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Amoy
Amoyese, Amoynese, Xiamenese
廈門話Ē-mn̂g-ōe
Native to	China
Region	part ofXiamen (Amoy) (Siming andHuli districts),Haicang andLonghai districts to the west
Native speakers	2 million (2021)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Min Coastal Min Southern Min Hokkien Amoy
Early forms	Proto-Sino-Tibetan Old Chinese[a] Proto-Min
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	xiam1236
Linguasphere	> 79-AAA-jeb 79-AAA-je > 79-AAA-jeb
Distribution of Hokkien dialects. Amoy dialect is in magenta.
This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.

TheAmoy dialect orXiamen dialect (Chinese:廈門話;Pe̍h-ōe-jī:Ē-mn̂g-ōe;pinyin:Xiàménhuà), also known asAmoyese,^[5]Amoynese,Amoy Hokkien,Xiamenese orXiamen Hokkien, is a dialect ofHokkien spoken in thecity of Xiamen (historically known as "Amoy") and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the southern part ofFujian province. Currently, it is one of the most widely researched and studied varieties ofSouthern Min.^[6] It has historically come to be one of the more standardized varieties.^[7]

Amoyese andTaiwanese are both historically mixtures ofQuanzhou andZhangzhou dialects.^[8] As such, they are very closely alignedphonologically. There are some differences between the two, especially lexical, as a result of physical separation and the differing histories of mainland China and Taiwan during the 20th century. Amoyese and Taiwanese are mutually intelligible. Intelligibility with other Hokkien, especially inland, is more difficult. By that standard, Amoyese and Taiwanese may be considered dialects of a single language. Ethnolinguistically, however, Amoyese is part of mainland Hokkien.^[1]

In 1842, as a result of the signing of theTreaty of Nanking,Amoy was designated as a trading port inFujian. Amoy andKulangsu rapidly developed, which resulted in a large influx of people from neighboring areas such asQuanzhou andZhangzhou. The mixture of these various accents formed the basis for the Amoy dialect.

Over the last several centuries, a large number ofSouthern Fujianese people from these same areas migrated toTaiwan duringDutch andQing rule. The "Amoy dialect" was considered the vernacular of Taiwan.^[9] Eventually, the mixture of accents spoken in Taiwan became popularly known asTaiwanese duringImperial Japanese rule. As inAmerican and British English, there are subtle lexical and phonological differences between modern Taiwanese and Amoy Hokkien; however, these differences do not generally pose any barriers to communication. Amoy dialect speakers also migrated toSoutheast Asia, mainly inSingapore,Malaysia, thePhilippines,Indonesia,Brunei,Thailand,Cambodia andMyanmar.

The spoken Amoy dialect preserves many of the sounds and words fromOld Chinese. However, the vocabulary of Amoy was also influenced in its early stages by theMinyue languages spoken by the ancientMinyue peoples.^[10] Spoken Amoy is known for its extensive use ofnasalization.

UnlikeMandarin, the Amoy dialectdistinguishes betweenvoiced and voiceless unaspiratedinitialconsonants (Mandarin has no voicing of initial consonants). UnlikeEnglish, it differentiates between unaspirated andaspirated voiceless initial consonants (as Mandarin does too). In lesstechnical terms, native Amoy speakers have little difficulty in hearing the difference between the following syllables:

However, these fully voiced consonants did not derive from theEarly Middle Chinese voiced obstruents, but rather from fortition of nasal initials.^[11]

Amoy is similar to otherSouthern Min variants in that it largely preserves theMiddle Chinese tone system of six distinct tones in syllables which do not end in a stop consonant and two tones in syllables which do end in a stop consonant (thechecked tones). The tones are traditionally numbered from 1 through 8, with 4 and 8 being the checked tones. The distinction between tones 2 and 6 has been lost among most speakers.

Amoy has extremely extensivetone sandhi (tone-changing) rules: in an utterance, only the last syllable pronounced is not affected by the rules. What an 'utterance' is, in the context of this language, is an ongoing topic for linguistic research. For the purpose of this article, an utterance may be considered aword, aphrase, or a shortsentence. The diagram illustrates the rules that govern the pronunciation of a tone on each of the syllables affected (that is, all but the last in an utterance):

Like other languages ofSouthern Min, Amoy has complex rules forliterary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters. For example, the character forbig/great,大, has a vernacular reading oftōa ([tua˧]), but a literary reading oftāi ([tai˧]). Because of the loose nature of the rules governing when to use a given pronunciation, a learner of Amoy must often simply memorize the appropriate reading for a word on a case-by-case basis. For single-syllable words, it is more common to use the vernacular pronunciation.

