Hokkien
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The Hokkien ()
variety of Chinese Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of m ...
is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the
Minnan region Minnan, Banlam or Minnan Golden Triangle (), refers to the coastal region in Southern Fujian Province, China, which includes the prefecture-level cities of Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. The region accounts for 40 percent of the GDP of Fujian Pr ...
, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern 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 cap ...
in southeastern
mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
. It is one of the
national language A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...
s in
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 ...
, and it is also widely spoken within the Chinese diaspora in
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, bor ...
,
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 ...
, 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 ...
and other parts of
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 south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
; and by other overseas Chinese beyond Asia and all over the world. The Hokkien 'dialects' are not all mutually intelligible, but they are held together by ethnolinguistic identity.
Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about ...
is, however, mutually intelligible with the 2 to 3 million speakers in
Xiamen 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 ...
and Singapore. In Southeast Asia, Hokkien historically served as the '' lingua franca'' amongst overseas Chinese communities of all dialects and subgroups, and it remains today as the most spoken
variety of Chinese Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of m ...
in the region, including in
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, bor ...
,
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 ...
,
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 ...
,
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 ...
and some parts of
Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...
(particularly Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia). The Betawi Malay language, spoken by some five million people in and around the Indonesian capital Jakarta, includes numerous Hokkien loanwords due to the significant influence of the Chinese Indonesian diaspora, most of whom are of Hokkien ancestry and origin.


Names

Chinese speakers of the Quanzhang variety of Southern Min refer to the mainstream Southern Min language as * (, literally 'language or speech of Southern Min') in China and Taiwan. * (, literally 'Taiwanese language') or (literally 'Hoklo speech') in Taiwan. * (, literally 'our people's speech') in the Philippines. *''Hok-kiàn-ōe'' / ''Hok-kiàn-ōa'' (福建話, literally 'Hokkien speech') in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Brunei. In parts of Southeast Asia and in the English-speaking communities, the term ''Hokkien'' () is etymologically derived from the Southern Min pronunciation for
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 ...
(), the province from which the language hails. In Southeast Asia and the English press, ''Hokkien'' is used in common parlance to refer to the Southern Min dialects of southern Fujian, and does not include reference to dialects of other Sinitic branches also present in Fujian such as the
Fuzhou language 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 ...
(
Eastern Min Eastern Min or Min Dong (, Foochow Romanized: Mìng-dĕ̤ng-ngṳ̄), is a branch of the Min group of Sinitic languages of China. The prestige form and most-cited representative form is the Fuzhou dialect, the speech of the capital of Fujian. G ...
),
Pu-Xian Min Puxian (Hinghwa Romanized: ''Pó-sing-gṳ̂''; ), also known as Pu-Xian Chinese, Puxian Min, Xinghua, Henghwa or Hinghwa (''Hing-hua̍-gṳ̂''; ), is a Sinitic language that forms a branch of Min Chinese. Puxian is a transitional variety of ...
, Northern Min, Gan Chinese or
Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
. In Chinese linguistics, these languages are known by their classification under the Quanzhang division () of
Min Nan 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 ...
, which comes from the first characters of the two main Hokkien urban centers of Quanzhou 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 prefect ...
. The word ''Hokkien'' first originated from
Walter Henry Medhurst Walter Henry Medhurst (29 April 179624 January 1857), was an English Congregationalist missionary to China, born in London and educated at St Paul's School. He was one of the early translators of the Bible into Chinese-language editions. Earl ...
when he published ''the Dictionary of the Hok-këèn Dialect of the Chinese Language, According to the Reading and Colloquial Idioms'' in 1832. This is considered to be the earliest English-based Hokkien Dictionary and the first major reference work in POJ, although the romanization within was quite different from the modern system. In this dictionary, the word "Hok-këèn" was used. In 1869, POJ was further revised by John Macgowan in his published book ''A Manual Of The Amoy Colloquial''. In this book, "këèn" was changed to "kien" as "Hok-kien" and from then on, the word "Hokkien" began to be used more often. Historically, Hokkien was also known as ''"Amoy"'', after the Hokkien name of
Xiamen 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 ...
, the principal port of
Southern Fujian Minnan, Banlam or Minnan Golden Triangle (), refers to the coastal region in Southern Fujian Province, China, which includes the prefecture-level cities of Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. The region accounts for 40 percent of the GDP of Fujian Pro ...
during the
Qing dynasty 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-spea ...
as one of the five ports opened to foreign trade by 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 ...
. By 1873, Rev.
Carstairs Douglas Carstairs Douglas () (born 27 December 1830 in Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire; died 26 July 1877 in Xiamen, China) was a Scottish missionary, remembered chiefly for his writings concerning the Southern Min language of Fujian, in particular his ''Chine ...
would publish his dictionary named "''Chinese–English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy, With the Principal Variations of the Chang-chew and Chin-chew Dialects."'' where he would call the language as "''The Language of Amoy''" or "''The Amoy Vernacular''" and by 1883, Rev. John Macgowan would publish another dictionary named "''English and Chinese Dictionary of the Amoy Dialect''". Due to confusion with differentiating the
Amoy dialect The Amoy dialect or Xiamen dialect (), also known as Amoynese, Amoy Hokkien, Xiamenese or Xiamen Hokkien, is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the city of Xiamen (historically known as "Amoy") and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the souther ...
of Hokkien from
Xiamen 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 ...
with the general language itself, many proscribe this usage though many old books and media may still be observed to be labeled with "Amoy" instead to generally refer to the language, besides the specific dialect of Hokkien from Xiamen.


Geographic distribution

Hokkien is spoken in the southern, seaward quarter of Fujian province, southeastern
Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , Chinese postal romanization, also romanized as Chekiang) is an East China, eastern, coastal Provinces of China, province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable citie ...
, and eastern Namoa Island in China;
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 ...
;
Metro Manila Metropolitan Manila (often shortened as Metro Manila; fil, Kalakhang Maynila), officially the National Capital Region (NCR; fil, link=no, Pambansang Punong Rehiyon), is the seat of government and one of three defined metropolitan areas in ...
,
Metro Cebu Metropolitan Cebu, or simply Metro Cebu, ( ceb, Kaulohang Sugbo; fil, Kalakhang Cebu), is the main urban center of the province of Cebu in the Philippines. Metro Cebu is located along the central eastern portion of the island including the ne ...
,
Metro Davao Metro Davao, officially called Metropolitan Davao ( ceb, Kaulohang Dabaw; fil, Kalakhang Davao), is a metropolitan area in the Mindanao island group, Philippines. It includes the cities of Davao City, Digos, Mati, Panabo, Samal and Tagum and sp ...
and other cities 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 ...
;
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, bor ...
;
Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by t ...
;
Medan Medan (; English: ) is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of North Sumatra, as well as a regional hub and financial centre of Sumatra. According to the National Development Planning Agency, Medan is one of the four mai ...
,
Riau Riau is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the central eastern coast of Sumatra along the Strait of Malacca. The province shares land borders with North Sumatra to the northwest, West Sumatra to the west, and Jambi to the south. Acco ...
and other cities in
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 ...
; and from
Taiping __NOTOC__ Taiping, Tai-p’ing, or Tai Ping most often refers to: Chinese history * Princess Taiping (died 713), Tang dynasty princess * Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864), civil war in southern China ** Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851–1864), the re ...
to the Thai border in
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 ...
, especially around Penang. Hokkien originated in the southern area of Fujian province, an important center for trade and migration, and has since become one of the most common Chinese varieties overseas. The major pole of Hokkien varieties outside of Fujian is nearby Taiwan, where immigrants from Fujian arrived as workers during the 40 years of Dutch rule, fleeing the Qing dynasty during the 20 years of Ming loyalist rule, as immigrants during the 200 years of Qing dynasty rule, especially in the last 120 years after immigration restrictions were relaxed, and even as immigrants during the period of Japanese rule. The Taiwanese dialect mostly has origins with the Tung'an, Quanzhou 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 prefect ...
variants, but since then, the
Amoy dialect The Amoy dialect or Xiamen dialect (), also known as Amoynese, Amoy Hokkien, Xiamenese or Xiamen Hokkien, is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the city of Xiamen (historically known as "Amoy") and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the souther ...
, also known as the Xiamen dialect, has become the modern prestige representative for the language in China. Both ''
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' ...
'' and ''
Xiamen 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 ...
'' come from the Chinese name of the city (); the former is from Zhangzhou Hokkien, whereas the latter comes from Mandarin. There are many Minnan (Hokkien) speakers among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia as well as in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
(
Hoklo Americans Hokkien, Hoklo (Holo), and Minnan people are found in the United States. The Hoklo people are a Han Chinese subgroup with ancestral roots in Southern Fujian and Eastern Guangdong, particularly around the modern prefecture-level cities of Quanzho ...
). Many ethnic
Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctiv ...
emigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian, and brought the language to what is now Burma (
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
),
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
, Indonesia (the former Dutch East Indies) and present day Malaysia and Singapore (formerly Malaya and the
British Straits Settlements The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia. Headquartered in Singapore for more than a century, it was originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Com ...
). Most of the Minnan dialects of this region have incorporated some foreign loanwords. Hokkien is reportedly the native language of up to 80% of the ethnic Chinese people in the Philippines, among which is known locally as '' Lán-nâng-uē'' or ''Lán-lâng-ōe'' or ''Nán-nâng-uē'' ("Our people's speech"). Hokkien speakers form the largest group of overseas Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines.


