The Meixian dialect (;

Pha̍k-fa-sṳ Pha̍k-fa-sṳ () is an orthography similar to Pe̍h-ōe-jī and used to write Hakka, a variety of Chinese. Hakka is a whole branch of Chinese, and Hakka dialects are not necessarily mutually intelligible with each other, considering the large geo ...

: Mòi-yan-fa; IPA: ), also known as Moiyan dialect, as well as Meizhou dialect (), or Jiaying dialect and Gayin dialect, Kayin dialect is the

prestige dialect Prestige in sociolinguistics is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally c ...

Hakka Chinese Hakka ( zh, c=, p=Kèjiāhuà; '' Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: '', zh, c=, p=Kèjiāyǔ; '' Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: '') forms a language group of varieties of Chinese, spoken natively by the Hakka people in parts of Southern China, Taiwan, some diaspora areas ...

. It is named after Meixian District,

Meizhou Meizhou ( zh, t=梅州, Hakka Chinese: Mòichû) is a prefecture-level city in eastern Guangdong province, China. It has an area of , and a population of 3,873,239 as of the 2020 census. It comprises Meijiang District, Meixian District, Xing ...

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

Sixian dialect The Sixian dialect, also known as the Sixian accent ( zh, t=四縣腔, s=四县腔, first=t; Sixian Hakka Romanization System: Xi ien kiongˊ / Xi ian kiongˊ; is pronounced as ien (PFS: yen) in Northern Sixian and as ian (PFS: yan) in Southern ...

(in Taiwan) is very similar to Meixian dialect.

Phonology

Source:

Initials

There are two series of stops and affricates in Hakka, both voiceless: tenuis // and aspirated //. * When the initials // , // , // , and // are followed by a palatal medial // , they become []/[] , []/[] , [] , and []/[] , respectively.

Rimes

Moiyan Hakka has seven vowels, , , , , , and , that are romanised as ii, i, ê, a, e, o and u, respectively.

Finals

Moreover, Hakka finals exhibit the final consonants found in Middle Chinese, namely which are romanised as m, n, ng, b, d, and g respectively in the official Moiyan romanisation.

Tone

Moiyan Hakka has six tones. The

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese language, Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expande ...

fully voiced initial syllables became aspirated voiceless initial syllable in Hakka. Before that happened, the four Middle Chinese 'tones', ''ping, shang, qu, ru,'' underwent a voicing split in the case of ''ping'' and ''ru,'' giving the dialect six tones in traditional accounts. These so-called yin-yang tonal splittings developed mainly as a consequence of the type of initial a Chinese syllable had during the

stage in the development of Chinese, with voiceless initial syllables tending to become of the yin type, and the voiced initial syllables developing into the yang type. In modern Moiyan Hakka however, part of the Yin Ping tone characters have sonorant initials originally from the Middle Chinese Shang tone syllables and fully voiced Middle Chinese Qu tone characters, so the voiced/voiceless distinction should be taken only as a rule of thumb. Hakka tone contours differs more as one moves away from Moiyen. For example, the Yin Ping contour is (33) in Changting and (24) in Sixian (),

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

. ;Entering tone Hakka preserves all of the entering tones of Middle Chinese and it is split into two registers. Meixian has the following: * ˩ a low pitched checked tone * ˥ a high pitched checked tone Middle Chinese entering tone syllables ending in whose vowel clusters have become front high vowels like and shifts to syllables with finals in modern Hakka as seen in the following table.

Tone sandhi

For Moiyan Hakka, the ''yin ping'' and ''qu'' tone characters exhibit

sandhi Sandhi ( ; , ) is any of a wide variety of sound changes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on nearby sounds or the grammatical function o ...

when the following character has a lower pitch. The pitch of the ''yin ping'' tone changes from (44) to (35) when sandhi occurs. Similarly, the ''qu'' tone changes from (53) to (55) under sandhi. These are shown in red in the following table. The neutral tone occurs in some postfixes. It has a mid pitch.

Internal variation

The Meixian dialect can be divided into four accents, which are: Meicheng accent: Most of the townships in the central part of Meixian County (including present-day Meijiang District) Songkou accent: Songkou, Longwen, Taoyao. Meixi accent: Meixi. Shejiang River accent: Shejiang River in the southwest of Meixian County.