Min Nan

Minnan (閩南語 / 闽南语Bân-lâm-gú )
Spoken in	People's Republic of China , Taiwan , Malaysia , Indonesia , Singapore , Philippines
speaker	49 million
Linguistic ; classification	Sino-Tibetan languages chinese languages Min languages Minnan ;
Official status
Official language in	Taiwan (de facto)
Language codes
ISO 639 -1	zh (Chinese languages)
ISO 639-3	nan, zho (macro language, Chinese languages)

Min Nan or Minnan ( Chinese 閩南語 / 闽南语 , Pinyin Mǐnnányǔ , Pe̍h-ōe-jī Bân-lâm-gú - "southern Min language") is a language spoken in the southern Chinese province of Fujian and surrounding areas. Hokkien , Taiwanese, and Teochew are prominent variants of Minnan.

classification

Minnan forms a branch of the Min languages along with other groups . These are part of the group of Chinese languages , which are themselves a member of the Sino-Tibetan language family .

As with other languages in the Chinese language family, the official standpoint of the People's Republic of China is that Minnan is a dialect , not a language . However, Minnan's lexical overlap is only 15.1% with standard Chinese, and the languages are mutually incomprehensible. Mutual intelligibility is very poor even between different geographical expressions of Minnan.

Dialects and geographical distribution

Spread of the Min-Nan dialects in the provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong as well as in Taiwan

Min Nan is spoken in the southern part of Fujian Province, in two southern areas in Zhejiang Province , on the Zhoushan Island group of Ningbo in Zhejiang, and in the eastern part of Guangdong Province and on the Leizhou Peninsula , in Hainan and Taiwan . Important dialect groups are:

Hokkien , also known as "Quanzhang", "Fukien dialect" or " Amoy dialect" - in the south of Fujian and on Taiwan. The dialect of Taiwan ( Taiwanese ) is referred to there as Tâi-oân-oē or Hō-ló-oē . The ethnic group that Hokkien has as their mother tongue is referred to as Holo (Hō-ló) or Hoklo ; this also forms a large ethnic group in Taiwan.
Teochew , also known as the "Chaozhou dialect" - in the Chaoshan region (= Chaozhou / Shantou ), Guangdong province
Qiongwen , also known as the "Hainan dialect" - on Hainan Island. This dialect is incomprehensible to speakers of Hokkien and Teochew and is not always assigned to the Min-Nan group. The dialect of the Leizhou Peninsula is closely related.

Min-Nan speakers who emigrated from Fujian brought the language to many other parts of Southeast Asia. The majority were Hoklo from southern Fujian, who brought the language to Indonesia , Malaysia and Singapore . Many other Southeast Asians of Chinese origin come from the Chaoshan region and speak Teochew. There are reports that Min Nan is the mother tongue of up to 98.5% of the Chinese of the Philippines ; among these it is called Lan-nang or Lán-lâng-oē ("language of our people").

Official status

In Taiwan, since the abolition of martial law in 1987 and subsequent liberalization, Minnan's status in public life has been upgraded, and Minnan is used in broadcasting etc. (see Taiwanese language ).

There are also radio and television broadcasts in Minnan in mainland China.

Phonetics and Phonology

Minnan is a tonal language with a strong tonal sandhi . The following sections give initials and finals of the syllables of Min Nan. The examples are two-syllable words with the component in question highlighted in red.

Initial sounds

IPA	p	b	pʰ	m	t	tʰ	n	ŋ	l	k	G	kʰ	H	tɕ	ʑ	tɕʰ	ɕ	ʦ	ʣ	ʦʰ	s
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	p	b	ph	m	t	th	n	nng	l	k	G	kh	H	chi	ji	chhi	si	ch	j	chh	s
Revised TLPA	p	b	ph	m	t	th	n	nng	l	k	G	kh	H	zi	ji	ci	si	z	j	c	s
TLPA	p	b	ph	m	t	th	n	nng	l	k	G	kh	H	zi	ji	ci	si	z	j	c	s
Pumindian (普闽典)	b	bb	p	m	d	t	n		l	G	gg	k	H	zi	left	ci	si	z	l	c	s
zhuyin	ㄅ	ㆠ	ㄆ	ㄇ	ㄉ	ㄊ	ㄋ	ㄋ ㆭ	ㄌ	ㄍ	ㆣ	ㄎ	ㄏ	ㄐ	ㆢ	ㄑ	ㄒ	ㄗ	ㆡ	ㄘ	ㄙ
Example ( traditional character )	報紙	閩南	普通	請問	豬肉	普通	過年	雞卵	樂觀	價值	牛奶	客廳	煩惱	支持	漢字	支持	是否	報紙	熱天	參加	司法
Example ( abbreviation )	报纸	闽南	普通	请问	猪肉	普通	过年	鸡卵	乐观	价值	牛奶	客厅	烦恼	支持	汉字	支持	是否	报纸	热天	参加	司法

