Fuzhou dialect

Fuzhou dialect

Chinese
s=
t=
p=Fúzhōu huà
j=fuk1 zau1 waa2
poj=Hok-chiu-oē
buc=Hók-ciŭ-uâ
(IPA2|huʔ21 tsiu53242)
t2=linktext|平|話
s2=linktext|平|话
p2=Píng huà
j2=ping4 waa2
buc2=Bàng-uâ
(IPA2|paŋ21242)

language
name= Foochowese
nativename=福州話 / 平話


states= People's Republic of China (Fuzhou and its surrounding counties); Republic of China (Matsu Islands); Malaysia (Sibu, Miri, Sarikei, Bintulu, Yong Peng, Sitiawan and Ayer Tawar); Indonesia; Singapore; and some Chinese communities in Southeast Asia and the west, particularly in the Chinatowns of New York and London.
speakers= Less than ten million
familycolor=Sino-Tibetan
pronunciation=
fam1=Sino-Tibetan
fam2=Chinese
fam3=Min
fam4=Min Dong
script=Chinese characters and Foochow Romanized
nation=none; one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the Matsu Islands, Republic of China [http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E7%9C%BE%E9%81%8B%E8%BC%B8%E5%B7%A5%E5%85%B7%E6%92%AD%E9%9F%B3%E8%AA%9E%E8%A8%80%E5%B9%B3%E7%AD%89%E4%BF%9D%E9%9A%9C%E6%B3%95]
iso1=zh|iso2b=chi|iso2t=zho|iso3=cdo|

Foochowese (福州話, Foochow Romanized: Audio|Cdo fuzhou dialect.ogg|"Hók-ciŭ-uâ"), also known as Fuzhou dialect, Foochow dialect, Foochow, Fuzhounese, or Fuzhouhua, is considered the standard dialect of Min Dong, which is a branch of Min Chinese mainly spoken in the eastern part of Fujian Province. Native speakers also call it Unicode|Bàng-uâ (平話), meaning the language spoken in everyday life. In Singapore and Malaysia, the language is known as Hokchiu, which is the Min Dong pronunciation of Fuzhou (福州).

Although traditionally called a dialect, Foochowese is actually a separate language according to linguistic standards, because it is not mutually intelligible with other Min languages, let alone other Chinese languages. Therefore, whether Foochowese is a "dialect" or a "language" is highly disputable.

Centered in Fuzhou City, Foochowese mainly covers eleven cities and counties, viz.: Fuzhou (福州), Pingnan (屏南), Gutian (古田), Luoyuan (羅源), Minqing (閩清), Lianjiang (連江, Matsu included), Minhou (閩侯), Changle (長樂), Yongtai (永泰), Fuqing (福清) and Pingtan (平潭). Foochowese is also the second local language in northern and middle Fujian cities and counties, like Nanping (南平), Shaowu (邵武), Shunchang (順昌), Sanming (三明) and Youxi (尤溪).

Foochowese is also widely spoken in some regions abroad, especially in Southeastern Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. The city of Sibu in Malaysia is called "New Fuzhou" due to the influx of immigrants there in the early 1900s. Similarly, the language has spread to the USA, UK and Japan as a result of immigration in recent decades.

History

Formation

After Han China's occupation of Minyue (閩越) in 110 BC, Han people began its reign in what is Fujian Province today. Having lost their nationalities, the aboriginal Minyue people, a branch of Yue peoples (百越), were gradually assimilated into Chinese culture. [In Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historian", it is recorded that after the fall of Minyue, Emperor Wu of Han emptied its territory by ordering an exodus of the entire Minyue population to the area between the Yangtze River and Huai River ("武帝時,閩越反,滅之,徙其人於江淮閒,盡虛其地。").] The Ancient Wu and Ancient Chu language brought by the mass influx of Han immigrants from Northern area gradually mixed with the local Minyue language and finally developed into the Ancient Min language, from which Foochowese evolved. [Li Rulong, Liang Yuzhang: Fuzhou Dialect Records, 2001, ISBN 7-80597-361-X]

Foochowese came into being during the period somewhere between late Tang Dynasty and "Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms" [Ditto.] , and has been considered by most as a Chinese dialect ever since. However, it is also worth noting that its substratum is constituted by large quantities of well-preserved Minyue vocabulary. In this sense, Foochowese is a "de facto" mixed language of Ancient Chinese and Minyue language.

