The Amoy dialect or Xiamen dialect (), also known as Amoynese, Amoy Hokkien, Xiamenese or Xiamen Hokkien, is a dialect of

Hokkien The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages in ...

spoken in the city of Xiamen (historically known as "Amoy") and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the southern part of

Fujian Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capi ...

province. Currently, it is one of the most widely researched and studied varieties of

Southern Min Southern Min (), Minnan (Mandarin pronunciation: ) or Banlam (), is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Sinitic languages that form a branch of Min Chinese spoken in Fujian (especially the Minnan region), most of Taiwan ( ...

. It has historically come to be one of the more standardized varieties. Amoynese and

Taiwanese Taiwanese may refer to: * Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien * Something from or related to Taiwan ( Formosa) * Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan * Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan * Taiwanese people, ...

are both historically mixtures of

Quanzhou Quanzhou, postal map romanization, alternatively known as Chinchew, is a prefecture-level city, prefecture-level port city on the north bank of the Jin River, beside the Taiwan Strait in southern Fujian, China. It is Fujian's largest metrop ...

and

Zhangzhou Zhangzhou (), alternately romanized as Changchow, is a prefecture-level city in Fujian Province, China. The prefecture around the city proper comprises the southeast corner of the province, facing the Taiwan Strait and surrounding the prefec ...

dialects. As such, they are very closely aligned

phonologically Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

. There are some differences between the two, especially lexical, as a result of physical separation and the differing histories of mainland China and Taiwan during the 20th century. Amoynese and Taiwanese are mutually intelligible. Intelligibility with other Hokkien, especially inland, is more difficult. By that standard, Amoynese and Taiwanese may be considered dialects of a single language. Ethnolinguistically, however, Amoynese is part of mainland Hokkien.

History

In 1842, as a result of the signing of the

Treaty of Nanking The Treaty of Nanjing was the peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese later termed the Unequal Treaties. In the ...

Amoy Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong'an, ...

was designated as a trading port in

. Amoy and

Kulangsu The Gulangyu, Gulang Island or Kulangsu is a pedestrian-only island off the coast of Xiamen, Fujian Province in southeastern China. A UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site, the island is about in area, and is reached by an 8-minute ferry ride fro ...

rapidly developed, which resulted in a large influx of people from neighboring areas such as

and

. The mixture of these various accents formed the basis for the Amoy dialect. Over the last several centuries, a large number of

Southern Fujianese people Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...

s from these same areas migrated to

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

during

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

and

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...

rule. The "Amoy dialect" was considered the vernacular of Taiwan. Eventually, the mixture of accents spoken in Taiwan became popularly known as ''Taiwanese'' during Imperial Japanese rule. As in American and British English, there are subtle lexical and phonological differences between modern Taiwanese and Amoy Hokkien; however, these differences do not generally pose any barriers to communication. Amoy dialect speakers also migrated to

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

, mainly in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

(where it is known as Lán-nâng-ōe),

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

Special characteristics

The spoken Amoy dialect preserves many of the sounds and words from

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...

. However, the vocabulary of Amoy was also influenced in its early stages by the

Minyue language The Old Yue language ( zh, c=古越語, p=''Gu Yueyu'') is an unknown unclassified language (or many different languages). It can refer to Yue, which was spoken in the realm of Yue during the Spring and Autumn period. It can also refer to the v ...

s spoken by the ancient

Minyue Minyue () was an ancient kingdom in what is now the Fujian province in southern China. It was a contemporary of the Han dynasty, and was later annexed by the Han empire as the dynasty expanded southward. The kingdom existed approximately from ...

peoples. Spoken Amoy is known for its extensive use of

nasalization In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is . In the Internationa ...

. Unlike

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

, the Amoy dialect distinguishes between

voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer ...

and voiceless unaspirated

initial In a written or published work, an initial capital, also referred to as a drop capital or simply an initial cap, initial, initcapital, initcap or init or a drop cap or drop, is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that ...

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

(Mandarin has no voicing of initial consonants). Unlike

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

, it differentiates between unaspirated and aspirated voiceless initial consonants (as Mandarin does too). In less

technical term Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a particu ...

s, native Amoy speakers have little difficulty in hearing the difference between the following syllables: However, these fully voiced consonants did not derive from the

Early Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The Sw ...

voiced obstruents, but rather from fortition of nasal initials.

Accents

A comparison between Amoy and other Southern Min languages can be found there.

Tones

Amoy is similar to other

variants in that it makes use of five tones, though only two in checked syllables. The tones are traditionally numbered from 1 through 8, with 4 and 8 being the

checked tone A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a syl ...

s, but those numbered 2 and 6 are identical in most regions.

