The Jian'ou dialect ( Northern Min: / ; Chinese: ), also known as Kienow dialect, is a local dialect of Northern Min Chinese spoken in Jian'ou in northern

Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern 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 capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...

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

Phonetics and phonology

According to '' The Eight Tones of Kien-chou'' (), a

rime dictionary A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book () is a genre of dictionary that records pronunciations for Chinese characters by tone and rhyme, instead of by graphical means like their radicals. The most important rime dictionary tradition ...

published in 1795, the Jian'ou dialect had 15 initials, 34 rimes and 7 tones in the 18th century, however there are only 6 tones in the modern dialect as the "light level" () tone has disappeared.

Initials

Rimes

Tones

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

Notes

References

Sources

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External links

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

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