Taishanese
Taishanese | |
---|---|
台山话 | |
Native to | Sze Yup, the Pearl River Delta; historic Chinese communities in California and New York City, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
ISO 639-6 | tisa |
Glottolog | tois1237 |
Linguasphere | 79-AAA-mbc |
Taishanese | |
---|---|
Hanyu Pinyin | Táishān huà |
Yue: Cantonese | |
Yale Romanization | Tòihsāan wá |
Jyutping | toi4 saan1 waa2 |
other Yue | |
Taishanese | hoi˧ san˨ va˧˨˥ |
Taishanese (
Names
The earliest linguistic studies refer to the dialect of Llin-nen or Xinning (
These terms have also been anglicized with the suffix -ese: Taishanese, Toishanese, and Toisanese. Of the previous three terms, Taishanese is most commonly used in academic literature, to about the same extent as the term Taishan dialect.[18][19] The terms Hoisanese and Hoisan-wa[20] do appear in print literature, although they are used more on the internet.[21][22]
Another term used is
History
Taishanese originates from the Taishan region, where it is spoken. Taishanese can also be seen as a group of very closely related, mutually intelligible dialects spoken in the various towns and villages in and around Siyi (the four counties of
A vast number of Taishanese immigrants journeyed worldwide through the Taishan diaspora. The Taishan region was a major source of Chinese immigrants through continental
As of 2015[update] Taishanese is still spoken in many
Relationship with Cantonese
Taishanese is a dialect of the
The phonology of Taishanese bears a lot of resemblance to Cantonese, since both of them are part of the same Yue branch. Like other Yue dialects, such as the
Standard Cantonese functions as a lingua franca in Guangdong province, and speakers of other Chinese varieties (such as
Phonology
Initial consonants
There are 19 to 23
Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
plain | sibilant
|
plain | ||||||
Nasal | m1 | n 1
|
ŋ1 | |||||
Stop
|
prenasal | ᵐb1 | ⁿd1 | ᵑɡ1 | ||||
plain | p | t
|
t͡s2 | t͡ɕ2 | k | ʔ | ||
aspirated
|
pʰ | tʰ | t͡sʰ2 | t͡ɕʰ2 | kʰ | |||
Fricative
|
voiceless | f | ɬ
|
s2 | ɕ2 | h | ||
voiced | v | ʒ3 | ||||||
Approximant
|
l
|
j3,4 | w5 |
- The respective nasal onsets (/m/, /n/, and /ŋ/) are allophones of the pre-nasalized voiced stop onsets (/ᵐb/, /ⁿd/, and /ᵑɡ/). The velar nasal (ŋ) sound occurs in both syllable initial and syllable final positions. There is a tendency toward denasalization for initial /ŋ/ as in 耳 /ŋi/ [ŋɡi] ‘ear’, 飲/饮 /ŋim/ [ŋɡim] ‘to drink’,魚 /ŋuy/ [ŋɡui] ‘fish’ and 月 /ŋut/ [ŋɡut] ‘moon’. In words like 牙 /ŋa/ ‘tooth’ and 我 /ŋoy/ ‘I; me’, denasalization does not seem to take place. In syllable final position following the rounded vowel [o], /ŋ/ is usually modified by lip-rounding. Examples are: 東 /uŋ/ ‘east’ and 紅 /huŋ/ ‘red’.
- The palatal sibilants (/t͡ɕ/, /t͡ɕʰ/, and /ɕ/) are allophones of the respective alveolar sibilants (/t͡s/, /t͡sʰ/, and /s/) when the first vowel of the final consonant is high (/i/ and /u/).
- The palatal approximant (/j/) is an allophone of the voiced fricative sibilant initial (/ʒ/).
- The palatal approximant (/j/) can be a semivowel of the vowel /i/ when used as a glide.
- The labial-velar approximant (/w/) can be a semivowel of the vowel /u/ when used as a glide.
Vowels
There are about seven different vowels in Taishanese:
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | /i/1 | /u/2 | |
Close-Mid | /e/ | /ə/3 | |
Open-Mid | /ɛ/ | /ɔ/ | |
Open | /a/ |
- The closed front vowel (/i/) can be a palatal approximant ([j]) as a semivowel.
