Wenchang dialect

Not to be confused with Wencheng dialect.

The Wenchang dialect (simplified Chinese: 文昌话; traditional Chinese: 文昌話; pinyin: Wénchānghuà) is a dialect of Hainanese spoken in Wenchang, a county-level city in the northeast of Hainan, an island province in southern China.

Wenchang
文昌话
Native to	Southern China
Region	Wenchang, Hainan
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Min Coastal Min Southern Min? Qiong–Lei Hainanese Wenchang
Early forms	Proto-Sino-Tibetan Old Chinese[a] Proto-Min
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	wenc1234  Wenchang
Linguasphere	> 79-AAA-kdb 79-AAA-kd > 79-AAA-kdb
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It is considered the prestige form of Hainanese, and is used by the provincial broadcasting media.

Phonology

The initials of the Wenchang dialect are as follows:^[4]

Wenchang dialect initials

		Bilabial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop / Affricate	voiceless		t	tɕ	k	ʔ
	voiced implosive	ɓ	ɗ
	voiced	b	d	dʑ	g
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Fricative	voiceless	ɸ	s	ɕ		h
	voiced	(w)		(j)		ɦ
Lateral			l

The semivowels [w] and [j] are in complementary distribution with [ɦ], and may be treated as allophones of the same phoneme.^[5] The voiced stops /d/ and /g/ occur with only about ten words each.^[6]

There are five vowels, /i/, /u/, /ɛ/, /ɔ/ and /a/.^[7] The high vowels /i/ and /u/ may also occur as medials.^[8]

The possible finals are:^[9]

Wenchang dialect finals

Vocalic codas			Nasal codas			Stop codas
a 阿	ai 爱	au 后	am 暗	an 安	aŋ 红	ap 盒	at 达	ak 北
ɛ 下	ei 事				eiŋ 英			eik 益
i 皮		iu 手		in 新		ip 邑	it 必
ia 写		iau 妖	iam 念	iɛn 联	iaŋ 谁	iap 狭	iɛt 捏	iak 菊
iɔ 笑			iom 心		iɔŋ 用	iop 涩		iɔk 育
ɔ 歌	ɔi 鞋	ou 侯	ɔm 栾	ɔn 春	ɔŋ 公	ɔp 合	ɔt 黜	ɔk 乐
u 有	ui 气			un 轮			ut 脫
ua 娃	uai 快			uan 湾	uaŋ 广		uat 挖	uak 廓
ue 话
			m̩ 毋		ŋ̍ 嗯

The Wenchang dialect has six tones on isolated syllabes:^[10]

Wenchang tones

	level (píng 平)	rising (shàng 上)	departing (qù 去)	entering (rù 入)
upper (yīn 阴)	˦	ʔ˨˩	˩	ʔ˥˩
lower (yáng 阳)	˧	ʔ˦˨

Notes

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