Haikou dialect

The Haikou dialect is a topolect of Chinese and a subvariety of Hainanese spoken in Haikou, the capital of the Hainan province and island of China.

Haikou
海口話
Pronunciation	[hai˨˩˧ xau˨˩˧ ue˨˧]
Native to	Southern China
Region	Haikou, Hainan
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Min Coastal Min Qiong–Lei Hainanese Haikou
Early forms	Proto-Sino-Tibetan Old Chinese[a] Proto-Min
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	hain1237
Linguasphere	79-AAA-ked
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Phonology

The Haikou dialect has the following initials:^[4]

		Labial	Dental	Sibilant	Velar	Glottal
Stop / Affricate	voiceless		t	ts	k	ʔ
	voiced implosive	ɓ	ɗ
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Fricative	voiceless	f		s	x	h
	voiced	v		z
Lateral			l

The finals are:^[5]

Vocalic codas			Nasal codas			Stop codas
a	ai	au	am		aŋ	ap		ak
ia		iau	iam		iaŋ	iap		iak
ua	uai				uaŋ			uak
ɛ	e				eŋ			ek
ue
o	ɔi	ɔu	ɔm		ɔŋ	ɔp		ɔk
io					iɔŋ			iɔk
i		iu	im	in		ip	it
u	ui			un	oŋ		uk	ok

There are also two syllabic nasals, /m̩/ and /ŋ̍/.^[5]

The tone categories (described using Chao tone letters) are:^[5][6]

	level	rising	departing	entering
upper	˨˦	˨˩˧	˧˥	˥
lower	˨˩	˧		˧
		ʔ˥

See also

• Hainan Romanized

Notes

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