The Jian'ou dialect ( Northern Min: / ;

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

: ), also known as Kienow dialect, is a local dialect of Northern Min Chinese spoken in

Jian'ou Jian'ou is a county-level city in Nanping in northern Fujian province, China. Under the name Jianning (Kienning), it was formerly the seat of its own prefecture and was the namesake of its province. Jian'ou is within a major bamboo and rice ...

in northern

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 cap ...

province. It is regarded as the standard common language in Jian'ou.

Phonetics and phonology

According to ''The Eight Tones of Kien-chou'' (), 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" () tone has disappeared.

Initials

Rimes

Tones

Jian'ou has four tones, which are reduced to two in checked syllables. The entering tones in the Jian'ou dialect do not have any entering tone coda () such as , , and which makes it distinct from many other Chinese varieties.

Footnotes

References

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External links

Cantonese and other dialects
(in Chinese)
Classification of Northern Min Dialects from Glossika

Jian'ou Romanized Vernacular Bible
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jian'ou dialect Northern Min