Southern Min

Southern Min
Min Nan
閩南語 / 闽南语 Bân-lâm-gú
Koa-a books, Min Nan written in Chinese characters
Native to	China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Japan and other areas of Southern Min and Hoklo settlement
Region	Southern Fujian province; the Chaozhou-Shantou (Chaoshan) area and Leizhou Peninsula in Guangdong province; extreme south of Zhejiang province; much of Hainan province(if Hainanese or Qiong Wen is included); and most of Taiwan.
Native speakers	47 million (2007)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Chinese Min Coastal Min Southern Min
Dialects	Hokkien Teochew Datian (disputed) ?Zhongshan
Official status
Official language in	None (Legislative bills have been proposed for Taiwanese Hokkien to be one of the 'national languages' in Taiwan); one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in Taiwan [1]
Regulated by	None (The Republic of China Ministry of Education and some NGOs are influential in Taiwan)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nan
Glottolog	minn1241
Distribution of Southern Min.

Southern Min
Simplified Chinese	闽南语
Traditional Chinese	閩南語
Literal meaning	"Language of Southern Min [Fujian]"
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Mǐnnán yǔ Wade–Giles Min3-nan2 yü3 IPA [mìnnǎn ỳ] Gan Romanization Mîn-lōm-ngî Hakka Romanization Mîn-nàm-ngî Yue: Cantonese Jyutping Man5-naam4 jyu5 Yale Romanization Máhn-nàahm yúh Southern Min Hokkien POJ Bân-lâm-gí/Bân-lâm-gú Eastern Min Fuzhou BUC Mìng-nàng-ngṳ̄

Southern Min, or Min Nan (simplified Chinese: 闽南语; traditional Chinese: 閩南語; pinyin: Mǐnnányǔ; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Bân-lâm-gí/Bân-lâm-gú), is a branch of Min Chinese spoken in certain parts of China including southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and southern Zhejiang, and in Taiwan. The Min Nan dialects are also spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora.

In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to Hokkien. Amoy and Taiwanese Hokkien are both combinations of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech. The Southern Min dialect group also includes Teochew, though Teochew has limited mutual intelligibility with Hokkien. Southern Min is not mutually intelligible with Eastern Min, Cantonese, or Standard Chinese.

Geographic distribution

China and Taiwan

Southern Min dialects are spoken in the southern part of Fujian, three southeastern counties of Zhejiang, the Zhoushan archipelago off Ningbo in Zhejiang, and the Chaoshan region in Guangdong. The variant spoken in Leizhou, Guangdong as well as Hainan is Hainanese and is not mutually intelligible with standard Southern Min or Teochew. Hainanese is classified in some schemes as part of Southern Min and in other schemes as separate.

A form of Southern Min akin to that spoken in southern Fujian is Taiwanese Hokkien, where it has the native name of Tâi-oân-oē or Hō-ló-oē. Southern Min is a first language for the Hoklo people, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo have very limited proficiency in Southern Min while some non-Hoklo speak Southern Min fluently.

Southeast Asia

There are many Southern Min speakers also among Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Many ethnic Chinese immigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia (the former Dutch East Indies) and present-day Malaysia and Singapore (formerly British Malaya and the Straits Settlements). In general, Southern Min from southern Fujian is known as Hokkien, Hokkienese, Fukien or Fookien in Southeast Asia and is very much like Taiwanese Hokkien. Many Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese also originated in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong and speak Teochew dialect, the variant of Southern Min from that region. Philippine Hokkien is reportedly the native language of up to 98.5% of the Chinese Filipino community in the Philippines, among whom it is also known as Lan-nang or Lán-lâng-oē ("our people’s language").

Southern Min speakers form the majority of Chinese in Singapore, with the largest group being Hoklos and the second largest Teochew people.

Classification

The variants of Southern Min spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that spoken in Quanzhou. 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 is quite important from a socio-political and cultural perspective, forming the second most important, if not the most influential pole of the language due to the popularity of Taiwanese Hokkien media. Those Southern Min variants that are collectively known as "Hokkien" in Southeast Asia also originate from these variants. The variants of Southern Min in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province are collectively known as Teochew or Chaozhou. Teochew is of great importance in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra and West Kalimantan. The Philippines variant is mostly from the Quanzhou area as most of their forefathers are from the aforementioned area.

The Southern Min language variant spoken around Shanwei and Haifeng differs markedly from Teochew and may represent a later migration from Zhangzhou. Linguistically, it lies between Teochew and Amoy. In southwestern Fujian, the local variants in Longyan and Zhangping form a separate division of Min Nan on their own. Among ethnic Chinese inhabitants of Penang, Malaysia and Medan, Indonesia, a distinct form of Zhangzhou Hokkien has developed. In Penang, it is called Penang Hokkien while across the Malacca Strait in Medan, an almost identical variant is known as Medan Hokkien.

