| Hokkien | |
|---|---|
| Min Nan, Quanzhang, Amoy | |
 Koa-á books featuring Hokkien written inChinese characters | |
| Region | China,Taiwan, andSoutheast Asia |
| Ethnicity | Hokkien / Hoklo people |
Native speakers | tens of millions (est.)[a][2] |
Early forms | |
| Dialects | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Taiwan[c] |
| Regulated by | Taiwan Ministry of Education |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | nan (as part ofSouthern Min) |
| Glottolog | hokk1242 |
 Distribution of Southern Min languages, with Hokkien in dark green | |
 Polities by number of Hokkien speakers ≥1,000,000 ≥500,000 ≥100,000 ≥50,000 Significant minority populations | |
| 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. | |
| Hokkien | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 福建話 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 福建话 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HokkienPOJ | Hok-kiàn-ōe / Hok-kiàn-ōa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Southern Min / Min Nan | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 閩南話／閩南語 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 闽南话／闽南语 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HokkienPOJ | Bân-lâm-ōe / Bân-lâm-ōa / Bân-lâm-gú / Bân-lâm-gí / Bân-lâm-gír | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hoklo | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 福佬話 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 福佬话 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HokkienPOJ | Ho̍h-ló-ōe / Hô-ló-ōe / Hō-ló-ōe | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lanlang | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 咱人話／咱儂話 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 咱人话／咱侬话 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HokkienPOJ | Lán-lâng-ōe / Lán-nâng-ōe / Nán-nâng-ōe | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hokkien (/ˈhɒkiɛn/HOK-ee-en,US also/ˈhoʊkiɛn/HOH-kee-en)[8] is avariety of theSouthern Min group ofChinese languages. Native to and originating from theMinnan region in the southeastern part ofFujian in southeasternChina, it is also referred to asQuanzhang (Chinese:泉漳; Pe̍h-ōe-jī:Choân-chiang), from the first characters of the urban centers ofQuanzhou andZhangzhou.
Taiwanese Hokkien is one of thenational languages inTaiwan. Hokkien is also widely spoken within the overseasChinese diaspora inSingapore,Malaysia, thePhilippines,Indonesia,Cambodia,Myanmar,Hong Kong,Thailand,Brunei,Vietnam, and elsewhere across the world. Mutual intelligibility between Hokkien dialects varies, but they are still held together by ethnolinguistic identity.[6]
Inmaritime Southeast Asia, Hokkien historically served as thelingua franca amongst overseas Chinese communities ofall dialects and subgroups, and it remains today as the most spokenvariety of Chinese in the region, including inSingapore,Malaysia,Philippines,Indonesia, andBrunei. This applied to a lesser extent tomainland Southeast Asia.[9] As a result of the significant influence and historical presence of its sizable overseas diaspora, certain considerable to ample amounts of Hokkien loanwords are also historically present in the languages it has had historicalcontact with in itssprachraum, such asThai.Kelantan Peranakan Hokkien, in northernMalaya ofMalaysia, andHokaglish, spoken sporadically across thePhilippines (especiallyMetro Manila), are alsomixed languages, with Hokkien as the baselexifier.
Hokkien speakers in different regions refer to the language as:
In parts of Southeast Asia and in the English-speaking communities, the termHokkien ([hɔk˥kiɛn˨˩]) is etymologically derived from the Hokkien pronunciation ofFujian (Hok-kiàn), the province from which the language hails. In Southeast Asia and the English press,Hokkien is used in common parlance to refer to the Southern Min dialects of southern Fujian, and does not include reference to dialects of other Sinitic branches also present in Fujian such as theFuzhou language (Eastern Min),Pu-Xian Min,Northern Min,Gan Chinese orHakka.