The famous book "Qī Lín Bāyīn" (戚林八音, Foochow Romanized: "Chék Lìng Báik-ĭng"), which was compiled in the 17th century, is the first and the most full-scale rime book that provides a systematic guide to character reading for people speaking or learning Foochowese. It once served to standardize the language and is still widely quoted as an authoritative reference book in modern academic research in Chinese phonology.

Studies by early Western missionaries

In 1842, Fuzhou was open to Westerners as a treaty port after the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing. But due to the language barrier, however, the first Christian missionary base in this city did not take place without difficulties. In order to convert Fuzhou people, those missionaries found it very necessary to make a careful study of the Foochowese. Their most notable works are listed below: [Li, Zhuqing: A study of the "Qī Lín Bāyīn", University of Washington, 1993]

:* 1856, M. C. White: :* 1870, R. S. Maclay & C. C. Baldwin: An alphabetic dictionary of the Chinese language in the Foochow dialect:* 1871, C. C. Baldwin: Manual of the Foochow dialect:* 1891, T. B. Adam: An English-Chinese dictionary of the Foochow dialect:* 1893, Charles Hartwell: [http://rare.fhl.net/ob.php?book=38&page=1&submit1=%E6%9F%A5%E8%A9%A2 Three Character Classic of Gospel in the Foochow Colloquial ] :* 1898, R. S. Maclay & C. C. Baldwin: An alphabetic dictionary of the Chinese language of the Foochow dialect, 2nd edition:* 1906, The Foochow translation of the complete Bible ( [http://historical.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/cul.cdl/docviewer?did=cdl181&view=50&frames=0&seq=5] , [http://historical.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/cul.cdl/docviewer?did=cdl180&seq=3&frames=0&view=50] ):* 1923, T. B. Adam & L. P. Peet: An English-Chinese dictionary of the Foochow dialect, 2nd edition:* 1929, R. S. Maclay & C. C. Baldwin (revised and enlarged by S. H. Leger):

Status quo

By the end of the Qing Dynasty, Fuzhou society had been largely monolingual. But for decades the Chinese government has discouraged the use of the colloquial in school education and in media, so the number of Mandarin speakers has been greatly boosted. It is reported that merely less than half of the children and youngsters in Fuzhou are able to speak this language. [ [http://news.fznews.com.cn/fuzhou/2006-10-19/20061019+6Qa5T+h2223174.shtml Survey by Fuzhou Evening Paper Showing Less Than Half of Fuzhou Youth Able to Speak Fuzhou Dialect] (Chinese)]

Nevertheless, it should be noted that Foochowese is currently widely spoken among some native speakers as an "endearing" language. Speaking Foochowese in Fuzhou often allows mutual speakers a certain level of familiarity. Even though Mandarin Chinese is more often heard in casual conversations on the city streets, the careful observer will notice that in more communal settings, such as small neighborhoods in the city or the surrounding countryside, Foochowese is often the dominant language.

In Mainland China, Foochowese has been officially listed as Intangible Cultural Heritage [ [http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2008-06/11/content_8346274.htm Fuzhou Dialect Protected as Intangible Cultural Heritage] (Chinese)] and its promotion work is being systematically carried out. In Matsu, Taiwan, the teaching of Foochowese has been successfully introduced into elementary schools, alongside the Taiwanese localization movement.

Grammar

:"This section is about Standard Foochowese only. See Regional variations for a discussion of other dialects."

