Battle of Backbone Mountain

Jianyang (Kienyang) (Northern Min: Gṳ̿ing-iô̤ng-dī / 建陽事) is a dialect of Northern Min Chinese spoken in Jianyang in the north of Fujian province.

Phonology

Jianyang dialect has 18 initials, 34 rimes and 8 tones.

Initials

Stops		Nasals	Fricatives	Approx.
p	pʰ	m	β
t	tʰ	n		l
ts	tsʰ		s
k	kʰ	ŋ	x
ʔ			h	ɦ

Fricative and affricate sounds /ts, tsʰ, s, x/ are realized as more palatal as [tɕ, tɕʰ, ɕ, ç], when preceding front vowels.
/β/ can be realized as an approximant [ʋ] within different segments.

Rimes

a	ia	ua
ɔ	iɔ
o		uo
e	ie	ue	ye
ai
ɔi		ui
au
au	iu
	i		y
aŋ	iaŋ	uaŋ
ɔŋ	iɔŋ	uɔŋ
eiŋ	ieiŋ	ueiŋ	yeiŋ
aiŋ
ɔiŋ
oŋ	iŋ	uŋ

Tones


No.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Tone name	dark level 陰平	light level A 陽平甲	light level B 陽平乙	rising 上聲	dark departing 陰去	light departing 陽去	dark entering 陰入	light entering 陽入
Tone contour	˥˧ (53)	˧˧˦ (334)	˦˩ (41)	˨˩ (21)	˧˧˨ (332)	˦˧ (43)	˨˩˦ (214)	˦ (4)

The entering tones in Jianyang dialect don't have any entering tone coda (入聲韻尾) such as /-ʔ/, /-p̚/, /-t̚/ and /-k̚/. It's quite different from many other Chinese dialects.

Notes

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

References

^ 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
^ 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
^ 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.

Chen, Matthew (2000). Tone Sandhi: Patterns across Chinese Dialects. CUP.
Norman, Jerry (1969). "The Kienyang Dialect of Fukien". Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Compilation Commission of Chorography of Jianyang County 建阳县地方志编纂委员会 (1994). Jian yang xian zhi 建阳县志 ["Chorography of Jianyang County"]. Vol. 31. Beijing: Qunzhong chubanshe 群众出版社 ["Masses Press"]. ISBN 9787501412297.

[minClassification-4] Min is believed to have split from Old Chinese, rather than Middle Chinese like other varieties of Chinese.^[1]^[2]^[3]

[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

[glottoMin-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.

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