The termHokkien was first used byWalter Henry Medhurst in his 1832Dictionary of the Hok-këèn Dialect of the Chinese Language, According to the Reading and Colloquial Idioms, considered to be the earliest English-based Hokkien dictionary and the first major reference work in POJ, though its romanization system differs significantly from modern POJ. In this dictionary, the wordHok-këèn was used. In 1869, POJ was further revised by John Macgowan in his published bookA Manual Of The Amoy Colloquial. In this book,këèn was changed tokien asHok-kien; from then on, "Hokkien" is used more often.
Historically, Hokkien was also known as "Amoy", after theZhangzhou Hokkien pronunciation ofXiamen (Ēe-mûi), the principal port in southern Fujian during theQing dynasty, as one of the five ports opened to foreign trade by theTreaty of Nanking.[11] In 1873,Carstairs Douglas published theChinese–English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy, With the Principal Variations of the Chang-chew and Chin-chew Dialects, where the language was referred to as the "Language of Amoy"[12] or as the "Amoy Vernacular"[11] and by 1883, John Macgowan would publish another dictionary, theEnglish and Chinese Dictionary of the Amoy Dialect.[13] Due to possible conflation between the language as a whole with itsXiamen dialect, many proscribe referring to the former as "Amoy", a usage that is more commonly found in older media and some conservative institutions.
In the classification used by theLanguage Atlas of China, theQuanzhang branch of Southern Min consists of the Min varieties originating from Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, Xiamen and the eastern counties ofLongyan (Xinluo andZhangping).[14]
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Hokkien is spoken in the southern seaward quarter of Fujian, southeasternZhejiang, as well as the eastern part ofNamoa in China; Taiwan;Metro Manila,Metro Cebu,Metro Davao and other cities in thePhilippines; Singapore; Brunei;Medan,Riau and other cities inIndonesia; and fromPerlis,Kedah,Penang andKlang in Malaysia.
Hokkien originated in the southern area of Fujian province, an important center for trade and migration, and has since become one of the most common Chinese varieties overseas. The major pole of Hokkien varieties outside of Fujian is nearby Taiwan, where immigrants from Fujian arrived as workers during the 40 years ofDutch rule, fleeing the Qing dynasty during the 20 years ofMing loyalist rule, as immigrants during the 200 years ofrule by the Qing dynasty, especially in the last 120 years after immigration restrictions were relaxed, and even as immigrants during the period ofJapanese rule. The Taiwanese dialect mostly has origins with theTung'an,Quanzhou andZhangzhou variants, but since then, the Amoy dialect, also known as the Xiamen dialect, has become the modernprestige representative for the language in China. BothAmoy andXiamen come from the Chinese name of the city (厦门;Xiàmén;Ē-mûi); the former is from Zhangzhou Hokkien, whereas the latter comes from Mandarin.
There are many Min Nan speakers amongoverseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, as well as in the United States (Hoklo Americans). Many ethnicHan Chinese emigrants to the region wereHoklo from southern Fujian, and brought the language to what is now Myanmar,Vietnam, Indonesia (the formerDutch East Indies) and present day Malaysia and Singapore (formerlyMalaya and theBritish Straits Settlements). Most of the Min Nan dialects of this region have incorporated some foreign loanwords. Hokkien is reportedly the native language of up to 80% of theethnic Chinese people in the Philippines, among which is known locally asLán-nâng-uē ("Our people's speech"). Hokkien speakers form the largest group of overseas Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.[citation needed]
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Southern Fujian is home to four principal Hokkien dialects:Chiangchew,Chinchew,Tung'an, andAmoy,[15] originating from the cities of Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, historicalTung'an County (同安縣, now Xiamen andKinmen) and thePort of Amoy, respectively.
In the late 1800s, the Amoy dialect attracted special attention, because Amoy was one of the five ports opened to foreign trade by theTreaty of Nanking, but before that it had not attracted attention.[16] The Amoy dialect is adopted as the 'Modern Representative Min Nan'. The Amoy dialect cannot simply be interpreted as a mixture of the Zhangzhou and Quanzhou dialects, but rather it is formed on the foundation of the Tung'an dialect with further inputs from other sub-dialects.[17] It has played an influential role in history, especially in therelations of Western nations with China, and was one of the most frequently learned dialects of Hokkien by Westerners during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century.