Classification

Southern Fujian is home to four principal Minnan Proper (Hokkien) dialects: Chiangchew, Chinchew, Tung'an, and
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' ...
, originating from the cities of Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, historical Tung'an County (同安縣, now
Xiamen 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 ...
and
Kinmen Kinmen, alternatively known as Quemoy, is a group of islands governed as a county by the Republic of China (Taiwan), off the southeastern coast of mainland China. It lies roughly east of the city of Xiamen in Fujian, from which it is separat ...
) and her own Port of Amoy, respectively. The Quanzhou dialect spoken in Quanzhou was the Traditional Representative Minnan. It is the dialect that is used in () and (). The Quanzhou dialect is considered to be the most conservative Minnan dialect. In the late 1800s, the Amoy dialect attracted special attention, because Amoy was one of the five ports opened to foreign trade by 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 ...
, but before that it had not attracted attention. The Amoy dialect is adopted as the Modern Representative Minnan. The Amoy dialect can not simply be interpreted as a mixture of the Zhangzhou and Quanzhou dialects, but rather it is formed on the foundation of the Tung'an dialect with further inputs from other sub-dialects. It has played an influential role in history, especially in the relations of Western nations with China, and was one of the most frequently learnt dialect of the Hokkien variety by
Westerners The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. The Modern Representative form of Hokkien spoken around the city of
Tainan Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a special municipality in southern Taiwan facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and also commonly known as the "Capital City" for its over 200 years of his ...
(台南) in Taiwan heavily resembles the Tung'an dialect. All Hokkien dialects spoken throughout the whole of Taiwan are collectively known as Taiwanese Hokkien, or Holo locally, although there is a tendency to call these Taiwanese language for historical reasons. It is spoken by more Taiwanese than any Sinitic language except Mandarin, and it is known by a majority of the population; thus, from a
socio-political Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro levels of analysis. Interested in the social causes and consequences of how ...
perspective, it forms a significant pole of language usage due to the popularity of Holo-language media. Douglas (1873/1899) also noted that ''Formosa'' (
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 ...
) has been settled mainly by emigrants from ''Amo''y (Xiamen), ''Chang-chew'' (Zhangzhou), and ''Chin-chew'' (Quanzhou). Several parts of the island are usually found to be specially inhabited by descendants of such emigrants, but in Taiwan, the various forms of the dialects mentioned prior are a good deal mixed up.


Southeast Asia

The varieties of Hokkien in
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 south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
originate from these dialects. Douglas (1873/1899) notes that "''Singapore and the various Straits Settlements'' '', Batavia'' ''and other parts of the Dutch possessions'' '', are crowded with emigrants, especially from the Chang-chew'' ''prefecture; Manila and other parts of the Philippines have great numbers from Chin-chew'' '', and emigrants are largely scattered in like manner in Siam'' '', Burmah'' '', the Malay Peninsula'' '', Cochin China'' '', Saigon'' '', &c. In many of these places there is also a great mixture of emigrants from Swatow'' ''.''" In modern times though, a mixed dialect descended from the Quanzhou,
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' ...
, and
Zhangzhou dialects The Zhangzhou dialects (), also rendered Changchew, Chiangchew or Changchow, are a collection of Hokkien dialects spoken in southern Fujian province (in southeast China), centered on the city of Zhangzhou. The Zhangzhou dialect proper is the sourc ...
, leaning a little closer to the Quanzhou dialect, possibly due to being from the Tung'an dialect, is spoken by
Chinese Singaporean Chinese Singaporeans () are Singaporeans of Chinese descent. Chinese Singaporeans constitute 75.9% of the Singaporean citizen population according to the official census, making them the largest ethnic group among them. As early as the 10th ...
s, Southern Malaysian Chinese, and Chinese Indonesians in Indonesia's
Riau province Riau is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the central eastern coast of Sumatra along the Strait of Malacca. The province shares land borders with North Sumatra to the northwest, West Sumatra to the west, and Jambi to the south. Accordi ...
and
Riau Islands The Riau Islands ( id, Kepulauan Riau) is a province of Indonesia. It comprises a total of 1,796 islands scattered between Sumatra, Malay Peninsula, and Borneo including the Riau Archipelago. Situated on one of the world's busiest shipping lan ...
. Variants include
Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien Southern Malaysian Hokkien () is a local variant of the Min Nan Chinese variety spoken in Central and Southern Peninsular Malaysia ( Klang, Melaka, Muar, Tangkak, Segamat, Batu Pahat, Pontian and Johor Bahru). Due to geographical proximit ...
and
Singaporean Hokkien Singaporean Hokkien is a local variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively in Singapore. Within Chinese linguistic academic circles, this dialect is known as Singaporean Ban-lam Gu. It bears similarities with the Amoy spoken in Amoy, now bet ...
in Singapore. Among Malaysian Chinese of Penang, and other states in Northern
Peninsular Malaysia Peninsular Malaysia ( ms, Semenanjung Malaysia; Jawi: سمننجڠ مليسيا), or the States of Malaya ( ms, Negeri-negeri Tanah Melayu; Jawi: نڬري-نڬري تانه ملايو), also known as West Malaysia or the Malaysian Peninsula, ...
and ethnic Chinese Indonesians in
Medan Medan (; English: ) is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of North Sumatra, as well as a regional hub and financial centre of Sumatra. According to the National Development Planning Agency, Medan is one of the four mai ...
, with other areas in North Sumatra, Indonesia, a distinct descendant dialect form of Zhangzhou Hokkien has developed. In Penang, it is called
Penang Hokkien Penang Hokkien (; Tâi-lô: ''Pin-siânn Hok-kiàn-uā''; ; ) is a local variant of Hokkien spoken in Penang, Malaysia. It is spoken as a mother tongue by 63.9% of Penang's Chinese community, and also by some Penangite Indians and Penangit ...
while across the
Malacca Strait The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, connec ...
in
Medan Medan (; English: ) is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of North Sumatra, as well as a regional hub and financial centre of Sumatra. According to the National Development Planning Agency, Medan is one of the four mai ...
, an almost identical variant is known as
Medan Hokkien Medan Hokkien is a local variety of Hokkien spoken among Chinese Indonesians in Medan and Jakarta, Indonesia. It is the ''lingua franca'' in Medan as well as other northern city states of North Sumatra surrounding it, and is a subdialect of the ...
. As for
Chinese Filipino Chinese Filipinos; tl, Tsinoy, / Tsinong Pilipino, ; Hokkien in the Philippines, Philippine Hokkien , Mandarin Chinese in the Philippines, Mandarin (also known as Filipino Chinese in the Philippines) are Filipinos of Chinese descent, mo ...
s in the Philippines, a variant known as Philippine Hokkien, which is also mostly derived from
Quanzhou Hokkien The Quanzhou dialects (), also rendered Chin-chew or Choanchew, are a collection of Hokkien dialects spoken in southern Fujian (in southeast China), in the area centered on the city of Quanzhou. Due to migration, various Quanzhou dialects are s ...
, particularly the Jinjiang and Nan'an dialects with a bit of influence from the Amoy (Xiamen) dialect, is still spoken amongst families as most also profess ancestors from the aforementioned areas. There are also Hokkien speakers scattered throughout other parts of
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 ...
(such as Jakarta and around the island of
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
), Thailand (especially
Southern Thailand Southern Thailand, Southern Siam or Tambralinga is a southernmost cultural region of Thailand, separated from Central Thailand region by the Kra Isthmus. Geography Southern Thailand is on the Malay Peninsula, with an area of around , bounde ...
on the border with Malaysia),
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
, other parts of Malaysia (such as Eastern (Insular) Malaysia),
Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by t ...
,
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...
, and Southern Vietnam (such as in Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City), though there are notably more of Teochew/
Swatow Shantou, alternately romanized as Swatow and sometimes known as Santow, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern coast of Guangdong, China, with a total population of 5,502,031 as of the 2020 census (5,391,028 in 2010) and an administrative ...
background among descendants of Chinese migrants in regions such as parts of Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Southern Vietnam.


