Sanming dialect

The Sanming dialect (Central Min: 三明事, Mandarin Chinese: 三明話) is a dialect of Central Min spoken in urban areas of Sanming, a prefecture-level city in Western Fujian Province, China.

Sanming
三明事
Pronunciation	[sɔ̃ ˥˥˧ mã˦˩ ʃia˧]
Native to	Southern China
Region	Sanming, Fujian
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Min Inland Min Central Min Sanming
Early forms	Proto-Sino-Tibetan Old Chinese[a] Proto-Min
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
Linguasphere	79-AAA-hbb
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Phonology

The Sanming dialect has 18 initials, 37 rimes and 6 tones.

Initials

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Velar
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Stop	Tenuis	p	t		k
	Aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		kʰ
Affricate	Tenuis		ts	tʃ
	Aspirated		tsʰ	tʃʰ
Fricative			s	ʃ	x
Glide			l

• Initials /m, ŋ/ may also be heard as prenasal [mb, ŋɡ] in free variation. When the two initials are followed by non-nasalized rimes, they can be heard as voiced plosives [b, ɡ].
• Palato-alveolar sounds /tʃ, tʃʰ, ʃ/ can also be heard as alveolo-palatal sounds [tɕ, tɕʰ, ɕ] in free variation among speakers.

Rimes

	Open syllable		Nasal coda	Nasal vowel coda
Open mouth	ɹ̩ ɛ ɒ a ɯ ø	aɯ au	am aiŋ m̩	ã ɔ̃
Even mouth	i iɛ iɒ ia iɯ	iau	iam iaiŋ	iã iɔ̃ ɛ̃
Closed mouth	u uɛ ui o		ŋ̍	uã
Round mouth	y yi yɛ yo		yaiŋ	yã yɛ̃

Tones

No.	1	2	3	4	5	6
Tone name	dark level 陰平	light level 陽平	dark rising 陰上	light rising 陽上	departing 去聲	entering 入聲
Tone contour	˥˥˧ 553	˦˩ 41	˨˩ 21	˨˩˧ 213	˧ 33	˩˨ 12

The entering tones in the Sanming dialect do not have any entering tone coda (入聲韻尾) such as /-ʔ/, /-p̚/, /-t̚/ and /-k̚/. This feature is quite different from many other Chinese dialects.

Notes

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