Southern Min

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Min Nan
)
Not to be confused with Southern Ming.
Southern Min
  • Hoklo-Taiwanese
  • 閩南語; 闽南语
  • Bàn-lâm-gú
Ethnicity
  • Teo-Swa people
Geographic
distribution
Linguistic classificationSino-Tibetan
Early forms
Subdivisions
BUC
Mìng-nàng-ngṳ̄
Northern Min
Jian'ou RomanizedMâing-nâng-ngṳ̌
Notes
  1. ^ Chaozhou–Shantou
  2. ^ Min is believed to have split from Old Chinese, rather than Middle Chinese like other varieties of Chinese.[1][2][3]

Southern Min (

New York City. Minnan is the most widely-spoken branch of Min, with approximately 48 million speakers as of 2017–2018.[5]

The most widely spoken Southern Min language is Hokkien, which includes Taiwanese. Other varieties of Southern Min have significant differences from Hokkien, some having limited

Qiong-Lei
have historical linguistic roots with Hokkien, but are significantly divergent from it in terms of phonology and vocabulary, and thus have almost no mutual intelligibility with Hokkien. Linguists tend to classify them as separate languages.

Geographic distribution

Mainland China

Southern Min dialects are spoken in

Quanzhou dialect, but over time became heavily influenced by Eastern Min
, eventually losing intelligibility with Southern Min.

Taiwan

The Southern Min dialects spoken in Taiwan, collectively known as Taiwanese, is a first language for most of the Hoklo people, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo have very limited proficiency in Southern Min while some non-Hoklo speak Southern Min fluently.[7]

Southeast Asia

There are many Southern Min speakers among

Teochew language, the variant of Southern Min from that region, particularly Thailand, Cambodia, Southern Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, etc. In the Philippines, Philippine Hokkien is reportedly the native or heritage language of up to 98.7% of the Chinese Filipino community in the Philippines, among whom it itself is known in Hokkien Chinese: 咱人話 / 咱儂話; Pe̍h-ōe-jī
: Lán-nâng-ōe / Lán-lâng-ōe / Nán-nâng-ōe; lit. 'our people's language'.

Southern Min speakers form the majority of Chinese in Singapore, with Hokkien being the largest group and the second largest being Teochew. Despite the similarities, the two groups are rarely viewed together as "Southern Min".

Classification

The variants of Southern Min spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that spoken in Quanzhou. The variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants and are collectively known as Taiwanese.

Those Southern Min variants that are collectively known as "Hokkien" in

Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra, and West Kalimantan. The Philippines
variant is mostly from the Quanzhou area as most of their forefathers are from the aforementioned area.

The Southern Min language variant spoken around

Malacca Strait in Medan, an almost identical variant[citation needed] is known as Medan Hokkien
.

Varieties

There are two or three divisions of Southern Min, depending on the criteria for Leizhou and Hainanese inclusion:

  • Southern Min
    • Hokkien under the Quanzhang division (泉漳片)
    • Haklau Min
      under the Chaoshan division (潮汕片)
    • Leizhou and Hainanese dialects under the Qiong-Lei division (瓊雷片).

More recently, Kwok (2018: 157)

Zhangzhou dialect
, as shown below:

Hokkien

Main article: Hokkien

Hokkien is the most widely spoken form of Southern Min, including

Zhangzhou
speech. Varieties in South-East Asia include Singaporean Hokkien, Penang Hokkien, Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien, Medan Hokkien, and Philippine Hokkien.

Chaoshan (Teo-Swa)

Main article:
Chaoshan Min

Teo-Swa or Chaoshan speech (潮汕片) is a closely related variant of Southern Min that includes the

Haklau Min to also be part of. It has limited mutual intelligibility with Hokkien, though they share some cognates with each other. Chaoshan Min is significantly different from Hokkien in both pronunciation and vocabulary, and mutual intelligibility is difficult.[9]

Phonology

Main articles:
Teochew dialect § Phonetics and phonology

Southern Min has one of the most diverse phonologies of Chinese varieties, with more consonants than Mandarin or Cantonese. Vowels, on the other hand, are more-or-less similar to those of Mandarin. In general, Southern Min dialects have five to six tones, and tone sandhi is extensive. There are minor variations within Hokkien, and the Teochew system differs somewhat more.

Southern Min's

finals
consist of /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, and /~/.

Writing systems

See also: Written Hokkien, Pe̍h-ōe-jī, and Peng'im

Both Hokkien and Chaoshan (

Shantou dialects) have romanized writing systems and also respective Chinese characters. In mainland China, it is known as 閩南文 (Bân-lâm-bûn), while in Taiwan, it is known as 台文 (Tâi-bûn). The Han Chinese characters
are known in mainland China and Taiwan as 漢字 (Hàn-jī / Hàn-lī). In Malaysia and Singapore, the Chinese characters are sometimes known as 唐儂字 / 唐人字 (Tn̂g-lâng-jī / Tn̂g-lâng-lī). In the Philippines, the Chinese characters are known as 咱儂字 / 咱人字 (Lán-nâng-dī) or 漢文字 (Hàm-bûn-dī).