Phonetics

Phonetically, Foochowese is a tonal language, which has extremely extensive sandhi rules in the initials, rimes, and the tones. These over-complicated rules make Foochowese one of the most difficult Chinese languages. [Yuan Jiahua: Summary of Chinese Dialects, 2nd Edition, 2003, ISBN 9787801264749]

Tones

There are seven original tones in Foochowese, which reserves the tonal system of Ancient Chinese:

The Chinese characters in the brackets are also sample characters from "Qī Lín Bāyīn".

Most Chinese linguists argue that Foochowese should be described as possessing a null onset. In fact, any character that has a null onset begins with a glottal stop IPA| [ʔ] .

Some speakers find it difficult to distinguish between the initials IPA|/n/ and IPA|/l/] .

No such labiodental phonemes as IPA|/f/ or IPA|/v/ exist in Foochowese, which is one of the most conspicuous characteristics shared by all branches in the Min Family, as well as Korean and Japanese.

IPA| [β] and IPA| [ʒ] exist in connected speech (see Initial assimilation below) only.

Initial assimilation

In Foochowese, there are various kinds of initial assimilation (聲母類化), all of which are progressive. When two or more than two characters combine into a phrase, the initial of the first character stays unchanged while those of the following characters, in most cases, change to match its preceding phoneme, i.e., the coda of its preceding character.

As has been mentioned above, there are theoretically two different entering tonal codas in Foochowese: IPA|/-k/ and IPA|/-ʔ/. But for most Foochowese speakers, those two codas are only distinguishable when in the tonal sandhi or initial assimilation. Therefore, most Chinese linguists think that the codas IPA|/-k/ and IPA|/-ʔ/ has merged together.

Close/Open rimes

All rimes come in pairs in the above table: the one to the left represents a close rime (緊韻), while the other represents an open rime (鬆韻). The close/open rimes are closely related with the tones. As single characters, the tones of Ĭng-bìng (陰平), Siōng-siăng (上聲), Iòng-bìng (陽平) and Iòng-ĭk (陽入) have close rimes while Ĭng-ké̤ṳ (陰去), Ĭng-ĭk (陰入) and Iòng-ké̤ṳ (陽去) have the open rimes. In connected speech, an open rime shifts to its close counterpart in the tonal sandhi.

For instance, "福" (hók) is a Ĭng-ĭk character and is pronounced as IPA| [houʔ24] and "州" (ciŭ) a Ĭng-bìng character with the pronunciation of IPA| [tsiu55] . When these two characters combine into the word "福州" (Hók-ciŭ, Fuzhou), "福" changes its tonal value from "24" to "21" and, simultaneously, shifts its rime from IPA| [-ouʔ] to IPA| [-uʔ] , so the phrase is pronounced as IPA| [huʔ21 tsiu55] . While in the word "中國" IPA| [tyŋ53 kuɔʔ24] (Dṳ̆ng-guók, China), "中" is a Ĭng-bìng character and therefore its close rime never changes, though it does change its tonal value from "55" to "53" in the tonal sandhi.

The phenomenon of close/open rimes is unique to Foochowese and this feature makes it especially intricate and hardly intelligible even to other Min languages.

Phonological features

Vocabulary

Most words in Foochowese have cognates in other Chinese languages, so a non-Fuzhou speaker would find it much easier to understand Foochowese written in Chinese characters than spoken in conversation. But it should also be noted, however, that false friends do exist: for example, "莫細膩" (mŏ̤h sá̤-nê) means "don't be too polite" or "make yourself at home", "我對手汝洗碗" (nguāi dó̤i-chiū nṳ̄ sā̤ uāng) means "I help you wash dishes", "伊共伊老媽嚟冤家" (ĭ gâe̤ng ĭ lâu-mā lā̤ uŏng-gă) means "he and his wife are quarreling (with each other)", etc. Sheer knowledge of Mandarin vocabulary does not help one catch the meaning of these sentences.