History

Variants of Hokkien dialects can be traced to three sources of origin:
Tong'an Tong'an District () is a northern mainland district of Amoy which faces Quemoy County, Republic of China. To the north is Anxi and Nan'an, and to the south is Jimei. Tong'an is also east of Lianxiang and Changqin to the West. It covers
, Quanzhou 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 prefect ...
. Both
Amoy Hokkien The Amoy dialect or Xiamen dialect (), also known as Amoynese, Amoy Hokkien, Xiamenese or Xiamen Hokkien, is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the city of Xiamen (historically known as "Amoy") and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the southern ...
and most of
Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about ...
is heavily based on the Tong'an dialect, and to a lesser extent, on Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, while the rest of the Hokkien dialects spoken in South East Asia are derived their respective homelands in southern Fujian.


Southern Fujian

During the
Three Kingdoms The Three Kingdoms () from 220 to 280 AD was the tripartite division of China among the dynastic states of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu. The Three Kingdoms period was preceded by the Eastern Han dynasty and was followed by the West ...
period of ancient China, there was constant warfare occurring in the Central Plain of China. Northerners began to enter into
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 ...
region, causing the region to incorporate parts of northern Chinese dialects. However, the massive migration of northern Han Chinese into Fujian region mainly occurred after the
Disaster of Yongjia The Disaster of Yongjia () refers to an event in Chinese history that occurred in 311 CE (5th year of the ''Yongjia'' era of the reign of Emperor Huai of Jin, hence the name), when forces of the Xiongnu-led Han Zhao dynasty captured and sacked ...
. The
Jìn Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level ...
court fled from the north to the south, causing large numbers of northern Han Chinese to move into Fujian region. They brought the
Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 ...
spoken in the Central Plain of China from the prehistoric era to the 3rd century into Fujian. In 677 (during the reign of
Emperor Gaozong of Tang Emperor Gaozong of Tang (21 July 628 – 27 December 683), personal name Li Zhi, was the third emperor of the Tang dynasty in China, ruling from 649 to 683; after January 665, he handed power over the empire to his second wife Empress Wu (the f ...
), Chen Zheng, together with his son
Chen Yuanguang Chen Yuanguang (; 657–711), courtesy name Tingju (), pseudonym Longhu (), was a Tang Dynasty general and official. He was from Gushi County, Henan. The people of Zhangzhou, Fujian, along with the descendants of immigrants from Zhangzhou to Tai ...
, led a military expedition to suppress a rebellion of the She people. In 885, (during the reign of
Emperor Xizong of Tang Emperor Xizong of Tang (June 8, 862 – April 20, 888), né Li Yan, later name changed to Li Xuan (, changed 873), was an emperor of the Tang dynasty of China. He reigned from 873 to 888. He was the fifth son of his predecessor Emperor Yizong ...
), the two brothers Wang Chao and
Wang Shenzhi Wang Shenzhi (; 862 – December 30, 925), courtesy name Xintong () or Xiangqing (), formally Prince Zhongyi of Min () and later further posthumously honored as Emperor Taizu of Min (), was the founder of Min Kingdom on the southeast coastal pro ...
, led a military expedition force to suppress the
Huang Chao rebellion Huang Chao (835 – July 13, 884) was a Chinese smuggler, soldier, and rebel, and is most well known for being the leader of a major rebellion that severely weakened the Tang dynasty. Huang was a salt smuggler before joining Wang Xianzhi's ...
. Waves of migration from the north in this era brought the language of
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 ...
into the Fujian region.


Xiamen (Amoy)

The
Amoy dialect The Amoy dialect or Xiamen dialect (), also known as Amoynese, Amoy Hokkien, Xiamenese or Xiamen Hokkien, is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the city of Xiamen (historically known as "Amoy") and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the souther ...
is the main dialect spoken in area of
Port of Xiamen The Port of Xiamen is an important deep water port located on Xiamen Island, the adjacent mainland coast, and along the estuary of the Jiulongjiang River in southern Fujian, China. It is one of the trunk line ports in the Asia-Pacific region. It ...
, that is, southwest corner of Xiamen island in the Chinese city of
Xiamen 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 ...
( formerly romanized and natively pronounced as "Amoy"). Historically, Port of Xiamen had always been part of Tung'an country until after 1912 of Republic of China era. Amoy dialect cannot simply be interpreted as a mixture of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou dialects, but rather it is formed on the foundation of Tung'an dialect with further inputs from other sub-dialects, namely from the adjacent Zhangzhou dialect.


Early sources

Several playscripts survive from the late 16th century, written in a mixture of Quanzhou and Chaozhou dialects. The most important is the '' Romance of the Litchi Mirror'', with extant manuscripts dating from 1566 and 1581. In the early 17th century, Spanish missionaries in the Philippines produced materials documenting the Hokkien varieties spoken by the Chinese trading community who had settled there in the late 16th century: * ''Diccionarium Sino-Hispanicum'' (1604), a Spanish–Hokkien dictionary, giving equivalent words, but not definitions. * ''Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china'' (1607), a Hokkien translation of the ''
Doctrina Christiana The ''Doctrina Christiana'' ( eng, Christian Doctrine) was an early book on the catechism of the Catholic Church, written in 1593 by Fray Juan de Plasencia, and is believed to be one of the earliest printed books in the Philippines. Title ...
''. * ''Bocabulario de la lengua sangleya'' (c. 1617), a Spanish–Hokkien dictionary, with definitions. * ''Arte de la Lengua Chiõ Chiu'' (1620), a grammar written by a Spanish missionary in the Philippines. These texts appear to record a Zhangzhou dialect, from the old port of
Yuegang Yuegang () was a seaport situated at the estuary of the Jiulong River near Zhangzhou in Fujian, China. Known as a smuggling hub since the early Ming dynasty, Yuegang rose to prominence in the 16th century as the Ming government cracked down on oth ...
(modern-day Haicheng, an old port that is now part of Longhai). Chinese scholars produced
rhyme dictionaries A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book () is an ancient type of Chinese dictionary that collates characters by tone and rhyme, instead of by radical. The most important rime dictionary tradition began with the '' Qieyun'' (601), ...
describing Hokkien varieties at the beginning of the 19th century: * ''Lūi-im Biāu-ngō͘ (Huìyīn Miàowù)'' (彙音妙悟 "Understanding of the collected sounds") was written around 1800 by Huang Qian (黃謙), and describes the Quanzhou dialect. The oldest extant edition dates from 1831. * ''Lūi-chi̍p Ngé-sio̍k-thong Si̍p-ngó͘-im (Huìjí Yǎsútōng Shíwǔyīn)'' (彙集雅俗通十五音 "Compilation of the fifteen elegant and vulgar sounds") by Xie Xiulan (謝秀嵐) describes the Zhangzhou dialect. The oldest extant edition dates from 1818.
Walter Henry Medhurst Walter Henry Medhurst (29 April 179624 January 1857), was an English Congregationalist missionary to China, born in London and educated at St Paul's School. He was one of the early translators of the Bible into Chinese-language editions. Earl ...
based his 1832 dictionary on the latter work.


Phonology

Hokkien has one of the most diverse
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
inventories among Chinese varieties, with more
consonant 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 wi ...
s than Standard Mandarin and
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 ar ...
.
Vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s are more-or-less similar to that of Mandarin. Hokkien varieties retain many pronunciations that are no longer found in other Chinese varieties. These include the retention of the initial, which is now (Pinyin 'zh') in Mandarin (e.g. 'bamboo' 竹 is ''tik'', but ''zhú'' in Mandarin), having disappeared before the 6th century in other Chinese varieties. Along with other Min languages, which are not directly descended 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 ...
, Hokkien is of considerable interest to historical linguists for reconstructing
Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 ...
.