Finals

IPA	a	ap	at	ak	a ʔ	ã	ɔ	ɔk	ɔ̃	ə	O	e	ẽ	i	ɪ ɛ n	iəŋ
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	a	ap	at	ak	Ah	aⁿ	O•	OK	oⁿ	O	O	e	eⁿ	i	ian	closely
Revised TLPA	a	ap	at	ak	Ah	on	oo	OK	ooN	O	O	e	eN	i	ian	ing
TLPA	a	ap	at	ak	Ah	ann	oo	OK	oonn	O	O	e	enn	i	ian	ing
Pumindian (普闽典)	a	ap	at	ak	Ah	n / A	oo	OK	noo	O	O	e	no	i	ien	ing
zhuyin	ㄚ	ㄚ ㆴ	ㄚ ㆵ	ㄚ ㆶ	ㄚ ㆷ	ㆩ	ㆦ	ㆦ ㆶ	ㆧ	ㄜ	ㄛ	ㆤ	ㆥ	ㄧ	ㄧㄢ	ㄧㄥ
Example ( traditional character )	亞洲	壓力	警察	沃水	牛肉	三十	烏色	中國		澳洲	澳洲	下晡		醫學	鉛筆	英國
Example ( abbreviation )	亚洲	压力	警察	沃水	牛肉	三十	烏色	中国		澳洲	澳洲	下晡		医学	铅笔	英国

IPA	ɪ k	ĩ	ai	aĩ	ouch	at the	ɔm	ṃ	ɔŋ	ŋ̩	u	among others	ue	uai	uan	ɨ	ũ
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	ek	iⁿ	ai	aiⁿ	ouch	at the	om	m	ong	ng	u	oa	oe	oai	oan	i	uⁿ
Revised TLPA	ik	in	ai	aiN	ouch	at the	om	m	ong	ng	u	among others	ue	uai	uan	ir	U.N
TLPA	ik	inn	ai	ainn	ouch	at the	om	m	ong	ng	u	among others	ue	uai	uan	ir	unn
Pumindian (普闽典)	ik	ni	ai	nai	ouch	at the	om	m	ong	ggn	u	among others	ue	uai	uan	i	nu
zhuyin	ㄧ ㆶ	ㆪ	ㄞ	ㆮ	ㆯ	ㆰ	ㆱ	ㆬ	ㆲ	ㆭ	ㄨ	ㄨㄚ	ㄨ ㆤ	ㄨㄞ	ㄨㄢ	ㆨ	ㆫ
Example ( traditional character )	翻譯	病院	愛情		歐洲	暗時		阿姆	王梨	黃色	有無	歌曲	講話	奇怪	人員
Example ( abbreviation )	翻译	病院	爱情		欧洲	暗时		阿姆	王梨	黄色	有无	歌曲	讲话	奇怪	人员

Sounds

IPA	a˥˥	a˥˧	a˨˩	ap˩˩ at˩˩ ak˩˩ aʔ˩˩	a˧˥	a˥˧	a˧˧	ap˥˥ at˥˥ ak˥˥ aʔ˥˥
Pe̍h-ōe-jī	a	á	à	ap at ak ah	â	á	-	a̍p a̍t a̍k a̍h
Revised TLPA TLPA	a1	a2	a3	ap4 at4 ak4 ah4	a5	a2 (6 = 2)	a7	ap8 at8 ak8 ah8
Pumindian (普闽典)	-	ă	à	āp āt āk āh	á	ă	â	áp át ák áh
zhuyin	ㄚ	ㄚ ˋ	ㄚ ᒻ	ㄚ ㆴ ㄚ ㆵ ㄚ ㆶ ㄚ ㆷ	ㄚ ˊ	ㄚ ˋ	ㄚ ⊦	ㄚ ㆴ ̇ ㄚ ㆵ ̇ ㄚ ㆶ ̇ ㄚ ㆷ ̇
Example ( traditional character )	公司	報紙	興趣	血壓警察中國牛肉	人員		草地	配合法律文學歇熱
Example ( abbreviation )	公司	报纸	兴趣	血压警察中国牛肉	人员		草地	配合法律文学歇热

font

Taiwanese Bible from 1933 in Minnan

Minnan is typically notated by speakers of Chinese origin in Chinese characters , as used in standard Chinese. There are also a number of special characters that are only used for Minnan, as is common in Cantonese, for example. Not infrequently, characters for other words with a similar meaning or pronunciation are used for a word without a traditional character.