The majority of Foochowese vocabulary dates back to more than 1,200 years ago. Some daily-used words are even preserved as they were in Tang Dynasty, which can be illustrated by a poem of a famous Chinese poet Gu Kuang (顧況). [Zhao Rihe: Fuzhou Dialect Rhyme Dictionary, 1998, MRXN-1998-0465] In his poem "Jiǎn" (囝), Gu Kuang explicitly noted:

In Foochowese, "囝" (giāng) and "郎罷" (nòng-mâ) are still in use today, without any slightest change.

Words from Ancient Chinese

Quite a few words from Ancient Chinese (mainly Ancient Wu and Ancient Chu) have retained the original meanings for thousands of years, while their counterparts in Mandarin Chinese have either fallen out of daily use or varied to different meanings.

This table shows some Foochowese words from Classical Chinese, as contrasted to Mandarin Chinese:

The literary and colloquial readings

The literary and colloquial readings (文白異讀) is a feature commonly found in all Chinese dialects throughout China. The literary readings (文讀) are mainly used in formal phrases and written language, while the colloquial ones (白讀) are basically used in vulgar phrases and spoken language.

This table displays some widely used characters in Foochowese which have both literary and colloquial readings:

Loan words from English

The First Opium War, also known as the First Anglo-Chinese War, was ended in 1842 with the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing, which forced the Qing government to open Fuzhou to all British traders and missionaries. Since then, quite a number of churches and Western-style schools have been established. Consequently, some English words came into Foochowese, but without fixed written forms in Chinese characters. The most frequently used words are listed below: [Chen Zeping: Loan Words in Foochowese, Fujian Normal University, 1994]
*, IPA| [khouʔ5] , noun, meaning "an article of dress", is from the word "coat";
*, IPA| [nɛʔ5] , noun, meaning "a meshwork barrier in tennis or badminton", is from the word "net";
*, IPA| [pheiŋ53] , noun, meaning "oil paint", is from the word "paint";
*, IPA| [pheiŋ53 ŋiaŋ33, noun, meaning "a small sum of money", is from the word "penny";
*, IPA| [thɛʔ5] , noun, meaning "money", is from the word "take";
*, IPA| [kɛ53 lo33] , noun, meaning "girl" in a humorous way, is from the word "girl";
*, IPA| [so53] , verb, meaning "to shoot (a basket)", is from the word "shoot";
*, IPA| [a55 ki53] , verb, meaning "to pause (usually a game)", is from the word "again".
*, IPA| [ma21 laʔ5 ka5] , meaning "Southeastern Asian (esp. Singapore and Malaysia)", is from the word "Malacca".

