Hainanese (

Hainan Romanised Hainanese Romanized, also known as its local name Bǽh-oe-tu (白話字), is an orthography similar to Pe̍h-oē-jī, and used to write Haikou dialect of the Hainanese language. It was invented by Carl C. Jeremiassen, a Danish pioneer missi ...

: ', Hainanese Pinyin: ',), also known as Qióngwén, Heng2 vun2 () or Qióngyǔ, Heng2 yi2 (), is a group of Min Chinese

varieties Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

spoken in the southern Chinese island province of

Hainan Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...

and Overseas Chinese such as Malaysia. In the classification of

Yuan Jiahua Yuan Jiahua (, ; January 19034 September 1980) was a Chinese linguist and dialectologist from Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu province. He graduated from the English Department of Peking University in 1932, worked as an editor in the North Shanghai New Boo ...

, it was included in the Southern Min group, being

mutually unintelligible 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 ...

with other Southern Min varieties such as

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 ...

–

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, ...

and Teochew. In the classification of Li Rong, used by the ''

Language Atlas of China The ''Language Atlas of China'' (), published in two parts in 1987 and 1989, maps the distribution of both the varieties of Chinese and minority languages of China. It was a collaborative effort by the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the ...

'', it was treated as a separate Min subgroup. Hou Jingyi combined it with Leizhou Min, spoken on the neighboring mainland

Leizhou Peninsula The Leizhou Peninsula, alternately romanized as the Luichow Peninsula, is a peninsula in the southernmost part of Guangdong province in South China. History Qing naval forces were stationed at the Leizhou Peninsula. During the 19th centur ...

, in a Qiong–Lei group. "Hainanese" is also used for the language of the Li people living in Hainan, but generally refers to Min varieties spoken in Hainan.

Phonology

Hainanese has seven phonemic vowels . Hainanese notably has a series of

implosive consonant Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism.''Phonetics for communication disorders.'' Martin J. Ball and Nicole Müller. R ...

s, which it acquired through contact with surrounding languages, probably Hlai. The phonological system of Hainanese corresponds well with that of Hokkien, but it has had some restructuring. In particular, etymological *anterior plain stops have undergone implosivization (*p > , *t > ), etymological *aspirated stops have spirantized (*pʰ > , *tʰ > , *cʰ > *kʰ > ), and etymological *s have hardened into stops (*s > ), and *h > . Additionally, some dialects have , and is allophonic with . These changes also make Hainanese fairly close to the Chinese-based vocabulary within Vietnamese. For example 邪, 仙, 散, 迹, 神, 痴 (xié, xiān, sàn, jì, shén, chī) in

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 ...

or (siâ, sian, suànn, jiak, sîn, chi) in

is (dia2, din1, dan4, di1, din2, si1) in Hainanese and (da, tiên, tàn, ty, tích, thần, si) in Sino-Vietnamese.

Romanization

Hainanese Pinyin

Hainanese Pinyin (海南话拼音方案) was a phonetic system announced by the Education Administration Department of Guangdong Province in September 1960. It mark tones with numbers.

Phonology

Romanization

Hainanese Pinyin

Initials

Finals

See also

References

Further reading

External links