Hainanese

File:HainanBible1.gif

The Book of Genesis in Bǽh-oe-tu, published by the Bible Society of Great Britain

Hainanese (Hainan Romanised: Hái-nâm-oe, Hainanese Pinyin: Hhai3 nam2 ue1, Template:Zh), also known as Qiongwen (Template:Zh), Qiongyu (Template:Zh) or Hainan Min (Template:Zh) is a group of Min Chinese varieties spoken in the far southern Chinese island province of Hainan and regional overseas Chinese communities such as in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

In the classification of Yuan Jiahua, it was included in the Southern Min group, being mutually unintelligible with other Southern Min varieties such as Hokkien–Taiwanese and Teochew. In the classification of Li Rong, used by the Language Atlas of China, it was treated as a separate Min subgroup. Hou Jingyi combined it with Leizhou Min, spoken on the neighboring mainland Leizhou Peninsula, in a Qiong–Lei group. "Hainanese" is also used for the language of the Li people living in Hainan, but generally refers to Min varieties spoken in Hainan.

Phonology

The phonologies of the different varieties of Hainanese are highly divergent, with the Wenchang dialect being the prestige dialect, and often used as a reference.

Consonants

Below is a table for the consonants of Hainanese across the dialects of Wenchang, Haikou and the dialect of Banqiao Town, in Dongfang. For more information on a specific variety, please consult the relevant article.

		Labial	Dental		Alveolo- palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr pa	Template:IPAslink toi			Template:IPAslink kong	Template:IPAslink a
	aspirated	Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lrTemplate:Efn-lr pho	Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr			Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lrTemplate:Efn-lr khu
	voiced	Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr	Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr			Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr gua
	implosive	Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lrTemplate:Efn-lr ɓak	Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lrTemplate:Efn-lr ɗei			(Template:IPAslink)Template:Efn-lr
Affricate	voiceless			Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lrTemplate:Efn-lr	Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr tsia
	aspirated			Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr
	voiced			Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr	Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr jit
Fricative	voiceless	Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr fi	Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr	Template:IPAslink sei	Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lrTemplate:Efn-lr	Template:IPAslink	Template:IPAslink hai
	voiced	Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lrTemplate:Efn-lr vun		Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr zok			Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr
Nasal		Template:IPAslink mak	Template:IPAslink niam			Template:IPAslink ngak
Approximant		Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr wat	Template:IPAslink lao		Template:IPAslinkTemplate:Efn-lr yok

Many of the most widely spoken varieties of Hainanese notably have a series of implosive consonants, and , which were acquired through contact with surrounding languages, probably Hlai. However, more conservative varieties of Hainanese such as Banqiao remain closer to Teochew and other varieties of Southern Min, lack them.

The consonant system of Hainanese corresponds well with that of Hokkien, but it has had some restructuring. In particular:

• Etymological plain stops have undergone implosivization (*p > , *t > ) in the more innovative varieties such as Wenchang and Haikou.
• Etymological aspirated stops have spirantized (*pʰ > , *tʰ > , *tsʰ > , *kʰ > ) in more innovative varieties.
• The lenition of an historic *b into in Banqiao and Haikou, though not in Wenchang.
• Former *s has hardened into a stop (*s > ), although in the more conservative Banqiao dialect some instances have only undergone fortition to (*s > ), and others have remained .
• Former *h has become in Wenchang.

Additionally, is an allophone of .

These changes also make Hainanese fairly close to Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary.

Chinese character	Mandarin	Taiwanese Hokkien	Haikou Hainanese	Sino-Vietnamese
邪	xié	siâ	dia2	da
仙	xiān	sian	din1	tiên
散	sàn	suànn	dan4	tàn
跡	jì	jiak	di1	tích
神	shén	sîn	din2	thần
痴	chī	chi	si1	si

Vowels

Hainanese has seven phonemic vowels.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	Template:IPAslink		Template:IPAslink
Close-mid	Template:IPAslink		Template:IPAslink
Open-mid	Template:IPAslink		Template:IPAslink
Open		Template:IPAslink

Tones

Tone chart of the Hainan dialect

Tone number	Tone name	Tone contour	Example
1	yin ping ()	(24)
2	yang ping ()	(21)
3	yin shang ()	(211)
4	yin qu ()	(35)
5	yang qu ()	(33)
6	yin ru ()	(5)
7	yang ru ()	(3)
8	chang ru ()	(55)

Romanization

Hainanese Pinyin

Hainanese Pinyin () is a phonetic system announced by the Education Administration Department of Guangdong Province in September 1960. It marks tones with numbers.

Initials

IPA	Hainanese Pinyin	Bǽh-oe-tu	Example
Template:IPAslink	b	b
Template:IPAslink	b	p
Template:IPAslink	p	ph
Template:IPAslink	p	f
Template:IPAslink	m	m
Template:IPAslink	v	b	?
Template:IPAslink	v	v
Template:IPAslink	d	t
Template:IPAslink	dd	d
Template:IPAslink	n	n
Template:IPAslink	l	l
Template:IPAslink	g	k
Template:IPAslink	ng	g
Template:IPAslink	h	kh
Template:IPAslink	hh	h
Template:IPAslink	gh	g
Template:IPAslink	z	c
Template:IPAslink	s	s
Template:IPAslink	y	j

Finals

IPA	Hainanese Pinyin	Bǽh-oe-tu	Example
Template:IPAslink	a	a
Template:IPAslink	o	o
Template:IPAslink	e	e
Template:IPAslink	i	i
Template:IPAslink	u	u
ai	ai	ai
ɔi	oi	oi
au	ao	au
ia	ia	ia
iɔ	io	io
ua	ua	oa
ue	ue	oe
ui	ui	oi
uai	uai	oai
ɔu	ou	ou
iu	iu	iu
iau	iao	iau
iam	iam	iam
im	im	im
am	am	am
an	an	an
in	in	in
un	un	un
uan	uan	oan
aŋ	ang	ag
eŋ	eng	eg
ɔŋ	ong	og
iaŋ	iang	iag
uaŋ	uang	oag
iɔŋ	iong	iog
ip	ib	ib
iap	iab	iab
at	ad	at
it	id	it
ut	ud	ut
uat	uad	oat
ak	ag	ak
ek	eg	ek
ok	og	ok
iok	iog	iok
uak	uag	oak
-ʔ	-h	-h

Grammar

Hainanese is known for having post-verbal locative prepositional phrases, as opposed to having such phrases in the pre-verbal position, as is common in most other varieties of Chinese. For example:

This has been attributed to contact with the Kra–Dai languages of Hainan, such as Hlai and Be.

See also

• Hainanese culture
• Hainanese people

Further reading

• Template:Cite thesis
• Miyake, Marc. 2008. Hainanese articles.
• Miyake, Marc. 2008. Hainanese -om and -op.
• Template:Cite thesis includes a description of the phonology of the Ding'an dialect.
• describes Wenchang dialect.

External links

• Learn hainanese Template:Webarchive