The Modern Representative form of Hokkien spoken around the Taiwanese city ofTainan heavily resembles the Tung'an dialect.[18][19] All Hokkien dialects spoken throughout the whole of Taiwan are collectively known as Taiwanese Hokkien, or Holo locally, although there is a tendency to call these Taiwanese language for historical reasons. It is spoken by more Taiwanese than any Sinitic language except Mandarin, and it is known by a majority of the population;[20] thus, from asocio-political perspective, it forms a significant pole of language usage due to the popularity of Holo-language media. Douglas (1873/1899) also noted thatFormosa (Taiwan) has been settled mainly by emigrants fromAmoy (Xiamen),Chang-chew (Zhangzhou), andChin-chew (Quanzhou). Several parts of the island are usually found to be specially inhabited by descendants of such emigrants, but in Taiwan, the various forms of the dialects mentioned prior are a good deal mixed up.[21]
The varieties of Hokkien inSoutheast Asia originate from these dialects. Douglas (1873) notes that
Singapore and the variousStraits Settlements [such as Penang andMalacca], Batavia [Jakarta]and other parts of the Dutch possessions [Indonesia], are crowded with emigrants, especially from the Chang-chew [Zhangzhou] prefecture; Manila and other parts of the Philippines have great numbers from Chin-chew [Quanzhou], and emigrants are largely scattered in like manner in Siam [Thailand], Burmah [Myanmar], the Malay Peninsula [peninsular Malaysia], Cochin China [Southern Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos], Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City], &c. In many of these places there is also a great mixture of emigrants from Swatow [Shantou].[21]
In modern times though, a mixed dialect descended from theQuanzhou, Amoy, andZhangzhou dialects, leaning a little closer to the Quanzhou dialect, possibly due to being from theTung'an dialect, is spoken byChinese Singaporeans, SouthernMalaysian Chinese, andChinese Indonesians inRiau province and theRiau Islands. Variants includeSouthern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien andSingaporean Hokkien in Singapore.
Among Malaysian Chinese of Penang, and other states in northern mainland Malaysia and ethnic Chinese Indonesians in Medan, with other areas inNorth Sumatra, Indonesia, a distinct descendant dialect form ofZhangzhou Hokkien has developed. InPenang,Kedah andPerlis, it is calledPenang Hokkien while across theStrait of Malacca inMedan, an almost identical variant is known asMedan Hokkien.
ManyChinese Filipinos profess ancestry from Hokkien-speaking areas;Philippine Hokkien is also largely derived from the Quanzhou dialect, particularlyJinjiang andNan'an dialects with some influence from the Amoy dialect.
There are also Hokkien speakers scattered throughout other parts of Indonesia—including Jakarta and the island ofJava—Thailand,Myanmar,East Malaysia, Brunei,Cambodia, and Southern Vietnam, though there is notably moreTeochew andSwatow background among descendants of Chinese migrants inPeninsular Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Southern Vietnam.
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Variants of Hokkien dialects can be traced to 2-4 main principal dialects of origin: the original two being, the Quanzhou (泉州;Choân-chiu / Chôaⁿ-chiu) and Zhangzhou (漳州;Chiang-chiu / Cheng-chiu) dialects, and in later centuries Xiamen/Amoy (廈門;Ē-mn̂g / Ēe-mûi) andTong'an (同安;Tâng-oaⁿ) as well. The Amoy and Tong'an dialects are historically mixtures of Quanzhou andZhangzhou dialects, since they are the geographic and linguistic midpoint between the two, while the rest of the Hokkien dialects spoken in Taiwan and Southeast Asia are respectively derived from varying proportions of the above principal dialects in southern Fujian.
