Jian'ou dialect
Dialect of Northern Min Chinese
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 |
Early forms | |
| Chinese character, Kienning Colloquial Romanized | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | jian1240 |
| Jian'ou dialect | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 建甌話 | ||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 建瓯话 | ||||||
| |||||||
| Alternative Chinese name | |||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 建甌事 | ||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 建瓯事 | ||||||
| |||||||
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
Rimes
Tones
Jian'ou has four tones, which are reduced to two in checked syllables.
| 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.