History

The Min homeland of Fujian was opened to Han Chinese settlement by the defeat of the

Gan rivers to the west, so that Min varieties have experienced less northern influence than other southern groups.[11] As a result, whereas most varieties of Chinese can be treated as derived from Middle Chinese, the language described by rhyme dictionaries such as the Qieyun (601 AD), Min varieties contain traces of older distinctions.[12] Linguists estimate that the oldest layers of Min dialects diverged from the rest of Chinese around the time of the Han dynasty.[13][14] However, significant waves of migration from the North China Plain occurred.[15]
These include:

Jerry Norman identifies four main layers in the vocabulary of modern Min varieties:

  1. A non-Chinese substratum from the
    original languages of Minyue, which Norman and Mei Tsu-lin believe were Austroasiatic.[16][17]
  2. The earliest Chinese layer, brought to Fujian by settlers from Zhejiang to the north during the Han dynasty.[18]
  3. A layer from the
    Northern and Southern Dynasties period, which is largely consistent with the phonology of the Qieyun dictionary.[19]
  4. A
    literary layer based on the koiné of Chang'an, the capital of the Tang dynasty.[20]

Comparisons with Sino-Xenic character pronunciations

Southern Min can trace its origins through the

great Tang dynasty, there are today still many Southern Min pronunciations of words shared by the Sino-xenic pronunciations of Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese
languages.

English Han characters Mandarin Chinese Hokkien[21] Teochew Cantonese Korean Vietnamese Japanese
Book 冊 cè Chhek/Chheh cêh4 caak3 Chaek (책) Sách Saku/Satsu/Shaku
Bridge 橋 qiáo Kiâu/Kiô giê5/gio5 kiu4 Gyo (교) Kiều Kyō
Dangerous 危險 wēixiǎn/wéixiǎn Guî-hiám guîn5/nguín5 hiem2 ngai4 him2 Wiheom (위험) Nguy hiểm Kiken
Embassy 大使館 Dàshǐguǎn Tāi-sài-koán dai6 sái2 guêng2 daai6 si3 gun2 Daesagwan (대사관) Đại Sứ Quán Taishikan
Flag 旗 Qí Kî kî5 kei4 Gi (기) Kì Ki
Insurance 保險 Bǎoxiǎn Pó-hiám Bó2-hiém bou2 him2 Boheom (보험) Bảo hiểm Hoken
News 新聞 Xīnwén Sin-bûn sing1 bhung6 san1 man4 Shinmun (신문) Tân văn Shinbun
Student 學生 Xuéshēng Ha̍k-seng Hak8 sêng1 hok6 saang1 Haksaeng (학생) Học sinh Gakusei
University 大學 Dàxué Tāi-ha̍k/Tōa-o̍h dai6 hag8/dua7 oh8 daai6 hok6 Daehak (대학) Đại học Daigaku

See also

References

  1. JSTOR 2718766
  2. ISBN 978-0-7748-0192-8
  3. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7398962. Archived
    from the original on 2023-10-13. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
  4. ISBN 978-7533469511
    .
  5. ^ Southern Min at Ethnologue (23rd ed., 2020) Closed access icon
  6. ISBN 9780252032462
    .
  7. ^ "The politics of language names in Taiwan". www.ksc.kwansei.ac.jp. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
  8. ISBN 978-1-138-94365-0
    .
  9. ^ Minnan/ Southern Min at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  10. ^ Norman (1991), pp. 328.
  11. ^ Norman (1988), pp. 210, 228.
  12. ^ Norman (1988), pp. 228–229.
  13. ^ Ting (1983), pp. 9–10.
  14. ^ Baxter & Sagart (2014), pp. 33, 79.
  15. ^ Yan (2006), p. 120.
  16. ^ Norman & Mei (1976).
  17. ^ Norman (1991), pp. 331–332.
  18. ^ Norman (1991), pp. 334–336.
  19. ^ Norman (1991), p. 336.
  20. ^ Norman (1991), p. 337.
  21. ^ Iûⁿ, Ún-giân. "Tâi-bûn/Hôa-bûn Sòaⁿ-téng Sû-tián" 台文/華文線頂辭典 [Taiwanese/Chinese Online Dictionary]. Retrieved 1 October 2014.

Sources

Further reading

External links

Minnan edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Southern Min test of Wikibooks at Wikimedia Incubator
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Minnan
Look up Minnan, Appendix:Amoy Minnan Swadesh list, or Appendix:Sino-Tibetan Swadesh lists in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for Minnan.
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