During theThree Kingdoms period of ancient China, there was constant warfare occurring in theCentral Plains of China. EthnicHan Chinese gradually migrated fromHenan to the mouth of theYangtze to the coasts ofZhejiang and later began to enter into theFujian region, which in ancient times was originallyMinyue country, populated with non-ChineseBaiyue, causing the region for the first time in ancient times to incorporate Old Chinese dialects of which would later becomeMin Chinese. The massive migration of Han Chinese into Fujian region mainly occurred after theDisaster of Yongjia. TheJìn court fled from the north to the south, causing large numbers of Han Chinese to move into Fujian region. They brought theOld Chinese spoken in theCentral Plain of China from the prehistoric era to the 3rd century into Fujian that later became Min, which later split off into its respective branches, of which Hokkien descends from theSouthern Min branch of it.
In 677 (during the reign ofEmperor Gaozong of Tang),Chen Zheng, together with his sonChen Yuanguang, led a military expedition to suppress a rebellion of theShe people. In 885, (during the reign ofEmperor Xizong of Tang), the two brothersWang Chao andWang Shenzhi, led a military expedition force to suppress theHuang Chao rebellion.[22] Waves of migration from the north in this era brought the language ofMiddle Chinese into the Fujian region, which gave Hokkien and all the other Min languages itsliterary readings.
During around the late 17th century whensea bans were lifted, thePort of Xiamen, which overshadowed the old port ofYuegang, became Fujian's main port where trade was legalized. From then, the Xiamen dialect, historically "Amoy", became the main principal dialect spoken overseas, such as inTaiwan under Qing rule,British Malaya, theStraits Settlements (British Singapore),British Hong Kong,Spanish Philippines (then laterAmerican Philippines),Dutch East Indies, andFrench Cochinchina, etc. Historically, Xiamen had always been part of Tung'an County until after 1912.[17] The Amoy dialect was the main prestige form of Hokkien known from the late 17th century to the Republican era. Due to this, dictionaries, bibles and other books about Hokkien from recent centuries and even to this day in certain places, like schools and churches, of certain countries, the Hokkien language is still known as "Amoy".
Several playscripts survive from the late 16th century, written in a mixture of Quanzhou and Chaozhou dialects. The most important is theRomance of the Litchi Mirror, with extant manuscripts dating from 1566 and 1581.[23][24]
In the early 17th century,Spanish friars in the Philippines produced materials documenting the Hokkien varieties spoken by the Chinese trading community who had settled there in the late 16th century:[23][25]
These texts appear to record a primarilyZhangzhou-descended dialect with some attested Quanzhou andTeo-Swa features, from the old port ofYuegang (modern-dayHaicheng, an old port that is now part ofLonghai).[32]
Chinese scholars producedrhyme dictionaries describing Hokkien varieties at the beginning of the 19th century:[33]
Rev.Walter Henry Medhurst based his 1832 dictionary,"A Dictionary of the Hok-këèn Dialect of the Chinese Language", on the latter work.[34]
Other popular 19th century works are also like those of Rev. John Macgowan's 1883 dictionary,"English and Chinese Dictionary of the Amoy Dialect",[13] and Rev.Carstairs Douglas's 1873 dictionary,"Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy, with the Principal Variations of the Chang-Chew and Chin-Chew Dialects",[35] and its 1899 New Edition with Rev.Thomas Barclay.[15]
Hokkien has one of the most diversephoneme inventories among Chinese varieties, with moreconsonants thanStandard Mandarin andCantonese. Hokkien varieties retain many pronunciations that are no longer found in other Chinese varieties. These include the retention of the/t/ initial, which is now/tʂ/ (pinyinzh) in Mandarin (e.g.竹; 'bamboo' istik, butzhú in Mandarin), having disappeared before the 6th century in other Chinese varieties.[36] Along with other Min languages, which are not directlydescended fromMiddle Chinese, Hokkien is of considerable interest tohistorical linguists forreconstructing Old Chinese.