Varieties

There are three principal branches of Southern Min: Hokkien (a.k.a. Quanzhang 泉漳), Datian (大田) and Teochew a.k.a Chaoshan (潮汕)

Hokkien

Main article: Hokkien

Xiamen (Amoy) dialect is a blend of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects. Taiwanese Hokkien is also a blend of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialect. Taiwanese in northern Taiwan tends to be based on Quanzhou dialect, whereas the Taiwanese spoken in southern Taiwan tends to be based on Zhangzhou dialect. There are minor variations in pronunciation and vocabulary between Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech. The grammar is basically the same. Additionally, extensive contact with the Japanese language has left a legacy of Japanese loanwords. In contrast, Teochew speech is significantly different from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech in both pronunciation and vocabulary.

Teochew

Main article: Teochew dialect

Teochew, or Chaoshan, includes Swatow dialect. It has very low intelligibility with Amoy dialect. Many Amoy and Teochew speakers speak Mandarin as a second or third language.

Datian

Main article: Datian Min

Phonology

Main articles: Hokkien dialect and Teochew dialect

Southern Min has one of the most diverse phonologies of Chinese varieties, with more consonants than Mandarin or Cantonese. Vowels, on the other hand, are more-or-less similar to those of Mandarin. In general, Southern Min dialects have five to six tones, and tone sandhi is extensive. There are minor variations within Hokkien, but the Teochew system differs significantly.

Southern Min's nasal finals consist m, n, ŋ, ~.

Writing systems

See also: Written Hokkien

Southern Min dialects lack a standardized written language. Southern Min speakers are taught how to read Mandarin in school. As a result, there has not been an urgent need to develop a writing system. In recent years, an increasing number of Southern Min speakers have become interested in developing a standard writing system (either by using Chinese Characters, or using Romanized script).

Cultural and political role

Min Nan (or Hokkien) can trace its roots through the Tang Dynasty. Min Nan (Hokkien) people call themselves "Tang people," (唐人, Tn̂g-lâng) which is synonymous to "Chinese people". Because of the widespread influence of the Tang culture during the great Tang dynasty, there are today still many Min Nan pronunciations of words shared by the Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese languages.

English	Chinese characters	Mandarin Chinese	Taiwanese Hokkien	Korean	Vietnamese	Japanese
Book	冊	Cè	Chheh	Chaek (책)	Tập/Sách	Saku/Satsu/Shaku
Bridge	橋	Qiáo	Kiô	Gyo (교)	Cầu/Kiều	Kyō
Dangerous	危險	Wēixiǎn	Guî-hiám	Wiheom (위험)	Nguy hiểm	Kiken
Embassy	大使館	Dàshǐguǎn	Tāi-sài-koán	Daesagwan (대사관)	Đại Sứ Quán	Taishikan
Flag	旗	Qí	Kî	Gi (기)	Cờ/Kỳ	Ki
Insurance	保險	Bǎoxiǎn	Pó-hiám	Boheom (보험)	Bảo hiểm	Hoken
News	新聞	Xīnwén	Sin-bûn	Shinmun (신문)	Tân Văn	Shinbun
Student	學生	Xuéshēng	Ha̍k-seng	Haksaeng (학생)	Học sinh	Gakusei
University	大學	Dàxué	Tāi-ha̍k (Tōa-o̍h)	Daehak (대학)	Đại học	Daigaku

See also

• Languages of China
• Languages of Taiwan
• Malaysian Chinese
• Chinese in Singapore
• Amoy Min Nan Swadesh list

Related languages

• Penang Hokkien
• Medan Hokkien (North-Sumatra, Indonesia dialect of Min Nan)
• Southern Malaysia Hokkien
• Lan-nang (Philippine dialect of Min Nan)
• Taiwanese Hokkien
• Fuzhou dialect (Min Dong branch)
• Singaporean Hokkien

Further reading

• "Part V: Southern Min Grammar" (3 articles).

External links

• 當代泉州音字彙, a dictionary of Quanzhou speech
• 台語-華語線頂辭典, Taiwanese-Mandarin on-line dictionary (Min-nan)(Chinese)
• 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典, Taiwanese Hokkien Commonly-used Words Dictionary by Ministry of Education, Republic of China (Taiwan).
• 臺灣本土語言互譯及語音合成系統, Taiwanese-Hakka-Mandarin on-line conversion
• Voyager - Spacecraft - Golden Record - Greetings From Earth - Amoy 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!
• 台語詞典 Taiwanese-English-Mandarin Dictionary
• How to Forget Your Mother Tongue and Remember Your National Language by Victor H. Mair University of Pennsylvania
• ISO 639-3 change request 2008-083, requesting to replace code nan (Min Nan Chinese) with dzu (Chaozhou) and xim (Xiamen), rejected because it did not include codes to cover the rest of the group.
• wikt:Appendix:Sino-Tibetan Swadesh lists