Swatow dialect

Swatow dialect
Shantou
汕頭話 Suan¹tao⁵ uê⁷
Native to	China
Region	Mainly in Shantou, southeastern Guangdong province.
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Min Coastal Min Southern Min Chaoshan Min (Teo-Swa) Swatow dialect
Writing system	Peng'im
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	shan1244
Linguasphere	79-AAA-jif
Shantou dialect

The Swatow dialect, or in Mandarin the Shantou dialect, is a Chinese dialect mostly spoken in Shantou in Guangdong, China. It is a dialect of Chaoshan Min language.

Phonology

Shantou dialect has 18 initials, 61 rimes and 8 tones.

Initials

	Stop			Affricate		Fricative		Nasal	Lateral
	Voiceless		Voiced	Voiceless		Voiceless	Voiced	Voiced
	Tenuis	Aspirated	Tenuis	Tenuis	Aspirated
Bilabial	p 波	pʰ 抱	b 無					m 毛
Alveolar	t 刀	tʰ 天		ts 之	tsʰ 此	s 思	z 入	n 腦	l 羅
Velar	k 哥	kʰ 戈	g 鵝					ŋ 俄
Glottal	ʔ 烏						h 何

Rimes

	i 衣	u 污
a 亞	ia 呀	ua 娃
o 窩	io 腰
e 啞		ue 鍋
ɯ 余
ai 哀		uai 歪
oi 鞋		ui 威
au 歐	iau 夭
ou 烏	iu 憂
	ĩ 丸
ã 噯	ĩã 營	uã 鞍
	ĩõ 羊
ẽ 楹
ɯ̃ 秧
ãĩ 愛
õĩ 閑
	im 音
am 庵	iam 淹
	iŋ 因	uŋ 溫
aŋ 按	iaŋ 央	uaŋ 汪
oŋ 翁	ioŋ 雍
eŋ 英
ɤŋ 恩
	iʔ 裂
aʔ 鴨	iaʔ 益	uaʔ 呴
oʔ 學	ioʔ 約
eʔ 厄
oiʔ 狹	iuʔ
	ip̚ 邑
ap̚ 盒	iap̚ 壓	uap̚ 法
	ik̚ 乙	uk̚ 熨
ak̚ 惡	iak̚ 躍	uak̚ 獲
ok̚ 屋	iok̚ 育
ek̚ 液
m̩ 唔

Tones

No.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Tones	dark level 陰平	dark rising 陰上	dark departing 陰去	dark entering 陰入	light level 陽平	light rising 陽上	light departing 陽去	light entering 陽入
Tone contour	˧ (33)	˥˧ (53)	˨˩˧ (213)	˨ (2)	˥ (55)	˧˥ (35)	˩ (11)	˥ (5)
Example Hanzi	詩	死	四	薛	時	是	示	蝕

Tone sandhi

Shantou dialect has extremely extensive tone sandhi rules: in an utterance, only the last syllable pronounced is not affected by the rules. The two-syllable tonal sandhi rules are shown in the table below:

Tone sandhi of first syllable

Original citation tone	Tone sandhi
dark level 33	23
light level 55	21
dark rising 53	35
light rising 35	21
dark departing 213	55
light departing 11	12
dark entering 2	5
light entering 5	2

References

• Office of Chorography of Shantou City 汕头市地方志办公室 (1999). Shan tou shi zhi 汕头市志 ["Chorography of Shantou City"]. Vol. 72. Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe 新华出版社 ["Xinhua Publishing House"]. ISBN 9787501143870.

Further reading

• Fielde, Adele M. (1883). A pronouncing and defining dictionary of the Swatow dialect, arranged according to syllables and tones. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
• Fielde, Adele M. (1878). First Lessons in the Swatow Dialect. Swatow: Swatow Printing Office Company. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
• Lechler, Rudolf, Samuel Wells Williams , William Duffus (1883). English-Chinese Vocabulary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Swatow. Swatow: English Presbyterian Mission Press. Retrieved 2015-04-01.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Hsiung-chʻêng, Lin (1886). A handbook of the Swatow vernacular. Singapore: Koh Yew Hean Press. Retrieved 2015-04-01.

External links

• Media related to Shantou dialect at Wikimedia Commons