Min Nan
From Freepedia
| Min Nan / 闽南语 (Bân-lâm-gú) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | People's Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan), Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and other areas of Min Nan and Hoklo settlements around the world |
| Region: | Southern Fujian province; the Chaozhou-Shantou area in Guangdong province; extreme south of Zhejiang province; most of Taiwan; much of Hainan (if Qiong Wen is included); Leizhou Peninsula in Guangdong province |
| Total speakers: | 49 million |
| Ranking: | 21 (if Qiong Wen is included) |
| Genetic classification: | Sino-Tibetan |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | none (legislative bills have been proposed to have Taiwanese be a 'national language' in the Republic of China but these are unlikely to pass) |
| Regulated by: | none (ROC Ministry of Education and some NGOs are influential in Taiwan) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | zh |
| ISO 639-2 | chi (B) / zho (T) |
| SIL | CFR |
| See also: Language – List of languages | |
Min Nan, Minnan, or Min-nan (Simplified Chinese: 闽南语; Traditional Chinese: 閩南語; pinyin: Mǐnnányǔ; POJ: Bân-lâm-gú; "Southern Min" or "Southern Fujian" language) or Hokkien is the Chinese language/dialect spoken in southern Fujian province, China and neighboring areas, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora. Taiwanese is the Min Nan variant spoken on Taiwan. Teochew or Teochiu is also a prominent variant, especially among ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia, originating in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong province.
Min Nan (Southern Min) forms part of the Min language group, alongside its counterpart Northern Min (Min Bei). The Min languages/dialects are part of the Chinese language group, itself a member of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Min Nan is mutually intelligible with neither Northern Min, Cantonese, nor Mandarin, the official Chinese language, spoken (at least as a second language) by the majority of those in mainland China and Taiwan, as well as large numbers of overseas Chinese throughout the world.
Min Nan is spoken in the southern part of the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian by the Hoklo as well as their descendants who migrated from this province to Taiwan, Guangdong (around Chaozhou-Swatou, and Leizhou peninsula), Hainan, two counties in southern Zhejiang and Zhoushan archipelago offshore Ningbo. There are many Min Nan speakers also among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. The sub-ethnic group for which Min Nan is considered a native language is known as the Holo (Hō-ló) or Hoklo; the correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, however, as some Hoklo speak Min Nan poorly while some non-Hoklo ethnic Chinese speak Min Nan fluently. In Taiwan, it also has the native name of Tâi-oân-oē or Hō-ló-oē. It is reportedly the native language of up to 98.5% of the community of ethnic Chinese in the Philippines, among whom it is also known as Lan-nang or Lán-lâng-oē ("Our People’s Language").
As with all other varieties of Chinese, there is significant dispute as to whether Min Nan is a language or a dialect. (See Is Chinese a Language or a Dialect? for details of this issue.)
Contents |
Classification
There are three main dialects of Min Nan in southern Fujian, known by the geographic locations to which they correspond:
As Xiamen (Amoy) is the principal city of southern Fujian, the Amoy dialect is considered the most important variant.
Outside Fujian, Min Nan exists in these major variants:
- Taiwanese or Taiyu
- Hainanese or Qiong Wen (on Hainan province)
- Teochew or Chaozhou (from Chaozhou and the Chaoshan region, Guangdong province)
The variants spoken in Taiwan, though similar to the three southern Fujian variants, are grouped separately, and collectively known as Taiwanese. Taiwanese bears great importance from a socio-political perspective and is the second (and perhaps today most significant) major pole of the language.
Teochew is of great importance in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, particularly in Singapore (where Teochew people form a substantial part of the ethnic Chinese population), Vietnam, Thailand and other locations.
Additionally, among ethnic Chinese inhabitants of Penang, Malaysia, a distinct form has emerged, Penang Hokkien.
Tones
Min Nan retains seven of the eight Middle Chinese tones, namely:
- 陰平 Yin-ping |44|
- 上聲 Shang-sheng |51|
- 陰去 Yin-qu |31|
- 陰入 Yin-ru |3|
- 陽平 Yang-ping |24|
- 陽去 Yang-qu |33|
- 陽入 Yang-ru |5|
The numbers given in | | are tone contours (in the Amoy sub-dialect), where 1 is the lowest and 5 is highest. Unlike some Chinese languages, such as Cantonese, all tones in Min Nan are subject to tone sandhi, that is, a given syllable’s tone changes when it appears in front of another syllable.
Teochew dialect tones are very different from other Min Nan. It retains eight Middle Chinese tones.
Scripts and orthographies
See also
External links
| Chinese: spoken varieties | |
| Categories: |
Gan | Hakka | Hui | Jin | Mandarin | Min | Pinghua | Xiang | Wu | Yue |
| Subcategories of Min: | Min Bei | Min Dong | Min Nan | Min Zhong | Pu Xian | Qiong Wen | Shao Jiang |
| Note: The above is only one classification scheme among many. The categories in italics are not universally acknowledged to be independent categories. | |
| Comprehensive list of Chinese dialects | |
| Official spoken varieties: | Standard Mandarin | Standard Cantonese |
| Historical phonology: | Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Proto-Min | Proto-Mandarin | Haner |
| Chinese: written varieties | |
| Official written varieties: | Classical Chinese | Vernacular Chinese |
| Other varieties: | Written Vernacular Cantonese |