Finals

Unlike Mandarin, Hokkien retains all the final consonants corresponding to those of Middle Chinese. While Mandarin only preserves the n and ŋ finals, Southern Min also preserves the m, p, t and k finals and has developed the ʔ ( glottal stop). The vowels of Hokkien are listed below: (*)Only certain dialects * Oral vowel sounds are realized as nasal sounds when preceding a nasal consonant. * only occurs within triphthongs, like . The following table illustrates some of the more commonly seen vowel shifts. Characters with the same vowel are shown in parentheses.


Initials

Southern Min has aspirated, unaspirated as well as
voiced consonant 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 ref ...
initials. For example, the word ''khui'' (; "open") and ''kuiⁿ'' (; "close") have the same vowel but differ only by aspiration of the initial and nasality of the vowel. In addition, Southern Min has labial initial consonants such as ''m'' in ''m̄-sī'' (; "is not"). Another example is ''ta-po͘-kiáⁿ'' (; "boy") and ''cha-bó͘-kiáⁿ'' (; "girl"), which differ in the second syllable in consonant voicing and in tone. * All consonants but may be nasalized; voiced oral stops may be nasalized into voiced nasal stops. * Nasal stops mostly occur word-initially. * Quanzhou and nearby may pronounce ⟨j⟩/⟨dz⟩ as ⟨l⟩ or ⟨g⟩. * ⟨l⟩ is often interchanged with ⟨n⟩ and ⟨j⟩/⟨dz⟩ throughout different dialects. * ⟨j⟩, sometimes into ⟨dz⟩, is often pronounced very thick so as to change to ⟨l⟩, or very nearly so. * Some dialects may pronounce ⟨l⟩ as ⟨d⟩, or a sound very like it. *Approximant sounds [] [], only occur word-medially, and are also realized as laryngealized [] [], within a few medial and terminal environments.


Tones

According to the traditional Chinese system, Hokkien dialects have 7 or 8 distinct tones, including two entering tones which end in plosive consonants. The entering tones can be analysed as
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
s, giving 5 or 6
phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...
tones. In addition, many dialects have an additional phonemic tone ("tone 9" according to the traditional reckoning), used only in special or foreign loan words. This means that Hokkien dialects have between 5 and 7 phonemic tones.
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 ...
is extensive. There are minor variations between the Quanzhou 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 prefect ...
tone systems. Taiwanese tones follow the patterns of Amoy or Quanzhou, depending on the area of Taiwan.


Dialects

The Hokkien language (Minnan) is spoken in a variety of accents and dialects across the
Minnan region Minnan, Banlam or Minnan Golden Triangle (), refers to the coastal region in Southern Fujian Province, China, which includes the prefecture-level cities of Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. The region accounts for 40 percent of the GDP of Fujian Pr ...
. The Hokkien spoken in most areas of the three counties of southern Zhangzhou have merged the coda finals -n and -ng into -ng. The initial consonant j ( dz and ) is not present in most dialects of Hokkien spoken in Quanzhou, having been merged into the d or l initials. The -ik or -ɪk final consonant that is preserved in the native Hokkien dialects of Zhangzhou and Xiamen is also preserved in the Nan'an dialect (色, 德, 竹) but are pronounce as -iak in Quanzhou Hokkien. *Quanzhou Hokkien dialects (泉州閩南片): **
Anxi dialect Anxi may refer to: * Anxi County (), Quanzhou, Fujian * Guazhou County (), formerly Anxi County, in Jiuquan, Gansu ** Guazhou Town, formerly Anxi Town (), in what is now Guazhou County * Protectorate General to Pacify the West, a Central-Asian mi ...
(安溪話) **
Dehua dialect () is a county located in central Fujian province, People's Republic of China. It is under the administration of Quanzhou City and covers an area of with a total population of 300,000. History Dehua is rich in kaolin and famous for ceramic pr ...
(德化話) ** Hui'an dialect (惠安話) ** Jinjiang dialect (晋江話) ** Nan'an dialect (南安話) ** Quanzhou dialect (泉州話) **
Yongchun dialect The Yongchun dialect (simplified Chinese: 永春话; traditional Chinese: 永春話; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Éng-chhun-ōe) is a dialect of the Hokkien language mostly spoken in Yongchun County of Quanzhou city in Southern Fujian Province, China. It be ...
(永春話) ** Youxi dialect (尤溪話) ** Philippine Hokkien (咱人話/咱儂話/菲律賓福建話) *Zhangzhou Hokkien dialects (漳州閩南片): ** Longxi dialect (龍溪話) **
Longyan dialect The Longyan dialect (), also known as Longyan Minnan () or ''Liong11l11334'', is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the urban city area of Longyan (eastern Longyan) in the province of Fujian, China while Hakka is spoken in rural villages of Longyan ( ...
(龍巖話) **
Pinghe dialect Pinghe County () is a county of the prefecture-level city of Zhangzhou, in southern Fujian province, PRC, bordering Guangdong province to the west. Administrative Division The administrative centre or seat of Pinghe County is Xiaoxi Town, Fujian ...
(平和話) ** Yunxiao dialect (雲霄話) ** Zhangpu dialect (漳浦話) **
Zhangzhou dialect The Zhangzhou dialects (), also rendered Changchew, Chiangchew or Changchow, are a collection of Hokkien dialects spoken in southern Fujian province (in southeast China), centered on the city of Zhangzhou. The Zhangzhou dialect proper is the sourc ...
(漳州話) **
Zhao'an dialect Zhao'an () is a county in the municipal region of Zhangzhou, southernmost Fujian province, People's Republic of China. History Qing dynasty to the Republic of China In May 1907, county officials arrested, on suspicion of piracy, the local lead ...
(詔安話) **
Haifeng dialect Hailufeng ( ''Hai Lok Hong''), or in the language itself ''Haklau'', is a variety of Chinese mostly spoken in the Hailufeng region of Guangdong. The region includes Shanwei (Swabue), Haifeng County (Hai Hong), and Lufeng (Lok Hong) and the na ...
(海豐話) **
Lufeng dialect Hailufeng ( ''Hai Lok Hong''), or in the language itself ''Haklau'', is a variety of Chinese mostly spoken in the Hailufeng region of Guangdong. The region includes Shanwei (Swabue), Haifeng County (Hai Hong), and Lufeng (Lok Hong) and the na ...
(陸豐話) **
Penang Hokkien Penang Hokkien (; Tâi-lô: ''Pin-siânn Hok-kiàn-uā''; ; ) is a local variant of Hokkien spoken in Penang, Malaysia. It is spoken as a mother tongue by 63.9% of Penang's Chinese community, and also by some Penangite Indians and Penangit ...
(檳城/庇能福建話) **
Medan Hokkien Medan Hokkien is a local variety of Hokkien spoken among Chinese Indonesians in Medan and Jakarta, Indonesia. It is the ''lingua franca'' in Medan as well as other northern city states of North Sumatra surrounding it, and is a subdialect of the ...
(棉蘭福建話) *
Tong'an dialect Tong'an District () is a northern mainland district of Amoy which faces Quemoy County, Republic of China. To the north is Anxi and Nan'an, and to the south is Jimei. Tong'an is also east of Lianxiang and Changqin to the West. It covers
(同安話) **
Tong'an Tong'an District () is a northern mainland district of Amoy which faces Quemoy County, Republic of China. To the north is Anxi and Nan'an, and to the south is Jimei. Tong'an is also east of Lianxiang and Changqin to the West. It covers
(同安) **
Kinmen Kinmen, alternatively known as Quemoy, is a group of islands governed as a county by the Republic of China (Taiwan), off the southeastern coast of mainland China. It lies roughly east of the city of Xiamen in Fujian, from which it is separat ...
(金門話) **
Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien Southern Malaysian Hokkien () is a local variant of the Min Nan Chinese variety spoken in Central and Southern Peninsular Malaysia ( Klang, Melaka, Muar, Tangkak, Segamat, Batu Pahat, Pontian and Johor Bahru). Due to geographical proximit ...
(南馬福建話) ***
Singaporean Hokkien Singaporean Hokkien is a local variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively in Singapore. Within Chinese linguistic academic circles, this dialect is known as Singaporean Ban-lam Gu. It bears similarities with the Amoy spoken in Amoy, now bet ...
(新加坡福建話)) *
Amoy dialect The Amoy dialect or Xiamen dialect (), also known as Amoynese, Amoy Hokkien, Xiamenese or Xiamen Hokkien, is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the city of Xiamen (historically known as "Amoy") and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the souther ...
(廈門話) *
Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about ...
(臺灣話/臺灣閩南語/台語)