The vernacular readings are generally thought to predate the literary readings, as is the case with theMin Chinese varieties;^[12] the literary readings appear to have evolved fromMiddle Chinese.^[13] The following chart illustrates some of the more commonly seen sound shifts:

For further information, read the article:Swadesh list

The Swadesh word list, developed by the linguistMorris Swadesh, is used as a tool to study the evolution of languages. It contains a set of basic words which can be found in every language.

• TheAmoy Min Nan Swadesh list
• TheSinitic Swadesh lists (Standard Mandarin,Sichuanese,Nanjingnese,Cantonese,Yuetai Hakka, Amoynese Hokkien,Hokchiu,Shanghainese,Suzhounese,Changshanese)

• Word-initial alveolar consonants/ts,tsʰ,dz/ when occurring before/i/ are pronounced as alveo-palatal sounds[tɕ,tɕʰ,dʑ].
• /l/ can fluctuate freely in initial position as either a flap[ɾ] or voiced alveolar plosive stop[d].^[14]
• [ʔ] can occur in both word initial and final position.
• /mŋ/ when occurring before/m̩ŋ̍/ can be pronounced as voiceless sounds[m̥],[ŋ̊].

• Final consonants are pronounced as unreleased[p̚t̚k̚].

Amoy grammar shares a similar structure to other Chinese dialects, although it is slightly more complex than Mandarin. Moreover, equivalent Amoy and Mandarin particles are usually notcognates.

Amoycomplement constructions are roughly parallel to Mandarin ones, although there are variations in the choice of lexical term. The following are examples of constructions that Amoy employs.

In the case of adverbs:

Mandarin:tā pǎode kuài (他跑得快)

In the case of the adverb "very":

Mandarin:tā pǎodehěn kuài (他跑得很快)

Mandarin:tā pǎobù kuài (他跑不快)

Mandarin:tā kànde dào (他看得到)

For the negative,

Mandarin:tā kànbù dào (他看不到)

For the adverb "so," Amoy useskah (甲) instead of Mandarinde (得):

Mandarin:tā xiàde huà dōu shuō bù chūlái (他嚇得話都說不出來)

Negative particle syntax is parallel to Mandarin about 70% of the time, although lexical terms used differ from those in Mandarin. For many lexical particles, there is no single standard Hanji character to represent these terms (e.g.m̄, a negative particle, can be variously represented by 毋, 呣, and 唔), but the most commonly used ones are presented below in examples. The following are commonly used negative particles:

1. m̄ (毋/伓)- is not + noun (Mandarin 不,bù)

   i m̄-sī gún lāu-bú. (伊毋是阮老母) "She is not my mother."

2. m̄ (毋/伓)- does not/will not + verb (Mandarin 不,bù)

   i m̄ lâi. (伊毋來) "He will not come."

3. verb +bōe (袂/𣍐 (⿰勿會))+ particle - is not able to (Mandarin 不,bù)

   góa khòaⁿ-bōe-tio̍h. (我看袂著) "I am not able to see it."

4. bōe (袂/𣍐 (⿰勿會))+ helping verb - cannot (opposite ofē 會, "is able to") (Mandarin 不,bù)

   i bōe-hiáu kóng Eng-gú. (伊袂曉講英語) "He can't speak English."

   • helping verbs that go withbōe (袂)

     bōe-sái (袂使) - is not permitted to (Mandarin 不可以bù kěyǐ)

     bōe-hiáu (袂曉) - does not know how to (Mandarin 不會,búhuì)

     bōe-tàng (袂當) - not able to (Mandarin 不能,bùnéng)

5. mài (莫/勿愛)- do not (imperative) (Mandarin 別,bié)

   mài kóng! (莫講) "Don't speak!"

6. bô (無)- do not + helping verb (Mandarin 不,bù)

   i bô beh lâi. (伊無欲來) "He is not going to come."