Like other Chinese languages, Minnan can also be written in Latin letters. This Latin spelling is called Pe̍h-ōe-jī (POJ " vernacular writing "). POJ was developed by Presbyterian missionaries and later by the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan; the use of this notation was encouraged since the late 19th century. There are also other Latin transcriptions and mixed notations that use Chinese characters and Latin letters.

Early writings in Minnan date from the 16th century. One example is the “Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china”, probably written in 1587 by the Spanish Dominicans in the Philippines. Another is the “Romance of the Lychee Mirror” ( 荔鏡記 / 荔镜记 ) from 1566, probably the earliest surviving Minnan text.

Coding for electronic data processing

The language code for Minnan was zh-min-nanregistered in 2001 and replaced by nanin 2009 .

One difficulty is that the character set is not immutable. As in many Sino-Tibetan languages, some authors see existing characters as insufficient for certain expressions and create new characters for these expressions. Naturally, these are not included in Unicode or the ISO / IEC 10646: Universal Coded Character Set .

All letters necessary for Pe̍h-oē-jī are in Unicode , using [precomposed] or [diacritics]. Until June 2004 the vowel was missing similarly, but more openly than an o, denoted by a dot above right: ȯ . This was circumvented by adding a • (U + 00B7, middle dot ) as an independent character, less often with ̇ (U + 0307, dot above ). This vowel now officially has the coding U + 0358.

Web links

Wikipedia on Bân-lâm-gú

Wiktionary: Min Nan - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Min Nan in ethnologue.com
台語 - 華語線頂辭典 , Taiwanese-Mandarin online dictionary
臺灣本土語言互譯及語音合成系統 , Taiwanese-Hakka-Mandarin online conversion
臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典 , Taiwanese dictionary

literature

Li Rong (李荣): 现代汉语方言大词典: 厦门方言词典 ("Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects. Dictionary of Xiamen Dialect"). Jiangsu jiaoyu chubanshe, Nanjing 1999.
Li Rulong (李如龙): 闽南方言语法研究 ("Studies on the grammar of the Min Nan dialects"). Fujian Renmin Chubanshe, Fuzhou 2007, ISBN 978-7-211-05423-7 .
Nicholas Bodman: Spoken Amoy Hokkien. Government of Federation of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 1955-1958.
Yuan Jiahua (袁家骅): 汉语方言概要 ("Outline of the Chinese dialects"). Wenzi gaige chubanshe, Beijing 1960.

Individual evidence

^ Chinese, Min Nan. ethnologue.com, accessed November 15, 2017 .
↑ zh-min-nan on iana.org.
↑ language-subtag-registry on iana.org.
↑ Draft of Proposal to add Latin characters required by Latinized Taiwanese Holo languages to ISO / ICE 10646 ( English ) Department of Language Education of National Taitung Teachers College. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved September 10, 2019.
↑ Proposal to add COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE as required by Taiwanese Holo language Romanization to ISO / IEC 10646 ( English ) TCA. Archived from the original on June 7, 2012. Retrieved September 10, 2019.
↑ Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) - ISO / IEC 10646 ( English , PDF) dkuug.dk. March 20, 2004. Retrieved September 10, 2019.
↑ Proposal to add Latin characters required by Latinized Taiwanese languages to ISO / IEC 10646 ( English ) Te Khai-su, Taiwan Protocol. June 26, 1997. Retrieved September 10, 2019.
↑ Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) - ISO / IEC 10646 ( English , DOC) TCA. Retrieved September 10, 2019.

[ethnologue-minnan-1] Chinese, Min Nan. ethnologue.com, accessed November 15, 2017 .

[2] zh-min-nan on iana.org.

[3] uage-subtag-registry on iana.org.

[4] Draft of Proposal to add Latin characters required by Latinized Taiwanese Holo languages to ISO / ICE 10646 ( English ) Department of Language Education of National Taitung Teachers College. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved September 10, 2019.

[5] Proposal to add COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE as required by Taiwanese Holo language Romanization to ISO / IEC 10646 ( English ) TCA. Archived from the original on June 7, 2012. Retrieved September 10, 2019.

[6] Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) - ISO / IEC 10646 ( English , PDF) dkuug.dk. March 20, 2004. Retrieved September 10, 2019.

[7] Proposal to add Latin characters required by Latinized Taiwanese languages to ISO / IEC 10646 ( English ) Te Khai-su, Taiwan Protocol. June 26, 1997. Retrieved September 10, 2019.

[8] Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) - ISO / IEC 10646 ( English , DOC) TCA. Retrieved September 10, 2019.