/; /k/, /kʰ/ and /h/ change to /ŋ/; /ts/, /tsʰ/ and /s/ change to /ŋ/, /n/ or /ʒ/.
coda /-k̚/	/t/, /tʰ/ change to /l/; /k/, /kʰ/ and /h/ change to null initial; /ts/, /tsʰ/ and /s/ change to null initial, /l/ or /ʒ/.

Anticipatory assimilation

Tone sandhi

The two-syllable tonal sandhi rules are shown in the table below (the rows give the first syllable's original citation tone, while the columns give the citation tone of the second syllable). Shaded cells indicate that tones of both the first and second syllables undergo change.

	dark level 332	light level 22	rising 42	dark departing 35	light departing 23	dark entering 5	light entering 2
dark level 332			55	55	44		44
light level 22	332		35+42	55	44		44
rising 42	23+332		35+42	55	44		44
dark departing 35			55	55	44		44
light departing 23			55	55	44		44
dark entering 5			55	55	44		44
light entering 2			35+5	55	44		44

Notes

1. Min is believed to have split from Old Chinese, rather than Middle Chinese like other varieties of Chinese.^[1][2][3]