Jian'ou dialect

The Jian'ou dialect (Northern Min: Gṳ̿ing-é-dī / 建甌事; Chinese: simplified Chinese: 建瓯话; traditional Chinese: 建甌話; pinyin: Jiàn'ōuhuà), also known as Kienow dialect, is a local dialect of Northern Min Chinese spoken in Jian'ou in northern Fujian province. It is regarded as the standard common language in Jian'ou.

Jian'ou
Gṳ̿ing-é-dī / 建甌事
Pronunciation	[kuiŋ˧ ɪ˥˦ ti˦]
Native to	Southern China
Region	Jian'ou, Fujian province
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Min Inland Min Northern Min Jian'ou
Early forms	Proto-Sino-Tibetan Old Chinese[a] Proto-Min
Writing system	Chinese character, Kienning Colloquial Romanized
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	jian1240
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Jian'ou dialect
Traditional Chinese	建甌話
Simplified Chinese	建瓯话
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Jiàn'ōuhuà
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	建甌事
Simplified Chinese	建瓯事
Transcriptions Northern Min Jian'ou Romanized Gṳ̿ing-é-dī ([kuiŋ˧ ɪ˥˦ ti˦])

Bible in Jian'ou Romanised (Genesis), published by the British and Foreign Bible Society.

Phonetics and phonology

According to The Eight Tones of Kien-chou (建州八音), a rime dictionary published in 1795, the Jian'ou dialect had 15 initials, 34 rimes and 7 tones in the 18th century, however there are only 6 tones in the modern dialect as the "light level" (陽平) tone has disappeared.

Initials

Initials of the Jian'ou dialect

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless unaspirated	p	t	k	ʔ
	voiceless aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	kʰ
Affricate	voiceless unaspirated		ts
	voiceless aspirated		tsʰ
Fricative			s	x
Approximant			l

Rimes

Rimes of the Jian'ou dialect

	Open syllable										Nasal coda
Open mouth		a	e[4]	ɛ	œ	ɔ	o[5]	ai	au			aŋ	aiŋ	eiŋ	œyŋ	ɔŋ [6]
Even mouth	i	ia		iɛ		iɔ			iau	iu	iŋ	iaŋ		ieiŋ[7]		iɔŋ
Closed mouth	u	ua		uɛ [8]				uai			uiŋ [9]	uaŋ	uaiŋ			uɔŋ
Round mouth	y			yɛ [8]							yiŋ [9]

Tones

Jian'ou has four tones, which are reduced to two in checked syllables.

Tone chart of the Jian'ou dialect

Tone number	Tone name	Tone contour
1	level (平聲)	˥˦ (54) or ˥ (5)
2	rising (上聲)	˨˩ (21) or ˩ (1)
3	dark departing (陰去)	˧ (3)
4	light departing (陽去)	˦ (4)
5	dark entering (陰入)	˨˦ (24)
6	light entering (陽入)	˦˨ (42)

The entering tones in the Jian'ou dialect do not have any entering tone coda (入聲韻尾) such as /-ʔ/, /-p̚/, /-t̚/ and /-k̚/ which makes it distinct from many other Chinese varieties.

Notes

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