Tone sandhi

Amoy has extremely extensive

tone sandhi Tone sandhi is a phonological change occurring in tonal languages, in which the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes change based on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes. It usually simplifies a bidirectional tone into a ...

(tone-changing) rules: in an utterance, only the last syllable pronounced is not affected by the rules. What an '

utterance In spoken language analysis, an utterance is a continuous piece of speech, often beginning and ending with a clear pause. In the case of oral languages, it is generally, but not always, bounded by silence. Utterances do not exist in written langu ...

' is, in the context of this language, is an ongoing topic for linguistic research. For the purpose of this article, an utterance may be considered a

word A word is a basic element of language that carries an semantics, objective or pragmatics, practical semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of w ...

, a

phrase In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...

, or a short sentence. The diagram illustrates the rules that govern the pronunciation of a tone on each of the syllables affected (that is, all but the last in an utterance):

Literary and colloquial readings

Like other languages of

, Amoy has complex rules for

literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters Differing literary and colloquial readings for certain Chinese characters are a common feature of many Chinese varieties, and the reading distinctions for these linguistic doublets often typify a dialect group. Literary readings (/) are usuall ...

. For example, the character for ''big/great'', 大, has a vernacular reading of ''tōa'' (), but a literary reading of ''tāi'' (). Because of the loose nature of the rules governing when to use a given pronunciation, a learner of Amoy must often simply memorize the appropriate reading for a word on a case by case basis. For single-syllable words, it is more common to use the vernacular pronunciation. This situation is comparable to the on and kun readings of the

Japanese language is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been ma ...

. The vernacular readings are generally thought to predate the literary readings, as is the case with the

Min Chinese Min (; BUC: ''Mìng-ngṳ̄'') is a broad group of Sinitic languages spoken by about 30 million people in Fujian province as well as by the descendants of Min speaking colonists on Leizhou peninsula and Hainan, or assimilated natives of Chaoshan ...

varieties; the literary readings appear to have evolved from

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...

. The following chart illustrates some of the more commonly seen sound shifts:

Vocabulary

: ''For further information, read the article:

Swadesh list The Swadesh list ("Swadesh" is pronounced ) is a classic compilation of tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. Translations of the Swadesh list into a set of languages allow researchers to quantify the interrelatedness ...

'' The Swadesh word list, developed by the linguist

Morris Swadesh Morris Swadesh (; January 22, 1909 – July 20, 1967) was an American linguist who specialized in comparative and historical linguistics. Swadesh was born in Massachusetts to Bessarabian Jewish immigrant parents. He completed bachelor's and mas ...

, is used as a tool to study the evolution of languages. It contains a set of basic words which can be found in every language. *The Amoy Min Nan Swadesh list *The Sinitic Swadesh lists (

Standard Mandarin Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standar ...

Sichuanese Sichuanese, Szechuanese or Szechwanese may refer to something of, from, or related to the Chinese province and region of Sichuan (Szechwan/Szechuan) (historically and culturally including Chongqing), especially: *Sichuanese people, a subgroup of the ...

, Nanjingnese,

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...

, Yuetai Hakka, Amoynese Hokkien, Hokchiu,

Shanghainese The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the Districts of Shanghai, central districts of the Shanghai, City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as ...

Suzhounese Suzhounese (; Suzhounese: ''sou1 tseu1 ghe2 gho6'' [] ), also known as the Suzhou dialect, is the Varieties of Chinese, variety of Chinese traditionally spoken in the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu, Jiangsu Province, China. Suzhounese is a varie ...

, Changshanese)

Phonology

Initials

* Word-initial alveolar consonants when occurring before are pronounced as alveo-palatal sounds . * can fluctuate freely in initial position as either a flap or voiced stop , . * can occur in both word initial and final position. * when occurring before can be pronounced as voiceless sounds , .

Finals

* Final consonants are pronounced as unreleased .

Grammar

Amoy grammar shares a similar structure to other Chinese dialects, although it is slightly more complex than Mandarin. Moreover, equivalent Amoy and Mandarin particles are usually not

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...

