Wenchang dialect
Min Chinese dialect of Hainan, China
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 |
Early forms | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | wenc1234 Wenchang |
| Linguasphere | > 79-AAA-kdb 79-AAA-kd > 79-AAA-kdb |
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]
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]
| 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]
| level (píng 平) | rising (shàng 上) | departing (qù 去) | entering (rù 入) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| upper (yīn 阴) | ˦ | ʔ˨˩ | ˩ | ʔ˥˩ |
| lower (yáng 阳) | ˧ | ʔ˦˨ | ||
