The Sanming dialect (Central Min: 三明事, Mandarin Chinese: 三明話) is a dialect of Central Min spoken in urban areas of Sanming, a prefecture-level city in Western Fujian Province, China.

Phonology

The Sanming dialect has 18 initials, 37 rimes and 6 tones.

Initials

Bilabial Alveolar Postalveolar Velar
Nasal m n ŋ
Stop Tenuis p t k
Aspirated pʰ tʰ kʰ
Affricate Tenuis ts tʃ
Aspirated tsʰ tʃʰ
Fricative s ʃ x
Glide l
  • Initials /m, ŋ/ may also be heard as prenasal [mb, ŋɡ] in free variation. When the two initials are followed by non-nasalized rimes, they can be heard as voiced plosives [b, ɡ].
  • Palato-alveolar sounds /tʃ, tʃʰ, ʃ/ can also be heard as alveolo-palatal sounds [tɕ, tɕʰ, ɕ] in free variation among speakers.

Rimes

Open syllable Nasal coda Nasal vowel coda
Open mouth ɹ̩ ɛ ɒ a ɯ ø aɯ au am aiŋ m̩ ã ɔ̃
Even mouth i iɛ iɒ ia iɯ iau iam iaiŋ iã iɔ̃ ɛ̃
Closed mouth u uɛ ui o ŋ̍ uã
Round mouth y yi yɛ yo yaiŋ yã yɛ̃

Tones

No. 1 2 3 4 5 6
Tone name dark level
陰平 		light level
陽平 		dark rising
陰上 		light rising
陽上 		departing
去聲 		entering
入聲
Tone contour ˥˥˧ 553 ˦˩ 41 ˨˩ 21 ˨˩˧ 213 ˧ 33 ˩˨ 12

The entering tones in the Sanming dialect do not have any entering tone coda (入聲韻尾) such as /-ʔ/, /-p̚/, /-t̚/ and /-k̚/. This feature is quite different from many other Chinese dialects.

Notes

  1. ^ Min is believed to have split from Old Chinese, rather than Middle Chinese like other varieties of Chinese.[1][2][3]

References

  1. ^ Mei, Tsu-lin (1970), "Tones and prosody in Middle Chinese and the origin of the rising tone", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 30: 86–110, doi:10.2307/2718766, JSTOR 2718766
  2. ^ Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (1984), Middle Chinese: A study in Historical Phonology, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, p. 3, ISBN 978-0-7748-0192-8
  3. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2023-07-10). "Glottolog 4.8 - Min". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7398962. Archived from the original on 2023-10-13. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
  • Compilation Commission of Chorography of Sanming City 福建省三明市地方志编纂委员会 (2002). San ming shi zhi 三明市志 ["Chorography of Sanming City"]. Vol. 53. Beijing: Fangzhi chubanshe 方志出版社 ["Chorography Press"]. ISBN 978-7-80122-619-8.
  • 吳, 瑞文 (Rui-Wen Wu) (2013). On the Grammatical Functions and Grammaticalization of tʰe5 in the Sanming Dialect [論三明方言tʰe5的語法功能及其語法化]. Language and Linguistics [語言暨語言學].