The Min homeland of Fujian was opened to Han Chinese settlement by the defeat of theMinyue state by the armies ofEmperor Wu of Han in 110 BC.[4]The area features rugged mountainous terrain, with short rivers that flow into theSouth China Sea.Most subsequent migration from north to south China passed through the valleys of theXiang andGan rivers to the west, so that Min varieties have experienced less northern influence than other southern groups.[5]As a result, whereas mostvarieties of Chinese can be treated as derived fromMiddle Chinese—the language described byrhyme dictionaries such as theQieyun (601 AD)—Min varieties contain traces of older distinctions.[6]Linguists estimate that the oldest layers of Min dialects diverged from the rest of Chinese around the time of theHan dynasty.[7][8]However, significant waves of migration from theNorth China Plain occurred:[9]
Laurent Sagart (2008) disagrees with Norman and Mei Tsu-lin's analysis of an Austroasiatic substratum in Min.[15] The hypothesis proposed by Jerry Norman and Mei Tsu-lin arguing for an Austroasiatic homeland along the middle Yangtze has been largely abandoned in most circles and left unsupported by the majority of Austroasiatic specialists.[16] Rather, recent movements of analyzing archeological evidence, posit anAustronesian layer, rather than anAustroasiatic one.[17]
Min is usually described as one of seven or ten groups ofvarieties of Chinese but has greater dialectal diversity than any of the other groups. The varieties used in neighbouring counties, and in the mountains of western Fujian even in adjacent villages, are often mutually unintelligible.[19]
Early classifications, such as those ofLi Fang-Kuei in 1937 andYuan Jiahua in 1960, divided Min into Northern and Southern subgroups.[20][21]However, in a 1963 report on a survey of Fujian, Pan Maoding and colleagues argued that the primary split was between inland and coastal groups. A key discriminator between the two groups is a group of words that have alateral initial/l/ in coastal varieties, and a voiceless fricative/s/ or/ʃ/ in inland varieties, contrasting with another group having/l/ in both areas. Norman reconstructs these initials inProto-Min as voiceless and voiced laterals that merged in coastal varieties.[21][22]
The coastal varieties have the vast majority of speakers, and have spread from their homeland in Fujian and eastern Guangdong to the islands ofTaiwan andHainan, to other coastal areas of southern China, and to Southeast Asia.[23]Pan and colleagues divided them into three groups:[24]
Pu-Xian Min is spoken in the city ofPutian and the county ofXianyou County. Li Rulong and Chen Zhangtai examined 214 words, finding 62% shared withQuanzhou dialect (Southern Min) and 39% shared with Fuzhou dialect (Eastern Min), and concluded that Pu-Xian was more closely related to Southern Min.[26]
Southern Min (Min Nan) originates from the south of Fujian and the eastern corner of Guangdong.
Hainanese, spoken on the island of Hainan. These dialects feature drastic changes to initial consonants, including a series ofimplosive consonants, that have been attributed to contact with theTai–Kadai languages spoken on the island.[30]
Coastal varieties feature some uniquely Min vocabulary, including pronouns and negatives.[31]All but the Hainan dialects have complextone sandhi systems.[32]
Although they have far fewer speakers, the inland varieties show much greater variation than the coastal ones.[33]Pan and colleagues divided the inland varieties into two groups:[24]
Shao-Jiang Min, spoken in the northwestern Fujian counties ofShaowu andJiangle, were classified asHakka by Pan and his associates.[21] However,Jerry Norman suggested that they were inland varieties of Min that had been subject to heavyGan or Hakka influence.[34]
Although coastal varieties can be derived from aproto-language with four series of stops or affricates at each point of articulation (e.g./t/,/tʰ/,/d/, and/dʱ/), inland varieties contain traces of two further series, which Norman termed "softened stops" due to their reflexes in some varieties.[35][36][37] Inland varieties use pronouns and negatives cognate with those in Hakka andYue.[31] Inland varieties have little or no tone sandhi.[32]
Most Min vocabulary corresponds directly to cognates in other Chinese varieties, but there are also a significant number of distinctively Min words that may be traced back to proto-Min.In some cases a semantic shift has occurred in Min or the rest of Chinese:
*tiaŋB 鼎 "wok". The Min form preserves the original meaning "cooking pot", but in other Chinese varieties this word (MCtengX >dǐng) has become specialized to refer toancient ceremonial tripods.[38]
*dzhənA "rice field". In Min, this form has displaced the common Chinese termtián 田.[39][40] Many scholars identify the Min word withchéng 塍 (MCzying) "raised path between fields", but Norman argues that it is cognate withcéng 層 (MCdzong) "additional layer or floor", reflecting theterraced fields commonly found in Fujian.[41]
*tšhioC 厝 "house".[42] Norman argues that the Min word is cognate withshù 戍 (MC syuH) "to guard".[43][44]
*tshyiC 喙 "mouth". In Min this form has displaced the common Chinese termkǒu 口.[45] It is believed to be cognate withhuì 喙 (MCxjwojH) "beak, bill, snout; to pant".[44]
Norman and Mei Tsu-lin have suggested an Austroasiatic origin for some Min words:
*-dəŋA "shaman" may be compared withVietnameseđồng (/ɗoŋ2/) "to shamanize, to communicate with spirits" andMon doŋ "to dance (as if) under demonic possession".[46][47]
*kiɑnB 囝 "son" appears to be related to Vietnamesecon (/kɔn/) and Mon kon "child".[48][49]
However, Norman and Mei Tsu-lin's suggestion is rejected by Laurent Sagart (2008),[15] with some linguists arguing that the Austroasiatic predecessor of the modern Vietnamese language originated in the mountainous region in Central Laos and Vietnam, rather than in the region north of theRed River delta.[50]
In other cases, the origin of the Min word is obscure. Such words include:
When usingChinese characters to write a non-Mandarin form, a common practice is to use characters that correspond etymologically to the words being represented, and for words with no evident etymology, to either invent new characters or borrow characters for their sound or meaning.[53]Written Cantonese has carried this process out to the farthest extent of any non-Mandarin variety, to the extent that pure Cantonese vernacular can be unambiguously written using Chinese characters. Contrary to popular belief, a vernacular written in this fashion is not in general comprehensible to a Mandarin speaker, due to significant differences in grammar and vocabulary and the necessary use of a large number of non-Mandarin characters.