Comparison

The
Amoy dialect The Amoy dialect or Xiamen dialect (), also known as Amoynese, Amoy Hokkien, Xiamenese or Xiamen Hokkien, is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the city of Xiamen (historically known as "Amoy") and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the souther ...
(Xiamen) is a variant of the Tung'an dialect. Majority of
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, ...
, from
Tainan Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a special municipality in southern Taiwan facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and also commonly known as the "Capital City" for its over 200 years of his ...
, to
Taichung Taichung (, Wade–Giles: ''Tʻai²-chung¹'', pinyin: ''Táizhōng''), officially Taichung City, is a special municipality located in central Taiwan. Taichung has approximately 2.8 million residents and is the second most populous city of Ta ...
, to
Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...
, is also heavily based on Tung'an dialect while incorporating some vowels of Zhangzhou dialect, whereas
Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien Southern Malaysian Hokkien () is a local variant of the Min Nan Chinese variety spoken in Central and Southern Peninsular Malaysia ( Klang, Melaka, Muar, Tangkak, Segamat, Batu Pahat, Pontian and Johor Bahru). Due to geographical proximit ...
, including
Singaporean Hokkien Singaporean Hokkien is a local variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively in Singapore. Within Chinese linguistic academic circles, this dialect is known as Singaporean Ban-lam Gu. It bears similarities with the Amoy spoken in Amoy, now bet ...
, is based on the Tung'an dialect, with Philippine Hokkien on the Quanzhou dialect, and
Penang Hokkien Penang Hokkien (; Tâi-lô: ''Pin-siânn Hok-kiàn-uā''; ; ) is a local variant of Hokkien spoken in Penang, Malaysia. It is spoken as a mother tongue by 63.9% of Penang's Chinese community, and also by some Penangite Indians and Penangit ...
on Zhangzhou dialect. There are some variations in pronunciation and vocabulary between Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects. The grammar is generally the same. Additionally, extensive contact with 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 ...
has left a legacy of Japanese loanwords in Taiwanese Hokkien. On the other hand, the variants spoken in
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, bor ...
and
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 ...
have a substantial number of loanwords from
Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...
and to a lesser extent, from
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 ...
and other Chinese varieties, such as the closely related Teochew and some
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 ar ...
. Meanwhile, 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 ...
, there are also a few
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
and
Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
( Tagalog) loanwords, while it is also currently a norm to frequently codeswitch with
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 ...
,
Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
( Tagalog), and in some cases other
Philippine languages The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (languag ...
, such as Cebuano.


Mutual intelligibility

Tong'an, Xiamen, Taiwanese, Singaporean dialects as a group are more mutually intelligible, but it is less so amongst the forementioned group, Quanzhou dialect, and Zhangzhou dialect. Although the Min Nan varieties of Teochew and Amoy are 84% phonetically similar including the pronunciations of un-used Chinese characters as well as same characters used for different meanings, and 34% lexically similar,, Teochew has only 51% intelligibility with the Tong'an Hokkien, Tung'an dialect (Cheng 1997) whereas Mandarin and Amoy Min Nan are 62% phonetically similar and 15% lexically similar. In comparison, German and English are 60% lexically similar. Hainanese, which is sometimes considered Southern Min, has almost no mutual intelligibility with any form of Hokkien.


Grammar

Hokkien is an analytic language; in a sentence, the arrangement of words is important to its meaning. A basic sentence follows the subject–verb–object pattern (i.e. a subject is followed by a
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
then by an
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...
), though this order is often violated because Hokkien dialects are topic-prominent. Unlike synthetic languages, seldom do words indicate
time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
,
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
and
plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
by inflection. Instead, these concepts are expressed through adverbs, aspect markers, and grammatical particles, or are deduced from the context. Different particles are added to a sentence to further specify its status or intonation. A verb itself indicates no grammatical tense. The time can be explicitly shown with time-indicating adverbs. Certain exceptions exist, however, according to the pragmatic interpretation of a verb's meaning. Additionally, an optional
aspect Aspect or Aspects may refer to: Entertainment * ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art * Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company * Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England * ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...
particle can be appended to a verb to indicate the state of an action. Appending interrogative or exclamative particles to a sentence turns a statement into a question or shows the attitudes of the speaker. Hokkien dialects preserve certain grammatical reflexes and patterns reminiscent of the broad stage of
Archaic Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 ...
. This includes the serialization of verb phrases (direct linkage of verbs and
verb phrase In linguistics, a verb phrase (VP) is a syntactic unit composed of a verb and its arguments except the subject of an independent clause or coordinate clause. Thus, in the sentence ''A fat man quickly put the money into the box'', the words ''q ...
s) and the infrequency of nominalization, both similar to Archaic Chinese grammar. Choice of grammatical function words also varies significantly among the Hokkien dialects. For instance, ''khit'' (乞) (denoting the causative, passive or dative) is retained in Jinjiang (also unique to the Jinjiang dialect is ''thō͘'' 度) and in
Jieyang Jieyang () is a prefecture-level city in eastern Guangdong Province (Yuedong), People's Republic of China, part of the Chaoshan region whose people speak Chaoshan Min distinct from neighbouring Yue speakers. It is historically important as th ...
, but not in Longxi and
Xiamen 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 ...
, whose dialects use ''hō͘'' (互/予) instead.


Pronouns

Hokkien dialects differ in the pronunciation of some pronouns (such as the second person pronoun ''lí'' or ''lú'' or ''lír''), and also differ in how to form plural pronouns (such as ''-n'' or ''-lâng''). Personal pronouns found in the Hokkien dialects are listed below: :1 Exclusive :2 Inclusive :3 儂 (''-lâng'') is typically suffixed in Southeast Asian Hokkien dialects (with the exception of Philippine Hokkien) Possessive pronouns can be marked by the particle ''ê'' (的), in the same way as normal nouns. In some dialects, possessive pronouns can also be formed with a nasal suffix, which means that possessive pronouns and plural pronouns are
homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...
s: The most common
reflexive pronoun A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that refers to another noun or pronoun (its antecedent) within the same sentence. In the English language specifically, a reflexive pronoun will end in ''-self'' or ''-selves'', and refer to a previously n ...
is ''ka-kī'' (家己). In formal contexts, ''chū-kí'' (自己) is also used. Hokkien dialects use a variety of
demonstrative pronoun Demonstratives ( abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular fram ...
s, which include: *this – ''che'' (這, 即), ''chit-ê'' (即個) *that – ''he'' (許, 彼), ''hit-ê'' (彼個) *here – ''chia'' (遮), ''chit-tau'' (即兜) *there – ''hia'' (遐), ''hit-tau'' (彼兜) The interrogative pronouns include: *what – ''siáⁿ-mih'' (啥物), ''sím-mih'' (甚麼), ''há-mi̍h'' (何物) *when – ''tī-sî'' (底時), ''kúi-sî'' (幾時), ''tang-sî'' (當時), ''sím-mih sî-chūn'' (甚麼時陣) *where – ''tó-lo̍h'' (倒落), ''tó-uī'' (倒位) *who – ''siáⁿ-lâng'' (啥人), ''siáng'' (誰), *why – ''ūi-siáⁿ-mih'' (為啥物), ''ūi-sím-mih'' (為甚物), ''án-chóaⁿ'' (按怎), ''khah'' (盍) *how – ''án-chóaⁿ'' (按怎), ''lû-hô'' (如何), ''cháiⁿ-iūⁿ'' (怎樣)


Copula ("to be")

States and qualities are generally expressed using
stative verbs According to some linguistics theories, a stative verb is a verb that describes a state of being, in contrast to a dynamic verb, which describes an action. The difference can be categorized by saying that stative verbs describe situations that are ...
that do not require the verb "to be": With noun complements, the verb ''sī'' (是) serves as the verb "to be". To indicate location, the words ''tī'' (佇) ''tiàm'' (踮), ''leh'' (咧), which are collectively known as the locatives or sometimes coverbs in Chinese linguistics, are used to express "(to be) at":