- The closed back vowel (/u/) can be a labial-velar approximant ([w]) as a semivowel.
- The rounding of the schwa /ə/ is variable.
Final consonants
The final consonant (or rime) occurs after the initial sound, which consists of a medial, a nucleus, and a coda. There are three medial (or glides) in Taishanese that occur after the initial sound: null or no medial, /i/, or /u/. There are five main vowels after the medial: /a/, /e/, /i/, /u/, and null or no vowel. There are nine main codas at the end of the final: null or no coda, /i/, /u/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /p/, /t/, and /k/.
Nucleus | -a- | -e- | -ɵ~ə- | -i- | -u- | -∅- | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Medial | ∅- | i- | u- | ∅- | ∅ | ∅- | ∅- | ∅- | |
Coda | -∅ | [a] | [iɛ] | [uɔ] | [i] | [u] | |||
-i | [ai] | [uɔi] | [ei] | [ui] | |||||
-u | [au] | [iau] | [eu] | [iu] | |||||
-m | [am] | [iam] | [em] | [im] | [m] | ||||
-n | [an] | [uɔn] | [en] | [in] | [un] | ||||
-ŋ | [aŋ] | [iaŋ] | [ɔŋ] | [ɵŋ] ~ [əŋ] | |||||
-p | [ap] | [iap] | [ep] | [ip] | |||||
-t | [at] | [uɔt] | [et] | [ɵt] ~ [ət] | [it] | [ut] | |||
-k | [ak] | [iak] | [ɔk] | [ɵk] ~ [ək] |
Tones
Taishanese is tonal. There are five contrastive lexical tones: high, mid, low, mid falling, and low falling.[5] In at least one Taishanese dialect, the two falling tones have merged into a low falling tone.[31] There is no tone sandhi.[10]
Tone | Tone contour[32] | Example | Changed tone | Chao Number | Jyutping tone number[citation needed] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
high (yin shang) | ˥ (55) | hau˥ 口 (mouth) | (none) | - | 2 |
mid (yin ping) | ˧ (33) | hau˧ 偷 (to steal) | mid rising | ˧˥ (35) | 1 |
low (yang ping) | ˨ or ˩ (22 or 11) | hau˨ 頭 (head) | low rising | ˨˥ (25) | 4 |
mid falling | ˧˩ (31) | hau˧˩ 皓 (bright) | mid dipping | ˧˨˥ (325) | 6 |
low falling (yang shang) | ˨˩ (21) | hau˨˩ 厚 (thick) | low dipping | ˨˩˥ (215) | 5 |
Taishanese has four changed tones: mid rising, low rising, mid dipping and low dipping. These tones are called changed tones because they are the product of morphological processes (e.g. pluralization of pronouns) on four of the lexical tones. These tones have been analyzed as the addition of a high floating tone to the end of the mid, low, mid falling and low falling tones.[8][31][33][34] The high endpoint of the changed tone often reaches an even higher pitch than the level high tone; this fact has led to the proposal of an expanded number of pitch levels for Taishanese tones.[5] The changed tone can change the meaning of a word, and this distinguishes the changed tones from tone sandhi, which does not change a word's meaning.[4] An example of a changed tone contrast is 刷 /tʃat˧/ (to brush) and 刷 /tʃat˨˩˥/ (a brush).
Tone name | Level píng 平 |
Rising shǎng 上 |
Departing qù 去 |
Entering rù 入 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Upper yīn 陰 |
高 | ˧ (33) | ˥ (55) | ˧ (33) | ˥ (5) |
低 | ˧ (3) | ||||
Lower yáng 陽 |
高 | ˨ or ˩ (22 or 11) | ˨˩ (21) | ˧˨ or ˧˩ (32 or 31) | ˧˨ or ˧˩ (32 or 31) |
低 | ˨˩ (21) |
Writing system
The writing system is Chinese. Historically, the common written language of Classical Literary Chinese united and facilitated cross-dialect exchange in dynastic China, as opposed to the spoken dialects which were too different to be mutually intelligible. In the 20th century, standard written Chinese, based on Mandarin, was codified as the new written standard. As Taishanese is primarily used in speech, characters needed specifically for writing Taishanese are not standardized and may vary. Commonly seen alternatives are shown below.