Hokkien hasaspirated, unaspirated as well asvoiced consonant initials. For example, the word開;khui; 'open' and關;kuiⁿ; 'close' have the same vowel but differ only by aspiration of the initial andnasality of the vowel. In addition, Hokkien haslabial initial consonants such asm in命;miā; 'life'.
Another example is查埔囝;cha-po͘-kiáⁿ / ta-po͘-kiáⁿ / ta-po͘-káⁿ; 'boy' and查某囝;cha-bó͘-kiáⁿ / cha̋u-kiáⁿ / cha̋u-káⁿ / chő͘-kiáⁿ; 'girl', which for thecha-po͘-kiáⁿ andcha-bó͘-kiáⁿ pronunciation differ only in the second syllable in consonant voicing and intone.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | plain | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | |||
| voiced | b (m) | d[37]~l (n) | ɡ (ŋ) | |||
| (nasalized) | ||||||
| Affricate | plain | ts | ||||
| aspirated | tsʰ | |||||
| voiced | dz[38]~l~ɡ | |||||
| Fricative | s | h | ||||
| Semi-vowels | w | j | ||||
Unlike Mandarin, Hokkien retains all the final consonants corresponding to those of Middle Chinese. While Mandarin only preserves the[n] and[ŋ] finals, Hokkien also preserves the[m],[p],[t] and[k] finals and has developed theglottal stop[ʔ].
The vowels of Hokkien are listed below:[42]
| Oral | Nasal | Stops | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medial | ∅ | e | i | o | u | ∅ | m | n | ŋ | i | u | p | t | k | ʔ | ||
| Nucleus | Vowel | a | a | ai | au | ã | ãm | ãn | ãŋ | ãĩ | ãũ | ap | at | ak | aʔ | ||
| i | i | io | iu | ĩ | ĩm | ĩn | ĩŋ | ĩũ | ip | it | ik | iʔ | |||||
| e | e | ẽ | ẽŋ* | ek* | eʔ | ||||||||||||
| ə | ə | ə̃m* | ə̃n* | ə̃ŋ* | əp* | ət* | ək* | əʔ* | |||||||||
| o | o | õŋ* | ot* | ok* | oʔ | ||||||||||||
| ɔ | ɔ | ɔ̃ | ɔ̃m* | ɔ̃n* | ɔ̃ŋ | ɔp* | ɔt* | ɔk | ɔʔ | ||||||||
| u | u | ue | ui | ũn | ũĩ | ut | uʔ | ||||||||||
| ɯ | ɯ* | ɯ̃ŋ* | |||||||||||||||
| Diphthongs | ia | ia | iau | ĩã | ĩãm | ĩãn | ĩãŋ | ĩãũ | iap | iat | iak | iaʔ | |||||
| iɔ | ĩɔ̃* | ĩɔ̃ŋ | iɔk | ||||||||||||||
| iə | iə | ĩə̃m* | ĩə̃n* | ĩə̃ŋ* | iəp* | iət* | |||||||||||
| ua | ua | uai | ũã | ũãn | ũãŋ* | ũãĩ | uat | uaʔ | |||||||||
| Others | ∅ | m̩ | ŋ̍ | ||||||||||||||
(*)Only certain dialects
The following table illustrates some of the more commonly seen sound shifts between various dialects. Pronunciations are provided inPe̍h-ōe-jī andIPA.