Complement constructions

Amoy complement constructions are roughly parallel to Mandarin ones, although there are variations in the choice of lexical term. The following are examples of constructions that Amoy employs. In the case of adverbs: :Mandarin: ''tā pǎo de kuài'' (他跑得快) In the case of the adverb "very": :Mandarin: ''tā pǎo de hěn kuài'' (他跑得很快) :Mandarin: ''tā pǎo bù kuài'' (他跑不快) :Mandarin: ''tā kàn de dào'' (他看得到) For the negative, :Mandarin: ''tā kàn bù dào'' (他看不到) For the adverb "so," Amoy uses ''kah'' (甲) instead of Mandarin ''de'' (得): :Mandarin: ''tā xià de huà dōu shuō bù chūlái'' (他嚇得話都說不出來)

Negative particles

Negative particle syntax is parallel to Mandarin about 70% of the time, although lexical terms used differ from those in Mandarin. For many lexical particles, there is no single standard Hanji character to represent these terms (e.g. ''m̄'', a negative particle, can be variously represented by 毋, 呣, and 唔), but the most commonly used ones are presented below in examples. The following are commonly used negative particles: # ''m̄'' (毋/伓) - is not + noun (Mandarin 不, ''bù'') #: ''i m̄-sī gún lāu-bú''. (伊毋是阮老母) "She is not my mother." # ''m̄'' (毋/伓) - does not/will not + verb (Mandarin 不, ''bù'') #: ''i m̄ lâi''. (伊毋來) "He will not come." # verb + ''bōe'' (袂/𣍐 (⿰勿會)) + particle - is not able to (Mandarin 不, ''bù'') #: ''góa khòaⁿ-bōe-tio̍h''. (我看袂著) "I am not able to see it." # ''bōe'' (袂/𣍐 (⿰勿會)) + helping verb - cannot (opposite of ''ē'' 會, "is able to") (Mandarin 不, ''bù'') #: ''i bōe-hiáu kóng Eng-gú''. (伊袂曉講英語) "He can't speak English." #* helping verbs that go with ''bōe'' (袂) #*:''bōe-sái'' (袂使) - is not permitted to (Mandarin 不可以 ''bù kěyǐ'') #*:''bōe-hiáu'' (袂曉) - does not know how to (Mandarin 不會, ''búhuì'') #*:''bōe-tàng'' (袂當) - not able to (Mandarin 不能, ''bùnéng'') # ''mài'' (莫/勿愛) - do not (imperative) (Mandarin 別, ''bié'') #: ''mài kóng''! (莫講) "Don't speak!" # ''bô'' (無) - do not + helping verb (Mandarin 不, ''bù'') #: ''i bô beh lâi''. (伊無欲來) "He is not going to come." #* helping verbs that go with ''bô'' (無): #*:''beh'' (欲) - want to + verb; will + verb #*:''ài'' (愛) - must + verb #*:''èng-kai'' (應該) - should + verb #*:''kah-ì'' (合意) - like to + verb # ''bô'' (無) - does not have (Mandarin 沒有, ''méiyǒu'') #: ''i bô chîⁿ''. (伊無錢) "He does not have any money." # ''bô'' (無) - did not (Mandarin 沒有, ''méiyǒu'') #: ''i bô lâi''. (伊無來) "He did not come." # ''bô'' (無) - is not + adjective (Mandarin 不, ''bù'') #: ''i bô súi''. (伊無媠/水) "She is not beautiful." #*''hó'' (好) ("good") is an exception, as it can use both ''m̄'' and ''bô''.

Common particles

Commonly seen particles include: *與 (''hō·'') - indicates

passive voice A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...

(Mandarin 被, ''bèi'') *:''i hō· lâng phiàn khì'' (伊與人騙去) - "They were cheated" *共 (''kā'') - identifies the object (Mandarin 把, ''bǎ'') *:''i kā chîⁿ kau hō· lí'' (伊共錢交與你) - "He handed the money to you" *加 (''ke'') - "more" *:''i ke chia̍h chi̍t óaⁿ'' (伊加食一碗) - "He ate one more bowl" *共 (''kā'') - identifies the object *:''góa kā lí kóng'' (我共你講) - "I'm telling you" *濟 (''chōe'') - "more" *:''i ū khah chōe ê pêng-iú'' (伊有較濟的朋友) - "He has comparatively many friends"

Romanization

A number of Romanization schemes have been devised for

Pe̍h-ōe-jī (; ; ), also sometimes known as the Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Southern Min Chinese, particularly Taiwanese and Amoy Hokkien. Developed by Western missionaries working among the Chinese diaspora in South ...

is one of the oldest and best established. However, the

Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet (), more commonly known by its initials TLPA, is a romanization system for the Taiwanese language, Taiwanese Hakka language, and Formosan languages. Based on Pe̍h-ōe-jī and first published in full in 1998, it ...

has become the romanization of choice for many of the recent textbooks and dictionaries from Taiwan.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * *

External links

Why Minnan is called "Amoy"

(site is in Chinese script)

(in English, Chinese and Japanese)
Glossika - Chinese Languages and Dialects

Voyager - Spacecraft - Golden Record - Greetings From Earth - Amoy
includes translation and sound clip *: (The voyager clip says: ) {{Xiamen Hokkien-language dialects City colloquials