The sound represented by the
The following chart compares the personal pronouns among Taishanese, Cantonese, and Mandarin. In Taishanese, the plural forms of the pronouns are formed by changing the tone,[35] whereas in Cantonese and Mandarin, a plural marker (地/哋/等 dei6 and 们/們 men, respectively) is added.
Singular | Plural | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Taishanese | Standard Cantonese |
Mandarin | Taishanese | Standard Cantonese |
Mandarin | |
1st person |
我 ngöi [ŋɔɪ˧] |
我 ngo5 |
我 wǒ |
哦/偔/呆 ngo̖i [ŋɔɪ˨˩] |
我 ngo5 哋 dei6 |
我们/我們 wǒmen |
2nd person |
你 nï [nɪ˧] |
你 nei5 |
你 nǐ |
偌/逽/聶 nie̖k [nɪɛk˨˩] |
你 nei5 哋 dei6 |
你们/你們 nǐmen |
3rd person |
佢 küi [kʰuɪ˧] |
佢 keoi5 |
他 tā |
𠳞/佉/劇 kie̖k [kʰɪɛk˨˩] |
佢 keoi5 哋 dei6 |
他们/他們 tāmen |
See also
References
- Anderson, Stephen R. (1978), "Tone features", in Fromkin, Victoria A. (ed.), Tone: A Linguistic Survey, New York, NY: Academic Press
- Bauer, Robert S.; Benedict, Paul K. (1997), Modern Cantonese Phonology, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
- Chao, Yuen-Ren (1951), "Taishan Yuliao", Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Philology (Academia Sinica), 23: 25–76
- Chen, Matthew Y. (2000), Tone Sandhi: Patterns Across Chinese Dialects, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
- Cheng, Teresa M. (1973), "The Phonology of Taishan", Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 1 (2): 256–322
- Chung, L. A. (2007), "Chung: Chinese 'peasant' dialect redeemed", San Jose Mercury News, San Jose, CA
- Defense Language Institute (1964), Chinese-Cantonese (Toishan) Basic Course, Washington, DC: Defense Language Institute
- Don, Alexander (1882), "The Lin-nen variation of Chinese", China Review: 236–247
- Grimes, John A. (1996). A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English. State University of New York Press. ISBN 0791430677.
- Him, Kam Tak (1980), "Semantic-Tonal Processes in Cantonese, Taishanese, Bobai and Siamese", Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 8 (2): 205–240
- Hom, Marlon Kau (1983), "Some Cantonese Folksongs on the American Experience", Western Folklore, 42 (2), Western Folklore, Vol. 42, No. 2: 126–139, JSTOR 1499969
- Hom, Marlon Kau (1987), Songs of Gold Mountain: Cantonese Rhymes from San Francisco, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press
- Hsu, Madeline Y. (2000), Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and China, 1882-1943, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press
- ISBN 0-631-19815-6
- Lee, Gina (1987), "A Study of Toishan F0", Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics, 36: 16–30
- Leung, Genevieve Yuek-Ling (2012), Hoisan-wa reclaimed: Chinese American language maintenance and language ideology in historical and contemporary sociolinguistic perspective, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, pp. 1–237 (Ph.D. Dissertation)
- Light, Timothy (1986), "Toishan Affixal Aspects", in McCoy, John; Light, Timothy (eds.), Contributions to Sino-Tibetan Studies, Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, pp. 415–425
- Ma, Laurence; Cartier, Carolyn L., eds. (2003), The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity, Rowman & Littlefield, p. 57, ISBN 0-7425-1756-X
- McCoy, John (1966), Szeyap Data for a First Approximation of Proto-Cantonese, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University (Ph.D. Dissertation)
- Ramsey, S. Robert (1987), The Languages of China, Princeton University Press, pp. 23–104, ISBN 0-691-06694-9
- ISBN 0-7748-0192-1
- Szeto, Cecilia (2000), "Testing intelligibility among Sinitic dialects" (PDF), Proceedings of ALS2K, the 2000 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society, retrieved 2008-09-06
- Wong, Maurice Kuen-shing (1982), Tone Change in Cantonese, Champaign, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Yang, Fenggang (1999), Chinese Christians in America: Conversion, Assimilation, and Adhesive Identities, Penn State Press, p. 39
- Yip, Moira (2002), Tone, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
- Yiu, T'ung (1946), The T'ai-Shan Dialect, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University (Ph.D. Dissertation)
- Yu, Alan (2007), "Understanding near mergers: The case of morphological tone in Cantonese", Phonology, 24 (1): 187–214, S2CID 18090490
- Yue-Hashimoto 余, Anne O. 霭芹 (2005), The Dancun Dialect of Taishan 台山淡村方言研究, Language Information Sciences Research Centre, City University of Hong Kong, ISBN 962-442-279-6
- Notes
- ISBN 978-1-56584-962-4.