   • helping verbs that go withbô (無):

     beh (欲) - want to + verb; will + verb

     ài (愛) - must + verb

     èng-kai (應該) - should + verb

     kah-ì (合意) - like to + verb

7. bô (無)- does not have (Mandarin 沒有,méiyǒu)

   i bô chîⁿ. (伊無錢) "He does not have any money."

8. bô (無)- did not (Mandarin 沒有,méiyǒu)

   i bô lâi. (伊無來) "He did not come."

9. bô (無)- is not + adjective (Mandarin 不,bù)

   i bô súi. (伊無媠/水) "She is not beautiful."

   • hó (好) ("good") is an exception, as it can use bothm̄ andbô.

Commonly seen particles include:

• 與 (hō·) - indicatespassive voice (Mandarin 被,bèi)

• 共 (kā) - identifies the object (Mandarin 把,bǎ)

• 加 (ke) - "more"

• 共 (kā) - identifies the object

• 濟 (chōe) - "more"

A number of Romanization schemes have been devised forAmoy.Pe̍h-ōe-jī is one of the oldest and best established. However, theTaiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet has become the romanization of choice for many of the recent textbooks and dictionaries from Taiwan.

Tones

Tone name	IPA	Pe̍h-ōe-jī	Tâi-lô	TLPA	BP	MLT	DT	Kana (normal vowels)	Kana (nasal vowels)	Phonetic Symbols	Hangul	Example
												Traditional	Simplified
Yin level (陰平 1)	a˥	a	a	a1	ā	af	a	アア	アア	ㄚ	ᄋ	公司	公司
Yin rising (陰上 2)	a˥˧	á	á	a2	ǎ	ar	à	アア	アア	ㄚˋ	ᄅ	報紙	报纸
Yin departing (陰去 3)	a˨˩	à	à	a3	à	ax	â	アア	アア	ㄚ˪	ᄂ	興趣	兴趣
Yin entering (陰入 4)	ap˩ at˩ak˩aʔ˩	ap atakah	ah	a4	āp ātākāh	ab adagaq	āp ātākāh	アㇷ゚ アッアㇰアァ	アㇷ゚ アッアㇰアァ	ㄚㆴ ㄚㆵㄚㆻㄚㆷ	ᄋ	血壓 警察中國牛肉	血压 警察中国牛肉
Yang level (陽平 5)	a˧˥	â	â	a5	ǎ	aa	ǎ	アア	アア	ㄚˊ	ᄉ	人員	人员
Yang rising (陽上 6)		ǎ	ǎ	a6		aar						老爸	老爸
Yang departing (陽去 7)	a˧	ā	ā	a7	â	a	ā	アア	アア	ㄚ˫	ᄀ	草地	草地
Yang entering (陽入 8)	ap˥ at˥ak˥aʔ˥	a̍p a̍ta̍ka̍h	a̍h	a8	áp átákáh	ap atakah	ap atakah	アㇷ゚ アッアㇰアァ	アㇷ゚ アッアㇰアァ	ㄚㆴ˙ ㄚㆵ˙ㄚㆻ˙ㄚㆷ˙	ᄇ	配合 法律文學歇熱	配合 法律文学歇热
High rising (9)	a˥˥	ă	a̋	a9			á				ㅋ	昨昏	昨昏
Neutral (0)	a˨	--a	--ah	a0		~a	å					入去	入去

• Note:Thebopomofo extended characters in thezhuyin row require a UTF-8 font capable of displayingUnicode values31A0–31B7 (ex.Code2000 true type font).

Minnan edition ofWikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look upAppendix:Min Nan Swadesh list in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• {Why it is Called Amoy}, Why Minnan is called "Amoy"
• listen to the news in Amoy Min NanArchived 2016-07-11 at theWayback Machine (site is in Chinese script)
• Database of Pronunciations of Chinese Dialects (in English, Chinese and Japanese)
• Glossika - Chinese Languages and Dialects
• Voyager - Spacecraft - Golden Record - Greetings From Earth - Amoy, includes translation and sound clip

  (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!)

• Hokkien-language dialects
• City colloquials
• Xiamen

• CS1 uses Chinese-language script (zh)
• CS1 Chinese-language sources (zh)
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• Articles containing Min Nan Chinese-language text