Other features of Foochowese grammar

Examples

Some common phrases in Foochowese:
* Foochowese (Fuzhou dialect): 福州話 / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo fuzhou dialect.ogg|"Hók-ciŭ-uâ" / [huʔ21 tsiu53242]
* Hello: 汝好 / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo hello.ogg|"Nṳ̄ hō̤" / [ny33 ho33]
* Good-bye: 再見 / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo goodbye.ogg|"Cái-giéng" / [tsai53 kiɛŋ213]
* Please: / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo please.ogg|"Chiāng" / [tshiaŋ33] ; 起動 / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo do me a favor.ogg|"Kī-dâe̤ng" / [khi55 lɔyŋ242]
* Thank you: 謝謝 / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo thanks.ogg|"Siâ-siâ" / [sia53 liɑ242] ; 起動 / "Kī-dâe̤ng" / [khi55 lɔyŋ242]
* Sorry: 對不住 / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo sorry.ogg|"Dó̤i-bók-cê̤ṳ" / [tøy21 puʔ5 tsøy242]
* This: / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo this cuoi.ogg|"Cuòi" / [tsui53] ; / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo this cia.ogg|"Ciā" / [tsia33] ; / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo this ci.ogg|"Cī" / [tsi33]
* That: / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo that huoi.ogg|"Huòi" / [hui53] ; / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo that hia.ogg|"Hiā" / [hia33] ; / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo that hi.ogg|"Hī" / [hi33]
* How much?: / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo how much.ogg|"Nuâi" ("niŏh-uâi") / [nuai242] ( [nuoʔ21 uɑi242] )
* Yes: 正是 / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo yes.ogg|"Ciáng-sê" / [tsiaŋ53 nɛi242] ; 無綻 / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo not wrong.ogg|"Mò̤ dâng" / [mo21 lɑŋ242] ; / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo right.ogg|"Diŏh" ("Duŏh") / [tyoʔ5] ( [tuoʔ5] )
* No: 伓是 / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo no.ogg|"Ng-sê" / [ŋ53 nɛi242] ; / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo wrong.ogg|"Dâng" / [tɑŋ242] ; 賣著 / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo not right.ogg|"Mâ̤ diŏh" ("Mâ̤ duŏh") / [me55 tyoʔ5] ( [me55 tuoʔ5] )
* I don't understand: 我賣會意 / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo i dont understand.ogg|"Nguāi mâ̤ huôi-é" / [ŋuai33 me21 hui53 ɛi213]
* What's his name?: 伊名什乇? / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo whats his name.ogg|"Ĭ miàng sié-nó̤h?" / [i55 miaŋ53 sie21 nɔʔ24]
* Where's the hotel?: 賓館洽底所? / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo where is the hotel.ogg|"Bĭng-guāng găk diē-nē̤?" / [piŋ53 kuaŋ33 kaʔ5 tie2433]
* How can I go to the school?: 去學校怎樣行? / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo how to go to school.ogg|"Kó̤ hăk-hâu cuōng-iông giàng?" / [kho53 haʔ21 hɑu242 tsuoŋ55 yɔŋ242 kiaŋ53]
* Do you speak Foochowese?: 汝會講福州話賣? / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo can you speak fuzhou dialect.ogg|"Nṳ̄ â̤ gōng Hók-ciŭ-uâ mâ̤?" / [ny33 e53 kouŋ33 huʔ21 tsiu53242 ma242]
* Do you speak English?: 汝會講英語賣? / Audio-IPA-nohelp|Cdo can you speak english.ogg|"Nṳ̄ â̤ gōng Ĭng-ngṳ̄ mâ̤?" / [ny33 e53 kouŋ3353 ŋy33 ma242]

Regional variations

Writing system

Chinese characters

[
Bible in Chinese Characters, published by China Bible House in 1940.] Most of the characters of Foochowese stem from Ancient Chinese and can therefore be written in Chinese characters. Many books published in Qing Dynasty have been written in this traditional way, such as "Mǐndū Biéjì" ( _zh. 閩都別記, Foochow Romanized: Mìng-dŭ Biék-gé) and the Bible in Foochowese. However, Chinese characters as the writing system for Foochowese do have many shortcomings.

Firstly, a great number of characters are unique to Foochowese, so that they can only be written in informal ways. For instance, the character "unicode|mâ̤", a negative word, has no common form. Some write it as " _zh. 賣" or " _zh. 袂", both of which share with it an identical pronunciation but has a totally irrelevant meaning; and others prefer to use a newly-created character combining " _zh. 勿" and " _zh. 會", but this character is not included in most fonts.

Secondly, Foochowese has been excluded from the educational system for many decades. As a result, many if not all take for granted that Foochowese does not have a formal writing system and when they have to write it, they tend to misuse characters with a similar Mandarin Chinese enunciation. For example, " _zh. 會使 (unicode|â̤ sāi)", meaning "okay", are frequently written as " _zh. 阿塞" because they are uttered almost in the same way.

Foochow Romanized

[
Bible in Foochow Romanized, published by British and Foreign Bible Society in 1908.]