Negation

Hokkien dialects have a variety of negation particles that are prefixed or affixed to the verbs they modify. There are six primary negation particles in Hokkien dialects (with some variation in how they are written in characters): #''m̄'' (毋, 呣, 唔, 伓) #''bē'' (未) #''bōe'' (𣍐) #''mài'' (莫, 【勿愛】) #''bô'' (無) #''put'' (不) – literary Other negative particles include: #''bâng'' (甭) #''bián'' (免) #''thài'' (汰) The particle ''m̄'' (毋, 呣, 唔, 伓) is general and can negate almost any verb: The particle ''mài'' (莫, 【勿爱】), a concatenation of ''m-ài'' (毋愛) is used to negate imperative commands: The particle ''bô'' (無) indicates the past tense: The verb 'to have', ''ū'' (有) is replaced by ''bô'' (無) when negated (not 無有): The particle ''put'' (不) is used infrequently, mostly found in literary compounds and phrases:


Vocabulary

The majority of Hokkien vocabulary is
monosyllabic In linguistics, a monosyllable is a word or utterance of only one syllable. It is most commonly studied in the fields of phonology and morphology and it has no semantic content. The word has originated from the Greek language. "Yes", "no", "jump", ...
. Many Hokkien
word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...
s have cognates in other Chinese varieties. That said, there are also many indigenous words that are unique to Hokkien and are potentially not of
Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...
origin, while others are shared by all the
Min Min or MIN may refer to: Places * Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China ** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian * Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China * Min River (Fujian) * Min River (Sichuan) * Mineola (Am ...
dialects (e.g. 'congee' is 糜 ''mê'', ''bôe'', ''bê'', not 粥 ''zhōu'', as in other dialects). As compared to Mandarin, Hokkien dialects prefer to use the monosyllabic form of words, without suffixes. For instance, the Mandarin noun suffix 子 (zi) is not found in Hokkien words, while another noun suffix, 仔 (á) is used in many nouns. Examples are below: *'duck' – 鴨 ''ah'' or 鴨仔 ''ah-á'' (SC: 鴨子 ''yāzi'') *'color' – 色 ''sek'' (SC: 顏色 ''yán sè'') In other bisyllabic morphemes, the syllables are inverted, as compared to Mandarin. Examples include the following: *'guest' – 人客 ''lâng-kheh'' (SC: 客人 ''kèrén'') In other cases, the same word can have different meanings in Hokkien and Mandarin. Similarly, depending on the region Hokkien is spoken in, loanwords from local languages (Malay, Tagalog, Burmese, among others), as well as other Chinese dialects (such as Southern Chinese dialects like
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 ar ...
and Teochew), are commonly integrated into the vocabulary of Hokkien dialects.


Literary and colloquial readings

The existence of
literary and colloquial reading Differing literary and colloquial readings for certain Chinese characters are a common feature of many varieties of Chinese, Chinese varieties, and the reading distinctions for these Doublet (linguistics), linguistic doublets often typify a dial ...
s is a prominent feature of some Hokkien dialects and indeed in many Sinitic varieties in the south. The bulk of literary readings (, ''bûn-tha̍k''), based on pronunciations of the vernacular during the
Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom ...
, are mainly used in formal phrases and written language (e.g. philosophical concepts, given names, and some place names), while the colloquial (or vernacular) ones (, ''pe̍h-tha̍k'') are usually used in spoken language, vulgar phrases and surnames. Literary readings are more similar to the pronunciations of the Tang standard of Middle Chinese than their colloquial equivalents. The pronounced divergence between literary and colloquial pronunciations found in Hokkien dialects is attributed to the presence of several strata in the Min lexicon. The earliest, colloquial stratum is traced to the
Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...
(206 BCE – 220 CE); the second colloquial one comes from the period of the
Northern and Southern dynasties The Northern and Southern dynasties () was a period of political division in the history of China that lasted from 420 to 589, following the tumultuous era of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Eastern Jin dynasty. It is sometimes considered a ...
(420–589 CE); the third stratum of pronunciations (typically literary ones) comes from the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) and is based on the
prestige dialect Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.) Prestige may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films * ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnett ...
of
Chang'an Chang'an (; ) is the traditional name of Xi'an. The site had been settled since Neolithic times, during which the Yangshao culture was established in Banpo, in the city's suburbs. Furthermore, in the northern vicinity of modern Xi'an, Qin S ...
(modern day
Xi'an Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by other names, is the capital of Shaanxi Province. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong Plain, the city is the third most populous city in Western China, after Chongqi ...
), its capital. Some commonly seen sound correspondences (colloquial → literary) are as follows: *p- (, ) → h () *ch-, chh- (, , , ) → s (, ) *k-, kh- (, ) → ch (, ) *-ⁿ (, ) → n () *-h () → t () *i () → e () *e () → a () *ia () → i () This table displays some widely used characters in Hokkien that have both literary and colloquial readings: This feature extends to
Chinese numerals Chinese numerals are words and characters used to denote numbers in Chinese. Today, speakers of Chinese use three written numeral systems: the system of Arabic numerals used worldwide, and two indigenous systems. The more familiar indigenous s ...
, which have both literary and colloquial readings. Literary readings are typically used when the numerals are read out loud (e.g. phone numbers, years), while colloquial readings are used for counting items.


Semantic differences between Hokkien and Mandarin

Quite a few words from the variety of
Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 ...
spoken in the state of Wu, where the ancestral language of Min and Wu dialect families originated, and later words 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 ...
as well, have retained the original meanings in Hokkien, while many of their counterparts in
Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
have either fallen out of daily use, have been substituted with other words (some of which are borrowed from other languages while others are new developments), or have developed newer meanings. The same may be said of Hokkien as well, since some lexical meaning evolved in step with Mandarin while others are wholly innovative developments. This table shows some Hokkien dialect words from Classical Chinese, as contrasted to the written Mandarin: For other words, the classical Chinese meanings of certain words, which are retained in Hokkien dialects, have evolved or deviated significantly in other Chinese dialects. The following table shows some words that are both used in both Hokkien dialects and Mandarin Chinese, while the meanings in Mandarin Chinese have been modified:


Words from Minyue

Some commonly used words, shared by all Min Chinese languages, came from the ancient Minyue languages. Jerry Norman suggested that these languages were
Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...
. Some terms are thought be cognates with words in Tai Kadai and Austronesian languages. They include the following examples, compared to the
Fuzhou dialect 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 ...
, a Min Dong language:


Loanwords

Loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s are not unusual among Hokkien dialects, as speakers readily adopted indigenous terms of the languages they came in contact with. As a result, there is a plethora of loanwords that are not mutually comprehensible among Hokkien dialects.
Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about ...
, as a result of linguistic contact with
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
and
Formosan languages The Formosan languages are a geographic grouping comprising the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, all of which are Austronesian. They do not form a single subfamily of Austronesian but rather nine separate subfamilies. The Taiwa ...
, contains many loanwords from these languages. Many words have also been formed as
calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language w ...
s from Mandarin, and speakers will often directly use Mandarin vocabulary through
codeswitching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingualism ...
. Among these include the following examples: *'toilet' – ''piān-só͘'' () from Japanese *:Other Hokkien variants: (''sái-ha̍k''), (''chhek-só͘'') *'car' – ''chū-tōng-chhia'' () from Japanese *:Other Hokkien variants: (''hong-chhia''), (''khì-chhia'') *'to admire' – ''kám-sim'' () from Japanese *:Other Hokkien variants: (''kám-tōng'') *'fruit' – ''chúi-ké / chúi-kóe / chúi-kér'' () from Mandarin () *:Other Hokkien variants: (''ké-chí / kóe-chí / kér-chí'')
Singaporean Hokkien Singaporean Hokkien is a local variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively in Singapore. Within Chinese linguistic academic circles, this dialect is known as Singaporean Ban-lam Gu. It bears similarities with the Amoy spoken in Amoy, now bet ...
,
Penang Hokkien Penang Hokkien (; Tâi-lô: ''Pin-siânn Hok-kiàn-uā''; ; ) is a local variant of Hokkien spoken in Penang, Malaysia. It is spoken as a mother tongue by 63.9% of Penang's Chinese community, and also by some Penangite Indians and Penangit ...
and other Malaysian Hokkien dialects tend to draw loanwords from
Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...
,
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 ...
as well as other Chinese dialects, primarily Teochew. Examples include: *'but' – ''ta-pi'', from Malay *:Other Hokkien variants: 但是 (''tān-sī'') *'doctor' – 老君 ''ló-kun'', from Malay ''dukun'' *:Other Hokkien variants: 醫生(''i-seng'') *'stone/rock' – ''bà-tû'', from Malay ''batu'' *:Other Hokkien variants: 石头(''chio̍h-thâu'') *'market' – 巴剎 ''pa-sat'', from Malay ''pasar'' from Persian '' bazaar'' (بازار) *:Other Hokkien variants: 市場 (''chhī-tiûⁿ''), 菜市 (''chhài-chhī'') *'they' – 伊儂 ''i-lâng'' from Teochew (i1 nang5) *:Other Hokkien variants: 𪜶 (''in'') *'together' – 做瓠 ''chò-bú'' from Teochew 做瓠 (jo3 bu5) *:Other Hokkien variants: 做夥 (chò-hóe), 同齊 (tâng-chê) or 鬥陣 (tàu-tīn) *'soap' – 雪文 ''sap-bûn'' from Malay ''sabun'' from Arabic ''ṣābūn'' (). Philippine Hokkien, as a result of centuries-old contact with both
Philippine languages The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (languag ...
and
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
also incorporate words from these languages. Speakers today will also often directly use
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 ...
and
Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
( Tagalog), or other
Philippine languages The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (languag ...
like
Bisaya Visayans ( Visayan: ''mga Bisaya''; ) or Visayan people are a Philippine ethnolinguistic group or metaethnicity native to the Visayas, the southernmost islands of Luzon and a significant portion of Mindanao. When taken as a single ethnic group, ...
, vocabulary through
codeswitching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingualism ...
. Examples include: *'cup' – ''ba-sù'', from either
Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
( Tagalog) ''baso'' or
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
''vaso'' *:Other Hokkien variants: 杯仔 (''poe-á''), 杯 (''poe'') *'office' – ''o-pi-sín'', from either
Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
( Tagalog) ''opisina'' or
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
''oficina'' *:Other Hokkien variants: 辦公室 (''pān-kong-sek/pān-kong-siak'') *'soap' – ''sap-bûn'', from either
Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
( Tagalog) ''sabon'' or Early Modern
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
''xabon'' *'to pay' – ''pá-lâ'', from
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
''paga'' *:Other Hokkien variants: 予錢 (''hō͘-chîⁿ''), 還錢 (''hêng-chîⁿ'') *'coffee' – ''ka-pé'', from either
Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
( Tagalog) ''kape'' or
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
''café'' *:Other Hokkien variants: 咖啡 (''ko-pi''), 咖啡 (''ka-pi'')


Comparison with Mandarin and Sino-Xenic pronunciations


Cultural centers

Quanzhou was historically the cultural center for Hokkien, as various traditional Hokkien cultural customs such as
Nanguan music Nanguan (; also ''nanyin'', ''nanyue'', ''xianguan'', or ''nanqu'') is a style of Chinese classical music from the southern Chinese province of Fujian. It is also popular in Taiwan, particularly Lukang on west coast, as well as among Overseas C ...
,
Beiguan music Beiguan () is a type of traditional music, melody and theatrical performance between the 17th and mid-20th centuries. It was widespread in Taiwan. By the early 21st century its popularity had declined precipitously. ''Beiguan'' usually uses the fo ...
,
glove puppetry Glove puppetry () is a type of opera using cloth puppets that originated during the 17th century in Quanzhou or Zhangzhou of China's Fujian province, and historically practised in the Min Nan-speaking areas such as Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, the Chaos ...
, and the Kaoka (高甲戲) and Lewan (梨園戲) genres of Hokkien opera originated from Quanzhou. This was mainly due to the fact that Quanzhou had become an important trading and commercial port since Tang dynasty and had prospered into an important city. After the
Opium War The First Opium War (), also known as the Opium War or the Anglo-Sino War was a series of military engagements fought between Britain and the Qing dynasty of China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of the ...
in 1842, Xiamen (Amoy) became one of the major
treaty port Treaty ports (; ja, 条約港) were the port cities in China and Japan that were opened to foreign trade mainly by the unequal treaties forced upon them by Western powers, as well as cities in Korea opened up similarly by the Japanese Empire. ...
s to be opened for trade with the outside world. From the mid-19th century onwards,
Xiamen 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 ...
slowly developed to become the political and economical center of the Hokkien-speaking region in China. This caused the
Amoy dialect The Amoy dialect or Xiamen dialect (), also known as Amoynese, Amoy Hokkien, Xiamenese or Xiamen Hokkien, is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the city of Xiamen (historically known as "Amoy") and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the souther ...
to gradually replace the position of dialects from Quanzhou 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 prefect ...
. From the mid-19th century until the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, western diplomats usually learned Amoy as the preferred dialect if they were to communicate with the Hokkien-speaking populace in China or Southeast Asia. In the 1940s and 1950s,
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 ...
also tended to incline towards Amoy dialect. The
retreat of the Republic of China to Taiwan The retreat of the government of the Republic of China to Taiwan (), also known as the Kuomintang's retreat to Taiwan or the Great Retreat () in Taiwan, refers to the exodus of the remnants of the internationally recognized Kuomintang-ruled ...
in 1949 drove party leaders to seek to both culturally and politically assimilate the islanders. As a result, laws were passed throughout the 1950s to suppress Hokkien and other languages in favor of Mandarin. By 1956, speaking Hokkien in ROC schools or military bases was illegal. However, popular outcry from both older islander communities and more recent Mainlander immigrants prompted a general wave of education reform, during which these and other education restrictions were lifted. The general goal of assimilation remained, with Amoy Hokkien seen as less ‘native’ and therefore preferred. However, from the 1980s onwards, the development of Taiwanese Min Nan pop music and media industry in
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 ...
caused the Hokkien cultural hub to shift from
Xiamen 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 ...
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 ...
. The flourishing Taiwanese Min Nan entertainment and media industry from Taiwan in the 1990s and early 21st century led Taiwan to emerge as the new significant cultural hub for Hokkien. In the 1990s, marked by the liberalization of language development and mother tongue movement in Taiwan,
Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about ...
had undergone a fast pace in its development. In 1993, Taiwan became the first region in the world to implement the teaching of Taiwanese Hokkien in Taiwanese schools. In 2001, the local Taiwanese language program was further extended to all schools in Taiwan, and Taiwanese Hokkien became one of the compulsory local Taiwanese languages to be learned in schools. The mother tongue movement in Taiwan even influenced
Xiamen 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 ...
(Amoy) to the point that in 2010, Xiamen also began to implement the teaching of Hokkien dialect in its schools. In 2007, the
Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
in
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 ...
also completed the standardization of Chinese characters used for writing Hokkien and developed Tai-lo as the standard Hokkien pronunciation and romanization guide. A number of universities in Taiwan also offer Taiwanese degree courses for training Hokkien-fluent talents to work for the Hokkien media industry and education. Taiwan also has its own Hokkien literary and cultural circles whereby Hokkien poets and writers compose poetry or literature in Hokkien. Thus, by the 21st century, Taiwan had become one of the most significant Hokkien cultural hubs of the world. The historical changes and development in Taiwan had led
Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about ...
to become the most influential pole of the Hokkien dialect after the mid-20th century. Today, the Taiwanese prestige dialect (Taiyu Youshiqiang/Tongxinqiang ) is heard on Taiwanese media.


