Hokkien

For the general language group of Fujian (Hokkien) province, see Min Chinese. For other uses, see Hokkien (disambiguation).

Hokkien
泉漳 Choân-chiang/Chôan-Chiang 福建話 Hok-kiàn-oē 福佬話 Hok-ló-oē
Native to	People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, United States, and other areas of Hoklo settlement
Region	Southern Fujian province, Taiwan, Southeast Asia
Native speakers	c. 47.3 million
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Min Coastal Min Min Nan Hokkien
Official status
Official language in	None (Legislative bills have been proposed for Taiwanese to be one of the 'national languages' in the Republic of China); one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the ROC
Regulated by	None (Republic of China Ministry of Education and some NGOs are influential in Taiwan)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	zh
ISO 639-2	chi (B) zho (T)
ISO 639-3	nan
Distribution of Minnan dialects.

Hokkien
Traditional Chinese	福建話
Simplified Chinese	福建话
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Fú-jiàn Huà Hakka Romanization Fuk5-gien4-fa4 Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Fuk1-gin3-wa6 Southern Min Hokkien POJ Hok-kiàn-oē
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	福佬話
Simplified Chinese	福佬话
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Fú-lǎo Huà Hakka Romanization Fuk5-lau3-fa4 Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Fuk1-lou2-wa6 Southern Min Hokkien POJ Hok-ló-oē

Hokkien, also known as Min-nan, (traditional Chinese: 福建話; simplified Chinese: 福建话; pinyin: Fújiànhuà; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Hok-kiàn-oē) is a dialect of Min Chinese spoken in southern Fujian, Taiwan, and by many overseas Chinese throughout Southeast Asia. The language is also known by other terms such as Minnanyu (traditional Chinese: 閩南語; simplified Chinese: 闽南语; pinyin: Mǐn-nán Yǔ; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Bân-lâm-gí), Fu-lao Hua (simplified Chinese: 福佬话; traditional Chinese: 福佬話; pinyin: Fú-lǎo Huà; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Hok-ló-oē), or Quanzhou–Zhangzhou,.

It is closely related to Teochew, though mutual comprehension is difficult, and somewhat more distantly related to Hainanese.

Hokkien includes a variety of dialects of which Amoy and Taiwanese prestige dialect (based on Tainan variant) are considered standards.

Geographic distribution

Hokkien originated in the Southern regions of Fujian province, an important centre for trade and migration, and has since been spread beyond China, being one of the most common Chinese languages overseas.

A form of Hokkien akin to that spoken in southern Fujian is also spoken in Taiwan, where it goes by the name Tâi-oân-oē or Hō-ló-oē. The ethnic group for which Hokkien is considered the native language is the Holo or Hoklo, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo have limited proficiency in Hokkien while some non-Hoklos speak it fluently.

There are many Hokkien speakers among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia as well as in the United States. Many ethnic Chinese emigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian, and brought the language to what is now Indonesia (the former Dutch East Indies) and present day Malaysia and Singapore (formerly Malaya and the British Straits Settlements). Many of the Hokkien dialects of this region are highly similar to Taiwanese and Amoy. Hokkien is reportedly the native language of up to 98.5% of the community of ethnic Chinese in the Philippines, among whom it is also known as Lan-nang or Lán-lâng-oē ("Our people’s language"). Hokkien speakers form the largest group of Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Classification

Southern Fujian is home to three main Hokkien dialects. They are known by the geographic locations to which they correspond (listed north to south):

• Chôan-chiu (Chinchew / Quanzhou) ([泉州] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help))
• Ē-mn̂g (Amoy / Xiamen) ([廈門] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help))
• Chiang-chiu (Changchew / Zhangzhou) ([漳州] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help))

Since Amoy is the principal city of southern Fujian, its dialect is considered the most important, or even prestige accent. The Amoy dialect is a hybrid of the Chinchew and Changchew dialects. Amoy and the Amoy dialect have played an influential role in history, especially in the relations of Western nations with China, and was one of the most frequently learnt of all Chinese languages/dialects by Westerners during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century.

The variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants, and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Taiwanese is used by a majority of the population and bears much importance from a socio-political perspective, forming the second (and perhaps today most significant) major pole of the language. The variants of Hokkien in Southeast Asia also originate from these variants.

History

Variants of Hokkien dialects can be traced to two sources of origin: Quanzhou speech and Zhangzhou speech. Both Amoy and Taiwanese are based on a mixture of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, while the rest of the Hokkien dialects spoken in South East Asia are either derived from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, or based on a mixture of both dialects.

Quanzhou speech

During the Three Kingdoms period of ancient China, there was constant warfare occurring in the Central Plain of China. Northerners began to enter into Fujian region, causing the region to incorporate parts of northern Chinese dialects. However, the massive migration of northern Han Chinese into Fujian region mainly occurred after the Disaster of Yongjia. The Jìn court fled from the north to the south, causing large numbers of northern Han Chinese to move into Fujian region. They brought the old Chinese — spoken in Central Plain of China from prehistoric era to 3rd century AD — into Fujian. This then gradually evolved into the Quanzhou speech.

Zhangzhou speech

In 677, during the reign of Emperor Gaozong), Chen Zheng (陳政), together with his son Chen Yuanguang (陳元光), led a military expedition to pacify the rebellion in Fujian. They settled in Zhangzhou and brought the Middle Chinese phonology of northern China during the 7th century into Zhangzhou; In 885 AD (during the reign of Emperor Xizong of Tang),　the two brothers, Wang Chao (王潮) and Wang Shenzhi (王審知), led a military expedition force to pacify the Huang Chao rebellion. They brought the Middle Chinese phonology commonly spoken in Northern China into Zhangzhou. These two waves of migrations from the north generally brought the northern Middle Chinese languages into Fujian region. This then gradually evolved into the Zhangzhou speech.

Xiamen speech （厦门话）

Xiamen speech, sometimes known as Amoy, is the main dialect spoken in the Chinese city of Xiamen and its surrounding regions of Tong'an （同安） and Xiang'an （翔安）, both of which are now included in the Greater Xiamen area. This dialect is developed in the late Ming dynasty when Xiamen （厦门市） is increasingly taking over Quanzhou （泉州市）'s position as the main port of trade in southeastern China. Quanzhou traders began travelling southwards to Xiamen to carry on their businesses while Zhangzhou （漳州） peasants began travelling northwards to Xiamen in search of job opportunities. It is at this time when a need for a common language arose. Quanzhou speech and Zhangzhou speech are similar in many ways (as can be seen from the common place of Henan Luoyang where they originated), but due to differences in accents, communication can be a problem. Quanzhou businessmen considered their speech to be the prestige accent and considered Zhangzhou speech to be a village dialect. Over the centuries, dialect levelling occurred and the two speeches mixed to produce a new Xiamen speech.

Hokkien linguistics classics

Chinese scholars of late Ming and Qing had systematically studied the Hokkien dialects of those times and compiled a number of Chinese linguistics books about Hokkien. This include The Phonology of Quanzhou speech (彙音妙悟) by Huang Qian (黃謙), The Phonology of common Zhangzhou speech (彙集雅俗通十五音) by Xie Xiulan (謝秀嵐) etc.

Phonology

Hokkien has one of the most diverse phonologies amongst Chinese languages, with more consonants than Standard Mandarin or Cantonese. Vowels are more or less similar to that of standard Mandarin.

Initials

Southern Min has aspirated, unaspirated as well as voiced consonant initials. This distinction makes Southern Min one of the harder dialects for non-native speakers to learn. For example, the words for opening and closing (khui ([開] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help)) vs. kuiⁿ ([關] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help))) a door have the same vowel but differ only by aspiration of the initial and nasality of the vowel. In addition, Southern Min also has labial initial consonants such as m in m̄-sī ([毋是] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-t (help)) (meaning "is not"). Another example from Taiwanese is "boy" (cha-po·-kiáⁿ, 查埔囝) vs. "girl" (cha-bó·-kiáⁿ, 查某囝), which differ in the second syllable in consonant voicing and in tone.

Finals

Unlike Mandarin, Southern Min retains all the final consonants of Middle Chinese. While Mandarin only preserves the n and ŋ finals, Southern Min also preserves the m, p, t and k finals and developed the ʔ (glottal stop).

Vowels

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close	i (y) ɨ u       e o (ɤ) ə ɛ ɔ ɐ a
Near‑close
Close‑mid
Mid
Open‑mid
Near‑open
Open

Tones

In general, Hokkien dialects have 7 to 9 tones, and tone sandhi is extensive. There are minor variations between the Tsuan-Tsiu and Tsiang-Tsiu tone systems. Taiwanese tones follow the schemes of Amoy or Tsuan-Tsiu, depending on the area of Taiwan. Both Amoy and Taiwanese Hokkien typically has 7 tones; the 9th tone is used only in special or foreign loan words. Tsuan-Tsiu is the only Hokkien dialect with 8 tones, of which 6th tone is present.

Tones		平		上		去		入
		陰平	陽平	陰上	陽上	陰去	陽去	陰入	陽入
Tone Number		1	5	2	6	3	7	4	8
調值	Xiamen, Fujian	44	24	53	-	21	22	32	4
		東 taŋ1	銅 taŋ5	董 taŋ2	-	凍 taŋ3	動 taŋ7	觸 tak4	逐 tak8
	Taipei, Taiwan	44	24	53	-	11	33	32	4
					-
	Tainan, Taiwan	44	23	41	-	21	33	32	44
					-
	Zhangzhou, Fujian	34	13	53	-	21	22	32	121
					-
	Quanzhou, Fujian	33	24	55	22	41		5	24
					-

Comparison

Amoy speech (Xiamen) is a hybrid of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech. Taiwanese is also a hybrid of these two dialects. Taiwanese in northern Taiwan tends to be based on Quanzhou speech, whereas the Taiwanese spoken in southern Taiwan tends to be based on Zhangzhou speech. There are minor variations in pronunciation and vocabulary between Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech. The grammar is generally the same. Additionally, Taiwanese includes several dozen loanwords from Japanese as well as Taiwanese aboriginal languages. On the other hand, the variants spoken in Singapore and Malaysia have a substantial number of loanwords from Malay and to a lesser extent, from English and other Chinese dialects such as the closely related Teochew and some Cantonese.

Mutual intelligibility

• Spoken: Quanzhou speech, Xiamen speech, Zhangzhou speech,Taiwanese and Singaporean Hokkien are mutually intelligible.

Teochew and Amoy Hokkien speech are 84% phonetically similar and 34% lexically similar, whereas Mandarin and Amoy Min Nan are 62% phonetically similar and 15% lexically similar. In comparison, German and English are 60% lexically similar.

Cultural Recognition

It has always been a popular belief among the Chinese of different dialects that Hokkien's are generally much more humorous. The Hokkiens themselves acknowledge this and several comedies have been produced with reference to the dialect. Some sources attribute the funny nature of the Hokkien's to the way in which the language is spoken. Many however, just simply accept Hokkiens are generally comedic.

Scripts and orthographies

Further information: Comparison of Hokkien writing systems

Like most ethnic Chinese, whether from mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, or other parts of Southeast Asia, Hokkien speakers write their language with Chinese characters. Hence, the inventory used for Mandarin is not a complete match for Hokkien, and there are a number of informal characters which are unique to Hokkien (as is the case with Cantonese). Where standard Chinese  characters are used, they are not always etymological or genetic; the borrowing of similar-sounding or similar-meaning characters is a common practice. However, unlike Cantonese, Hokkien does not have a standardized character set and thus there is some variation in the characters used to express certain words. In 2007, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China has formulated and released a standard character set to overcome these difficulties. These standard Chinese characters for writing Taiwanese Hokkien are now taught in schools in Taiwan.

Romanization

Hokkien, especially Taiwanese, is sometimes transcribed with the Latin alphabet using one of several Romanized orthographies. Of these the most popular is Pe̍h-ōe-jī (traditional Chinese: 白話字; simplified Chinese: 白话字; pinyin: Báihuàzì). POJ was developed first by Presbyterian missionaries in China and later by the indigenous Presbyterian Church in Taiwan; use of the orthography has been actively promoted since the late 19th century. The use of a mixed orthography of Han characters and romanization is also seen, though remains uncommon. Other Latin-based orthographies also exist.

Minnan texts, all Hokkien, can be dated back to the 16th century. One example is the "Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china," presumably written after 1587 by the Spanish Dominicans in the Philippines. Another is a Ming Dynasty script of a play called Romance of the Lychee Mirror (1566 AD), supposedly the earliest Southern Min colloquial text. Xiamen University has also developed a romanisation system based on Pinyin, which has been published in a dictionary (Minnan Fangyan - Putonghua Cidian 閩南方言普通話詞典) and a language teaching book, which is used to teach the language to foreigners and Chinese non-speakers. This system known as Pumindian.

Taiwan has also developed a romanization system for Taiwanese Hokkien derived from Pe̍h-ōe-jī. It is known as Tai-lo and since 2006 has been officially promoted by Taiwan's Ministry of Education and taught in Taiwanese schools.

Computing

Hokkien is registered as "Southern Min" per RFC 3066 as zh-min-nan.

When writing Hokkien in Chinese characters, some writers create 'new' characters when they consider it impossible to use directly or borrow existing ones; this corresponds to similar practices in character usage in Cantonese, Vietnamese chữ nôm, Korean hanja and Japanese kanji. These are usually not encoded in Unicode (or the corresponding ISO/IEC 10646: Universal Character Set), thus creating problems in computer processing.

All Latin characters required by Pe̍h-ōe-jī can be represented using Unicode (or the corresponding ISO/IEC 10646: Universal Character Set), using precomposed or combining (diacritics) characters. Prior to June 2004, the vowel akin to but more open than o, written with a dot above right, was not encoded. The usual workaround was to use the (stand-alone; spacing) character Interpunct (U+00B7, ·) or less commonly the combining character dot above (U+0307). As these are far from ideal, since 1997 proposals have been submitted to the ISO/IEC working group in charge of ISO/IEC 10646—namely, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2—to encode a new combining character dot above right. This is now officially assigned to U+0358 (see documents N1593, N2507, N2628, N2699, and N2713). Font support is expected to follow.

Standard Hokkien

Main articles: Amoy Hokkien and Taiwanese Hokkien

After the Opium War in 1842, Xiamen (Amoy) became one of the major treaty ports to be opened for trade with the outside world. From mid 19th century onwards, Xiamen slowly developed to become the political, economical and cultural center of the Hokkien-speaking region in China. This caused Amoy dialect to gradually become the "Prestige Standard Hokkien", thus replacing the position of dialect variants from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. Up to today, it is still being regarded as the representative Standard Hokkien dialect. From mid 19th century till the end of World War II, western diplomats usually learned Amoy Hokkien as the preferred dialect if they were to communicate with the Hokkien-speaking populace in China or South-East Asia. In the 1940s and 1950s, Taiwan also held Amoy Hokkien as its standard and tended to incline itself towards Amoy dialect.

However, from 1980s onwards, the development of Hokkien entertainment and media industry in Taiwan caused the Hokkien cultural hub to shift from Xiamen to Taiwan. The flourishing Hokkien entertainment and media industry from Taiwan in the 1990s and early 21st century led Taiwan to emerge as the new significant cultural hub for Hokkien.

In 1990s, marked by the liberalization of language development and mother tongue movement in Taiwan, Taiwanese Hokkien had undergone a fast pace in its development. In 1993, Taiwan became the first region in the world to implement the teaching of Taiwanese Hokkien in Taiwanese schools. In 2001, the local Taiwanese language program was further extended to all schools in Taiwan, and Taiwanese Hokkien became one of the compulsory local Taiwanese languages to be learned in schools. The mother tongue movement in Taiwan even influenced Xiamen (Amoy) to the point that in 2010, Xiamen also began to implement the teaching of Hokkien dialect in its schools. In 2007, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan also completed the standardization of Chinese characters used for writing Hokkien and developed Tai-lo as the standard Hokkien pronunciation and romanization guide. A number of universities in Taiwan also offer Hokkien degree courses for training Hokkien language talents to work for the Hokkien media industry and education. Taiwan also has its own Hokkien literary and cultural circles whereby Hokkien poets and writers compose poetry or literature in Hokkien on a regular basis.

Thus by the 21st century, Taiwan has truly emerged as one of the most significant Hokkien cultural hub of the world. Although Amoy Hokkien continued to be regarded as the historical "Prestige Standard Hokkien", the historical changes and development in Taiwan had led Taiwanese Hokkien to become the more influential pole of the Hokkien dialect after mid 20th century. Today, Taiwanese prestige dialect (Taiyu Youshiqiang/Tongxinqiang 台語優勢腔/通行腔), which is based on Tainan variant and heard on Taiwanese Hokkien media, has also become one of the major "Standard Hokkien" along with Amoy.

See also

• Penang Hokkien
• Taiwanese Hokkien
• Singaporean Hokkien
• Amoy dialect
• Teochew dialect
• Languages of China
• Languages of Taiwan
• Malaysian Chinese
• Chinese Filipino
• Chinese Indonesian
• Chinese Singaporean
• Amoy Min Nan Swadesh list

Further reading

• Branner, David Prager (2000). Problems in Comparative Chinese Dialectology — the Classification of Miin and Hakka. Trends in Linguistics series, no. 123. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 31-101-5831-0.
• Chung, R.-f (196). The segmental phonology of Southern Min in Taiwan. Taipei: Crane Pub. Co. ISBN 95-794-6346-8.
• DeBernardi, J. E (1991). "Linguistic nationalism--the case of Southern Min ". Sino-Platonic papers, no. 25. Dept. of Oriental Studies, University of Pennsylvania. {{cite news}}: External link in |title= (help)

External links

• 當代泉州音字彙, a dictionary of Chinchew speech
• 台語-華語線頂辭典, Taiwanese-Mandarin on-line dictionary
• 台語線頂字典, Taiwanese Hokkien Han Character online dictionary.
• 臺灣本土語言互譯及語音合成系統, Taiwanese-Hakka-Mandarin on-line conversion
• 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典, Dictionary of Taiwanese Hokkien-Mandarin by Ministry of Education in Republic of China (Taiwan).
• Voyager - Spacecraft - Golden Record - Greetings From Earth - Amoy, includes translation and sound clip

  (The voyager clip says: Thài-khong pêng-iú, lín-hó. Lín chia̍h-pá—bē? Ū-êng, to̍h lâi gún chia chē—ô•! 太空朋友，恁好。恁食飽未？有閒著來阮遮坐哦!)