- ^ (Yang 1999)
- ^ (Don 1882)
- ^ a b (Chen 2000)
- ^ a b c (Cheng 1973)
- ^ Cantonese speakers have been shown to understand only about 31% of what they hear in Taishanese (Szeto 2000)
- ^ (Yiu 1946)
- ^ a b (Yu 2007)
- ^ (Anderson 1978)
- ^ a b (Lee 1987)
- ^ (Defense Language Institute 1964)
- ^ "Language code list" (PDF). United States Census, 2000. University of Michigan Library. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 2, 2008.
- ^ (Hom 1983)
- ^ (Light 1986)
- ^ (McCoy 1966)
- ^ (Hom 1987)
- ^ (Grimes 1996)
- ^ (Him 1980)
- ^ (Hsu 2000)
- ^ a b (Leung 2012)
- ^ Taishan (Hoisanese Sanctuary) Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine from asianworld.pftq.com
- ^ (Chung 2007)
- )
- ^ "Taishan International Web". Archived from the original on June 10, 2008.
- ^ Although the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed by the signing of the Magnuson Act in 1943, immigration from China was still limited to only 2% of the number of Chinese already living in the United States (Hsu 2000)
- ^ Lucas, Scott (April 21, 2015). "Chinatown Decoded: What Language Is Everybody Speaking?". San Francisco. Archived from the original on November 16, 2016.
- ^ Szeto, Cecilia (2001), "Testing intelligibility among Sinitic dialects" (PDF), in Allan, Keith; Henderson, John (eds.), Proceedings of ALS2k, the 2000 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society, retrieved 5 Jan 2014
- ^ Phonology of Cantonese - Page 192 Oi-kan Yue Hashimoto - 1972 "... affricates and aspirated stops into consonant clusters is for external comparative purposes, because the Cantonese aspirated stops correspond to /h/ and some of the Cantonese affricates correspond to stops in many Siyi (Seiyap) dialects."
- ^ Language in the USA - Page 217 Charles A. Ferguson, Shirley Brice Heath, David Hwang - 1981 "Even the kind of Cantonese which the Chinese Americans speak causes difficulties, because most of them have come from the rural Seiyap districts southwest of Canton and speak dialects of that region rather than the Standard Cantonese of the city"
- ^ Ramsey 1987, p. 23.
- ^ a b (Wong 1982)
- Chao's tone numbers are generally used in the literature. Each tone has two numbers, the first denotes the pitch level at the beginning of the tone, and the second denotes the pitch level at the end of the tone. Cheng modified the numerical range from 1 (lowest) to 7 (highest): high tone as 66, mid tone as 44, and low tone as 22. In this article Chao's tone letters are used, as they've been adopted by the IPA.
- ^ (Bauer & Benedict 1997)
- ^ (Yip 2002)
- ^ Ramsey 1987, p. 104.
External links
- Stephen Li. "Taishanese Language Resources". Retrieved 2015-01-05. Taishanese Resources Website
- Stephen Li. "Toisanese Chop Suey 台山话杂碎". Retrieved 2015-01-05. Taishanese Language Blog
- Aaron Lee. "Four Counties 四邑". Retrieved 2015-01-05. Taishanese Language Blog
- C.J. Chow. "Learn Taishanese (台山話)". Archived from the original on 2014-12-17. Retrieved 2015-01-05. You can download the Defense Language Institute's 'Chinese-Cantonese (Toishan) Basic Course' audio and text material here
- Chinese Character to Taishanese Lookup tool Archived 2016-10-19 at the Wayback Machine
- Gene M. Chin. "Hoisanva Sites" Archived 2019-11-09 at the Wayback Machine. Alphabetical Dictionary and Lessons.