For most Min varieties, a similar process has not taken place. For Hokkien, competing systems exist.[53] Given that Min combines the Chinese of several different periods and contains some non-Chinese substrate vocabulary, an author literate in Mandarin (or even Classical Chinese) may have trouble finding the appropriate Chinese characters for some Min vocabulary. In the case ofTaiwanese, there are also indigenous words borrowed fromFormosan languages (particularly for place names), as well as a substantial number of loan words fromJapanese. The Min (Hokkien,Teochew,Hainanese,Luichow,Hinghwa,Hokchew,Hokchia,Haklau / Hai Lok Hong) spoken in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia has borrowed heavily fromMalay (orIndonesian for Indonesia) and, to a lesser extent, fromSingaporean orMalaysianEnglish and other languages. Meanwhile, theHokkien spoken in the Philippines has also borrowed a few terms fromSpanish,Tagalog (Filipino), andEnglish over the recent centuries. InKelantan Peranakan Hokkien, spoken inKelantan state of Malaysia toPattani province ofThailand, a mix ofSouthern Thai andKelantan Malay is also used with the local Kelantan Hokkien ofPeranakans andChinese Malaysians in NorthernMalaya. The result is that adapting Chinese characters to write Min requires a substantial effort to choose characters for a significant portion of the vocabulary.
^abSagart, Larent (2008)."The expansion ofSetaria farmers in East Asia: a linguistic and archeological model". In Sanchez-Mazas, Alicia; Blench, Roger; Ross, Malcolm D.; Peiros, Ilia; Lin, Marie (eds.).Past human migrations in East Asia: matching archaeology, linguistics and genetics. Routledge. pp. 141–143.ISBN978-0-415-39923-4.In conclusion, there is no convincing evidence, linguistic or other, of an early Austroasiatic presence on the south‑east China coast.
^Chamberlain, J.R. 1998, "The origin of Sek: implications for Tai and Vietnamese history", in The International Conference on Tai Studies, ed. S. Burusphat, Bangkok, Thailand, pp. 97-128. Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University.
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Bodman, Nicholas C. (1985), "The Reflexes of Initial Nasals in Proto-Southern Min-Hingua", in Acson, Veneeta; Leed, Richard L. (eds.),For Gordon H. Fairbanks, Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications, vol. 20, University of Hawaii Press, pp. 2–20,ISBN978-0-8248-0992-8,JSTOR20006706.
Chang, Kuang-yu (1986),Comparative Min phonology (Ph.D.), University of California, Berkeley.
Kurpaska, Maria (2010),Chinese Language(s): A Look Through the Prism of "The Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects",Walter de Gruyter,ISBN978-3-11-021914-2.
Li, Rulong 李如龙; Chen, Zhangtai 陈章太 (1991), "Lùn Mǐn fāngyán nèibù de zhǔyào chāyì"论闽方言内部的主要差异 [On the main differences between Min dialects], in Chen, Zhangtai; Li, Rulong (eds.),Mǐnyǔ yánjiū闽语硏究 [Studies on the Min dialects], Beijing: Yuwen Chubanshe, pp. 58–138,ISBN978-7-80006-309-1.
Lien, Chinfa (2015), "Min languages", in Wang, William S.-Y.; Sun, Chaofen (eds.),The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics, Oxford University Press, pp. 160–172,ISBN978-0-19-985633-6.
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——— (1991), "The Mǐn dialects in historical perspective", in Wang, William S.-Y. (ed.),Languages and Dialects of China,Journal of Chinese Linguistics Monograph Series, vol. 3, Chinese University Press, pp. 325–360,JSTOR23827042,OCLC600555701.
——— (2003), "The Chinese dialects: phonology", in Thurgood, Graham; LaPolla, Randy J. (eds.),The Sino-Tibetan languages, Routledge, pp. 72–83,ISBN978-0-7007-1129-1.
Yan, Margaret Mian (2006),Introduction to Chinese Dialectology, LINCOM Europa,ISBN978-3-89586-629-6.
Yue, Anne O. (2003), "Chinese dialects: grammar", in Thurgood, Graham; LaPolla, Randy J. (eds.),The Sino-Tibetan languages, Routledge, pp. 84–125,ISBN978-0-7007-1129-1.