Writing systems


Chinese script

Hokkien dialects are typically written using
Chinese character Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanj ...
s (, ''Hàn-jī''). However, the written script was and remains adapted to the literary form, which is based on
classical Chinese Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning "literar ...
, not the vernacular and spoken form. Furthermore, the character inventory used for Mandarin (standard written Chinese) does not correspond to Hokkien words, and there are a large number of informal characters (, ''thè-jī'' or ''thòe-jī''; 'substitute characters') which are unique to Hokkien (as is the case with
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 ar ...
). For instance, about 20 to 25% of Taiwanese morphemes lack an appropriate or standard Chinese character. While most Hokkien morphemes have standard designated characters, they are not always etymological or phono-semantic. Similar-sounding, similar-meaning or rare characters are commonly borrowed or substituted to represent a particular morpheme. Examples include "beautiful" ( ''bí'' is the literary form), whose vernacular morpheme ''suí'' is represented by characters like (an obsolete character), (a vernacular reading of this character) and even (transliteration of the sound ''suí''), or "tall" ( ''ko'' is the literary form), whose morpheme ''kôan'' is . Common grammatical particles are not exempt; the negation particle ''m̄'' (not) is variously represented by , or , among others. In other cases, characters are invented to represent a particular morpheme (a common example is the character ''in'', which represents the personal pronoun "they"). In addition, some characters have multiple and unrelated pronunciations, adapted to represent Hokkien words. For example, the Hokkien word ''bah'' ("meat") has been reduced to the character , which has etymologically unrelated colloquial and literary readings (''he̍k'' and ''jio̍k'', respectively). Another case is the word 'to eat,' ''chia̍h'', which is often transcribed in Taiwanese newspapers and media as (a Mandarin transliteration, ''xiā'', to approximate the Hokkien term), even though its recommended character in dictionaries is . Moreover, unlike Cantonese, Hokkien does not have a universally accepted standardized character set. Thus, there is some variation in the characters used to express certain words and characters can be ambiguous in meaning. In 2007, the
Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
of the Republic of China formulated and released a standard character set to overcome these difficulties. These standard Chinese characters for writing
Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about ...
are now taught in schools in Taiwan.


Latin script

Hokkien, especially Taiwanese Hokkien, is sometimes written in the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
using one of several alphabets. Of these the most popular is POJ, developed first by
Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
missionaries in China and later by the indigenous
Presbyterian Church in Taiwan The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT; ; ) is the largest Protestant Christian denomination based in Taiwan. The PCT is a member of the World Council of Churches, and its flag features a "Burning Bush," which signifies the concept of burning y ...
. Use of this script and orthography has been actively promoted since the late 19th century. The use of a mixed script of Han characters and Latin letters is also seen, though remains uncommon. Other Latin-based alphabets also exist. Min Nan texts, all Hokkien, can be dated back to the 16th century. One example is the '' Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china'', presumably written around 1593 by the Spanish Dominican
friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ...
s in the Philippines. Another is a
Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peo ...
script of a play called '' Tale of the Lychee Mirror'' (1566), supposedly the earliest Southern Min colloquial text, although it is written in
Teochew dialect Teochew or Chaozhou (, , , Teochew endonym: , Shantou dialect: ) is a dialect of Chaoshan Min, a Southern Min language, that is spoken by the Teochew people in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong and by their diaspora around the world. ...
. Taiwan has developed a Latin alphabet for Taiwanese Hokkien, derived from POJ, known as Tai-lo. Since 2006, it has been officially promoted by Taiwan's Ministry of Education and taught in Taiwanese schools.
Xiamen University Xiamen University (; Southern Min: ''Ē-mn̂g-toā-o̍h''), colloquially known as Xia Da (; Southern Min: ''Hā-tāi''), is a national public research university in Xiamen, Fujian, China. Founded in 1921 by Tan Kah Kee, a Chinese patriotic e ...
has also developed an alphabet based on Pinyin called Bbánlám pìngyīm.


Computing

Hokkien is registered as "Southern Min" per RFC 3066 a
zh-min-nan
When writing Hokkien in
Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji ...
, some writers create 'new' characters when they consider it impossible to use directly or borrow existing ones; this corresponds to similar practices in character usage in
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 ar ...
, Vietnamese chữ nôm, Korean hanja and
Japanese kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequent ...
. Some of these are not encoded in
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
(or the corresponding ISO/IEC 10646:
Universal Character Set The Universal Coded Character Set (UCS, Unicode) is a standard set of characters defined by the international standard ISO/IEC 10646, ''Information technology — Universal Coded Character Set (UCS)'' (plus amendments to that standard), w ...
), thus creating problems in computer processing. All
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
characters required by
Pe̍h-ōe-jī (; ; ), also sometimes known as the Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Southern Min Chinese, particularly Taiwanese Hokkien, Taiwanese and Amoy dialect, Amoy Hokkien. Developed by Western missionary, missionaries ...
can be represented using
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
(or the corresponding ISO/IEC 10646: Universal Character Set), using precomposed or combining (diacritics) characters. Prior to June 2004, the vowel akin to but more open than ''o'', written with a dot above right, was not encoded. The usual workaround was to use the (stand-alone; spacing) character '' Interpunct'' (U+00B7, ''·'') or less commonly the combining character ''dot above'' (U+0307). As these are far from ideal, since 1997 proposals have been submitted to the ISO/IEC
working group A working group, or working party, is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. The groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdis ...
in charge of ISO/IEC 10646—namely
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2
to encode a new combining character ''dot above right''. This is now officially assigned to U+0358 (see document
N2507N2628N2699
an
N2713
.


Cultural and political role

Hokkien (or Min Nan) can trace its roots through the Tang dynasty and also even further to the people of the
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 ...
, the indigenous non-Han people of modern-day Fujian. Min Nan (Hokkien) people call themselves "
Tang Tang or TANG most often refers to: * Tang dynasty * Tang (drink mix) Tang or TANG may also refer to: Chinese states and dynasties * Jin (Chinese state) (11th century – 376 BC), a state during the Spring and Autumn period, called Tang (唐) b ...
people," () which is synonymous to "Chinese people". Because of the widespread influence of the Tang culture during the great Tang dynasty, there are today still many Min Nan pronunciations of words shared by the
Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...
,
Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...
and
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
languages. In 2002, the
Taiwan Solidarity Union The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) is a political party in Taiwan which advocates Taiwan independence, and is affiliated with the Taiwanese localization movement. It was officially founded on 12 August 2001 and is considered part of the Pan-G ...
, a party with about 10% of the Legislative Yuan seats at the time, suggested making Taiwanese a second official language. This proposal encountered strong opposition not only from Mainlander groups but also from
Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
and
Taiwanese aboriginal Taiwanese indigenous peoples (formerly Taiwanese aborigines), also known as Formosan people, Austronesian Taiwanese, Yuanzhumin or Gaoshan people, are the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, with the nationally recognized subgroups numbering about ...
groups who felt that it would slight their home languages. Because of these objections, support for this measure was lukewarm among moderate Taiwan independence supporters, and the proposal did not pass. Hokkien was finally made an official language of Taiwan in 2018 by the ruling DPP government.


See also

* Hokkien Kelantan *
Hokkien people The Hoklo people or Hokkien people () are a Han Chinese (also Han Taiwanese) subgroup who speak Hokkien, a Southern Min language, or trace their ancestry to Southeastern Fujian, China and known by various endonyms or other related terms such a ...
* Languages of China * Languages of Taiwan * List of Hokkien dictionaries *
List of Hokkien people This is a list of notable Minnan Hokkiens/Hoklos (河洛人). Unless otherwise noted, locations noted are of ancestral locations in Southern Fujian, China. Academia and Science *Su Song (蘇頌/苏颂, 1020–1101 AD; Tong'an district, Quanzho ...
* Amoy Min Nan Swadesh list


References


Further reading

* * * * ** * An analysis and facsimile of the ''Arte de la Lengua Chio-chiu'' (1620), the oldest extant grammar of Hokkien.


External links

* A playscript from the late 16th century. * Hokkien translation of the ''
Doctrina Christiana The ''Doctrina Christiana'' ( eng, Christian Doctrine) was an early book on the catechism of the Catholic Church, written in 1593 by Fray Juan de Plasencia, and is believed to be one of the earliest printed books in the Philippines. Title ...
'': *
at Biblioteca Nacional de España
*
at UST Miguel de Benavidez Library, Manila
*
at NCTU, Taiwan
*
at Filipinas Heritage Library, Manila
* A manual for learning Hokkien written by a Spanish missionary in the Philippines. * The oldest known rhyme dictionary of a
Zhangzhou dialect The Zhangzhou dialects (), also rendered Changchew, Chiangchew or Changchow, are a collection of Hokkien dialects spoken in southern Fujian province (in southeast China), centered on the city of Zhangzhou. The Zhangzhou dialect proper is the sourc ...
. * *
當代泉州音字彙
a dictionary of Quanzhou speech

includes translation and sound clip *: (The voyager clip says: 太空朋友,恁好。恁食飽未?有閒著來阮遮坐哦!) {{Use dmy dates, date=June 2021 Southern Min-language dialects Languages of China Languages of Taiwan Languages of Singapore Languages of Malaysia Languages of Indonesia Languages of the Philippines