Northern Min () is a group of
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
Min varieties spoken in
Nanping prefecture of northwestern
Fujian.
Classification and distribution
Early classifications of
varieties of Chinese, such as those of
Li Fang-Kuei in 1937 and
Yuan Jiahua in 1960, divided Min into Northern and Southern subgroups.
However, in a 1963 report on a survey of Fujian, Pan Maoding and colleagues argued that the primary split was between inland and coastal groups.
In a reclassification that has been followed by most dialectologists since, they restricted the term Northern Min to inland dialects of Nanping prefecture, and classified the coastal dialects of
Fuzhou
Fuzhou (; , Fuzhounese: Hokchew, ''Hók-ciŭ''), alternately romanized as Foochow, is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian province, China. Along with the many counties of Ningde, those of Fuzhou are considered to constitute t ...
and
Ningde as
Eastern Min.
According to the ''
Language Atlas of China'', Northern Min varieties are spoken throughout the counties of
Wuyishan (formerly Chong'an),
Jianyang,
Jian'ou,
Zhenghe and
Songxi
Songxi County () is a county under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Nanping, in the northwest of Fujian province, People's Republic of China, bordering Zhejiang province to the east. Its county seat is located at Songyuan Subdis ...
, in the southern part of
Pucheng County and the northeastern part of
Shunchang County, and in
Yanping District except for the
Nanping dialect of the urban area of Nanping, which is an island of an isolated
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 ...
dialect of uncertain affinity.
The
Jianyang and
Jian'ou dialects are often taken as representative.
Although coastal Min varieties can be derived from a
proto-language with four series of stop or affricate initials at each point of articulation (e.g. , , and ), Northern Min varieties contain traces of two further series, one voiced and the other voiceless.
In Northern Min dialects, these initials have a different tonal development from other stops and affricates, though the details vary between varieties.
Moreover, although in Jian'ou and Zhenghe these initials yield voiceless unaspirated initials (as in coastal varieties), they yield voiced sonorants or the zero initial in Jianyang and Wuyishan.
Because of these reflexes,
Jerry Norman called these initials "softened" stops and affricates.
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*Akitani, Hiroyuki 秋谷裕幸. 2008. ''Minbeiqu sanxianshi fangyan yanjiu'' 閩北區三縣市方言研究. Taipei:
Academia Sinica
Academia Sinica (AS, la, 1=Academia Sinica, 3=Chinese Academy; ), headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. Founded in Nanking, the academy supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from ...
. (Documents three Northern Min dialects in detail: Shibei 石陂 of
Pucheng County; Zhenqian 镇前 of
Zhenghe County; Dikou 迪口 of
Jian'ou City)
*Fujian Normal University Research Institute 福建师范学院. n.d. ''Mindong, Bei fangyan diaocha ziliao huibian (part 1)'' 闽东、北方言调查资料汇编: 第1辑.
Fujian Normal University Research Institute 福建师范学院, Dialectology group, Chinese language department 中文系语言教研组 方言调查小组.
*Huang Chin-wen 黄金文. 2001. 方言接觸與閩北方言演變 / ''Language contact and the phonological changes in North Min''. Taipei: National Taiwan University.
*Ma Chongqi 馬重奇. 2014. 明清閩北方言韻書手抄本音系研究 / ''A phonological study of the manuscripts of Northern Fujian Dialect rhyme books in the Ming and Qing Dynasties''. Beijing: Commercial Press.
*Pan Weishui 潘渭水. 2007. ''Minbei fangyan yanjiu'' 闽北方言研究. Fuzhou: Fujian Educational Press 福建教育出版社.
*
{{Chinese language