Foochow Romanized, also known as Unicode|Bàng-uâ-cê (平話字, BUC for short) or Unicode|Hók-ciŭ-uâ Lò̤-mā-cê (福州話羅馬字), is a romanized orthography for Foochowese adopted in the middle of 19th century by American and English missionaries. It had varied at different times, and became standardized several decades later. Foochow Romanized was mainly used inside of Church circles, and was taught in some Mission Schools in Fuzhou. [ [http://www.fjsdfz.org/html/news/2004b/20041123fzwb.htm 福州女校三鼎甲] (Chinese)]

Mǐnqiāng Kuàizì

Mǐnqiāng Kuàizì (閩腔快字, Foochow Romanized: "Mìng-kiŏng Kuái-cê"), literally meaning "Fujian Colloquial Fast Characters", is a Qieyin System (切音系統) for Foochowese designed by Chinese scholar and calligrapher Li Jiesan (力捷三) in 1896.

Literary and art forms

See also

* Qī Lín Bāyīn
* Foochow Romanized
* Min Chinese
* Min Dong
* Min Nan

References

Books and other sources

* Cathryn Donohue: [http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/pdf/variatielinguistiek/tone/donohue.pdf The tone-vowel interaction in Fuzhou revisited] , University of Nevada, Reno
* Chen, Leo & Norman, Jerry: "An Introduction to the Foochow Dialect", San Francisco State Coll., CA, 1965.

External links

* [http://www.chinaweblaw.com/matsu/index.htm Fuzhou Dialect Textbook] : Elementary school textbook in Matsu.
* [http://www.glossika.com/en/dict/phon/fuzhou.htm Fuzhou dialect phonology] , by James Campbell.
* [http://historical.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/cul.cdl/docviewer?did=cdl181&view=50&frames=0&seq=5 SĬNG GÔ IÓK CIÒNG CṲ̆] : Bible in Foochow Romanized.
* [http://www.biblebible.com/foochow/ Foochow Audio Bible, New Testament]
* [http://w6.wfjh.tpc.edu.tw/country/FIVE_LANG/5L/M/fz/A.html Five Languages Translator]
* [http://www.gnudoyng.cn/fuzhou_dialect/resources.html Fuzhou Dialect Resources]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Fuzhou — Infobox Settlement name = Fuzhou official name = other name = Hók ciŭ native name = 福州 nickname = settlement type = Prefecture level city motto = imagesize = 250px image caption =The main hall of Hualin Temple, Fuzhou flag size = image seal size …   Wikipedia

  • Teochew dialect — Teochew 潮州話 Spoken in China, Vietnam, India Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, Australia, United States of America, Canada, Fran …   Wikipedia

  • Church of Heavenly Peace, Fuzhou — Coordinates: 26°02′50.65″N 119°18′25.27″E / 26.0474028°N 119.3070194°E / 26.0474028; 119.3070194 …   Wikipedia

  • Ningbo dialect — 寧波閒話 Spoken in People s Republic of China Region Ningbo, Zhejiang province Ethnicity Ningbo peop …   Wikipedia

  • Changzhou dialect — 常州话 Pronunciation [sɑŋ.z̥ei.wu] Spoken in People s Republic of China Region Changz …   Wikipedia

  • Changsha dialect — 長沙話 Spoken in China Region Changsha, Hunan province Native speakers approx. 6 million …   Wikipedia

  • Chang-Du dialect — Chang Du Nanchang Spoken in China Region Northwestern Jiangxi Language family Sino Tibetan …   Wikipedia

  • Minjiang dialect — 岷江话 Pronunciation [min˨˩tɕiaŋ˥xa˨˨˦] Spoken in China Region Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou an …   Wikipedia

  • Chengdu-Chongqing dialect — 成渝话 Pronunciation [tsʰən˨˩y˨˩xua˨˨˦] Spoken in China Region Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei …   Wikipedia

  • Meixian dialect — Meixian Meizhou Spoken in Southern China, Taiwan Region Meixian Language family Sino Tibetan …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”