Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

Hainanese

Min Chinese dialects spoken on the island of Hainan From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hainanese
Remove ads

Hainanese (Hainan Romanised: Hái-nâm-oe, Hainanese Pinyin: Hhai3 nam2 ue1, simplified Chinese: 海南话; traditional Chinese: 海南話; pinyin: Hǎinánhuà), also known as Qiongwen (simplified Chinese: 琼文话; traditional Chinese: 瓊文話), Qiongyu (琼语; 瓊語) or Hainan Min (海南闽语; 海南閩語) [5] is a group of Min Chinese varieties spoken in the far southern Chinese island province of Hainan and regional overseas Chinese communities such as in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

Quick Facts Pronunciation, Native to ...
Thumb
The Book of Genesis in Bǽh-oe-tu, published by the Bible Society of Great Britain

In the classification of Yuan Jiahua, it was included in the Southern Min group, being mutually unintelligible with other Southern Min varieties such as HokkienTaiwanese and Teochew.[6] In the classification of Li Rong, used by the Language Atlas of China, it was treated as a separate Min subgroup.[7] Hou Jingyi combined it with Leizhou Min, spoken on the neighboring mainland Leizhou Peninsula, in a Qiong–Lei group.[8] "Hainanese" is also used for the language of the Li people living in Hainan, but generally refers to Min varieties spoken in Hainan.

Remove ads

Phonology

Summarize
Perspective

The phonologies of the different varieties of Hainanese are highly divergent,[9] with the Wenchang dialect being the prestige dialect, and often used as a reference.[10]

Consonants

Below is a table for the consonants of Hainanese across the dialects of Wenchang, Haikou and the dialect of Banqiao Town, in Dongfang.[9] For more information on a specific variety, please consult the relevant article.

More information Labial, Dental ...
  1. Present in the Banqiao dialect.
  2. Present in the Haikou dialect.
  3. Present in the Wenchang dialect, where there is a phonemic distinction between voiced and implosive stop consonants.
  4. Present in the Wenchang dialect.
  5. Not usually transcribed as /ɠ/, and not phonemically distinct from /g/ in the Wenchang dialect or from /ŋ/ in other Hainanese varieties.[11]

Many of the most widely spoken varieties of Hainanese notably have a series of implosive consonants, /ɓ/ and /ɗ/, which were acquired through contact with surrounding languages, probably Hlai. However, more conservative varieties of Hainanese such as Banqiao remain closer to Teochew and other varieties of Southern Min, lack them.[9]

The consonant system of Hainanese corresponds well with that of Hokkien, but it has had some restructuring. In particular:[9]

  • Etymological plain stops have undergone implosivization (*p > [ɓ], *t > [ɗ]) in the more innovative varieties such as Wenchang and Haikou.
  • Etymological aspirated stops have spirantized (*pʰ > [ɸ], *tʰ > [h], *tsʰ > [ɕ], *kʰ > [h~x]) in more innovative varieties.
  • The lenition of an historic *b into [v] in Banqiao and Haikou, though not in Wenchang.
  • Former *s has hardened into a stop (*s > [t]), although in the more conservative Banqiao dialect some instances have only undergone fortition to (*s > [θ]), and others have remained [s].
  • Former *h has become [ɦ] in Wenchang.

Additionally, [ʑ] is an allophone of /j/.

These changes also make Hainanese fairly close to Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary.

More information Chinese character, Mandarin ...

Vowels

Hainanese has seven phonemic vowels.[citation needed]

More information Front, Central ...

Tones

More information Tone number, Tone name ...
Remove ads

Romanization

Hainanese Pinyin

Hainanese Pinyin (海南话拼音方案) is a phonetic system announced by the Education Administration Department of Guangdong Province in September 1960. It marks tones with numbers.

Initials

More information IPA, Bǽh-oe-tu ...

Finals

More information IPA, Bǽh-oe-tu ...
Remove ads

Grammar

Hainanese is known for having post-verbal locative prepositional phrases,[12] as opposed to having such phrases in the pre-verbal position, as is common in most other varieties of Chinese. For example:

ʔi24

3SG

大聲

ɗua24 tia24

loudly

hi21

cry

ɗu33

in

房裡

ɓaŋ21-lɛ33

room-LOC

 

(Haikou)

 

大聲 房裡

ʔi24 ɗua24 tia24 hi21 ɗu33 ɓaŋ21-lɛ33

3SG loudly cry in room-LOC

He was crying loudly in the room.

This has been attributed to contact with the Kra–Dai languages of Hainan, such as Hlai and Be.[12]

See also

Notes

  1. Min is believed to have split from Old Chinese, rather than Middle Chinese like other varieties of Chinese.[2][3][4]

References

Further reading

Loading related searches...

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads