Meixian dialect

Meixian
Meixian
梅縣話
Native to	Southern China, Taiwan
Region	Meixian
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Hakka Yue-Tai Meihui Meixian; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	yuet1238
Linguasphere	79-AAA-gam

Meixian dialect (Chinese: 梅縣話; Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: Mòi-yen-fa; IPA: moi jan fa), also known as Moiyen dialect, as well as Meizhou (梅州話), or Jiaying dialect, is the prestige dialect of Hakka Chinese and the basis for the Hakka dialects in Taiwan. It is named after Meixian District, Guangdong.

Phonology

Initials

There are two series of stops and affricates in Hakka, both voiceless: tenuis /p t ts k/ and aspirated /pʰ tʰ tsʰ kʰ/.

		Labial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		/m/ ⟨m⟩	/n/ ⟨n⟩	[ɲ] ⟨ng(i)⟩*	/ŋ/ ⟨ng⟩
Plosive	tenuis	/p/ ⟨b⟩	/t/ ⟨d⟩	[c] ⟨g(i)⟩*	/k/ ⟨g⟩	(ʔ)
Plosive	aspirated	/pʰ/ ⟨p⟩	/tʰ/ ⟨t⟩	[cʰ] ⟨k(i)⟩*	/kʰ/ ⟨k⟩
Affricate	tenuis		/ts/ ⟨z⟩
Affricate	aspirated		/tsʰ/ ⟨c⟩
Fricative		/f/ ⟨f⟩	/s/ ⟨s⟩	[ç] ⟨h(i)⟩*		/h/ ⟨h⟩
Approximant		/ʋ/ ⟨v⟩	/l/ ⟨l⟩	/j/ ⟨y⟩

* When the initials /k/ ⟨g⟩, /kʰ/ ⟨k⟩, /h/ ⟨h⟩, and /ŋ/ ⟨ng⟩ are followed by a palatal medial /j/ ⟨i⟩, they become [c] ⟨g(i)⟩, [cʰ] ⟨k(i)⟩, [ç] ⟨h(i)⟩, and [ɲ] ⟨ng(i)⟩, respectively.^[1]

Rimes

Moiyen Hakka has six vowels, i, e, a, ə, ɔ, and u, that are romanised as i, ê, a, e, o and u, respectively.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e	ə	ɔ
Open		a

Finals

Moreover, Hakka finals exhibit the final consonants found in Middle Chinese, namely [m, n, ŋ, p, t, k] which are romanised as m, n, ng, b, d, and g respectively in the official Moiyen romanisation.

Finals of Meixian dialect^[2]
nucleus	medial	coda
nucleus	medial	-∅	-i	-u	-m	-n	-ŋ	-p	-t	-k
-a-	∅-	a	ai	au	am	an	aŋ	ap	at	ak
	j-	ja	jai	jau	jam	jan	jaŋ	jap	jat	jak
	w-	wa	wai			wan	waŋ		wat	wak
-e-	∅-	e̞		e̞u	e̞m	e̞n		e̞p	e̞t
	j-	je̞				je̞n			je̞t
	w-					we̞n			we̞t
-i-	∅-	i		iu	im	in		ip	it
-o-	∅-	o	oi			on	oŋ		ot	ok
	j-	jo				jon	joŋ			jok
	w-	wo				won	woŋ			wok
-u-	∅-	u	ui			un	uŋ		ut	uk
-u-	j-		jui			jun	juŋ		jut	juk
-ə-	∅-	ɹ̩			əm	ən		əp	ət
Syllabics					m̩		ŋ̩

Tone

Moiyen has four tones, which are reduced to two in a checked syllable. The Middle Chinese fully voiced initial syllables became aspirated voiceless initial syllable in Hakka. Before that happened, the four Middle Chinese 'tones', ping, shang, qu, ru, underwent a voicing split in the case of ping and ru, giving the dialect six tones in traditional accounts.

Moiyen tones
Tone number	Tone name	Hanzi	Tone letters	number	English
1	yin ping	陰平	˦	44	high
2	yang ping	陽平	˩	11	low
3	shang	上	˧˩	31	low falling
4	qu	去	˥˧	53	high falling
5	yin ru	陰入	˩	1	low checked
6	yang ru	陽入	˥	5	high checked

These so-called yin-yang tonal splittings developed mainly as a consequence of the type of initial a Chinese syllable had during the Middle Chinese stage in the development of Chinese, with voiceless initial syllables [p- t- k-] tending to become of the yin type, and the voiced initial syllables [b- d- ɡ-] developing into the yang type. In modern Moiyen Hakka however, part of the Yin Ping tone characters have sonorant initials [m n ŋ l] originally from the Middle Chinese Shang tone syllables and fully voiced Middle Chinese Qu tone characters, so the voiced/voiceless distinction should be taken only as a rule of thumb.

Hakka tone contours differs more as one moves away from Moiyen. For example, the Yin Ping contour is ˧ (33) in Changting (長汀) and ˨˦ (24) in Sixian (四縣), Taiwan.

Entering tone

Hakka preserves all of the entering tones of Middle Chinese and it is split into two registers. Meixian has the following:

陰入 [ ˩ ] a low pitched checked tone
陽入 [ ˥ ] a high pitched checked tone

Middle Chinese entering tone syllables ending in [k] whose vowel clusters have become front high vowels like [i] and [e] shifts to syllables with [t] finals in modern Hakka^[3] as seen in the following table.

Character	Guangyun Fanqie	Middle Chinese reconstruction^[4]	Hakka	Main meaning in English
職	之翼切	tɕĭək	tsit˩	vocation, profession
力	林直切	lĭək	lit˥	strength, power
食	乗力切	dʑʰĭək	sit˥	eat, consume
色	所力切	ʃĭək	set˩	colour, hue
德	多則切	tək	tet˩	virtue
刻	苦得切	kʰək	kʰet˩	carve, engrave, a moment
北	博墨切	pək	pet˩	north
國	古或切	kuək	kuet˩	country, state

Tone sandhi

For Moiyen Hakka, the yin ping and qu tone characters exhibit sandhi when the following character has a lower pitch. The pitch of the yin ping tone changes from ˦ (44) to ˧˥ (35) when sandhi occurs. Similarly, the qu tone changes from ˥˧ (53) to ˦ (55) under sandhi. These are shown in red in the following table.

Moiyen tone sandhi
	+ ˦ Yin Ping	+ ˩ Yang Ping	+ ˧˩ Shang	+ ˥˧ Qu	+ ˩ʔ Yin Ru	+ ˥ʔ YangRu	+ Neutral
˦ Yin Ping +	˦.˦	˧˥.˩	˧˥.˧˩	˧˥.˥˧	˧˥.˩ʔ	˦.˥ʔ	˧˥.˧
˥˧ Qu +	˥˧.˦	˥.˩	˥.˧˩	˥.˥˧	˥.˩ʔ	˥˧.˥ʔ	˥.˧

The neutral tone occurs in some postfixes. It has a mid pitch.

References

^ Zee, Eric; Lee, Wai-Sum (2008). "The articulatory characteristics of the palatals, palatalized velars and velars in Hakka Chinese" (PDF). Proceedings of the 8th International Seminar on Speech Production (ISSP2008): 113–116. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-03-05.
^ Cheung, Yuk Man (2011). Vowels and tones in Mei Xian Hakka : an acoustic and perceptual study (Thesis). City University of Hong Kong.
^ "Numerals - SE Asian Readings of Characters". dylansung.tripod.com. Archived from the original on 1 September 2017. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
^ "廣韻入聲卷第五". kanji-database.sourceforge.net. Archived from the original on 24 April 2018. Retrieved 24 April 2018.