| Character | Hokkien | Teochew | Haklau Min | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| operatic | Nan'an | Quanzhou | Xiamen | Zhangzhou | Zhangpu | Zhaoan | Chaozhou | Chaoyang | Haifeng | |
| 二 'two' | lī | lī | lī | lī | jī | jī | jī | jĭ | jĭ | jĭ |
| [li⁴¹] | [li³¹] | [li⁴¹] | [li²²] | [dʑi²²] | [dʑi²²] | [dʑi²²] | [dʑi³⁵] | [dʑi⁵³] | [dʑi³⁵] | |
| 坐 'to sit' | chěr | chěr | chěr | chē | chē | chē | chēr | chǒ | chǒ | chě |
| [tsə²²] | [tsə²²] | [tsə²²] | [tse²²] | [tse²²] | [tsɛ²²] | [tsə²²] | [tso³⁵] | [tso⁵³] | [tsɛ³⁵] | |
| 皮 'skin' | phêr | phêr | phêr | phê | phôe | phôe | phôe | phôe | phôe | phôe |
| [pʰə²⁴] | [pʰə²⁴] | [pʰə²⁴] | [pʰe²⁴] | [pʰuɛ¹³] | [pʰuɛ³¹²] | [pʰuɛ³⁵] | [pʰuɛ⁵⁵] | [pfʰuɛ³³] | [pʰuɛ⁵⁵] | |
| 雞 'chicken' | kire | koe | koe | koe | ke | kei | kei | koi | koi | kei |
| [kɯe³³] | [kue³³] | [kue³³] | [kue⁴⁴] | [ke³⁴] | [kiei⁴⁴] | [kei⁴⁴] | [koi³³] | [koi³¹] | [kei³³] | |
| 病 'sick' | pīⁿ | pīⁿ | pīⁿ | pīⁿ | pēⁿ | pēⁿ | pēⁿ | pēⁿ | pēⁿ | pēⁿ |
| [pĩ⁴¹] | [pĩ³¹] | [pĩ⁴¹] | [pĩ²²] | [pɛ̃²²] | [pɛ̃²²] | [pɛ̃²²] | [pɛ̃²¹] | [pɛ̃⁴²] | [pɛ̃³¹] | |
| 飯 'rice' | pn̄g | pn̄g | pn̄g | pn̄g | pūiⁿ | pūiⁿ | pūiⁿ | pūng | pn̄g | pūiⁿ |
| [pŋ̍⁴¹] | [pŋ̍³¹] | [pŋ̍⁴¹] | [pŋ̍²²] | [puĩ²²] | [puĩ²²] | [puĩ²²] | [puŋ²¹] | [pŋ̍⁴²] | [puĩ³¹] | |
| 自 'self' | chīr | chīr | chīr | chū | chū | chū | chīr | chīr | chū | chū |
| [tsɯ⁴¹] | [tsɯ³¹] | [tsɯ⁴¹] | [tsu²²] | [tsu²²] | [tsu²²] | [tsɯ²²] | [tsɯ²¹] | [tsu⁴²] | [tsu³¹] | |
| 豬 'pig' | tir | tir | tir | tu | ti | ti | tir | tir | tu | ti |
| [tɯ³³] | [tɯ³³] | [tɯ³³] | [tu⁴⁴] | [ti³⁴] | [ti⁴⁴] | [tɯ⁴⁴] | [tɯ³³] | [tu³¹] | [ti³³] | |
| 取 'to take' | chhú | chhú | chhú | chhú | chhí | chhí | chhír | chhú | chhú | chhí |
| [tsʰu⁵⁵] | [tsʰu⁵⁵] | [tsʰu⁵⁵] | [tsʰu⁵³] | [tɕʰi⁵³] | [tɕʰi⁵³] | [tsʰɯ⁵³] | [tsʰu⁵³] | [tsʰu⁴⁵] | [tɕʰi⁵³] | |
| 德 'virtue' | tirak | terk | tiak | tek | tek | tek | tek | tek | tek | tek |
| [tɯak⁵] | [tək⁵] | [tiak⁵] | [tiɪk³²] | [tiɪk³²] | [tɛk³²] | [tɛk³²] | [tɛk³²] | [tɛk⁴³] | [tɛk³²] | |
| 偶 'idol' | giró | gió | gió | ngó͘ | ngó͘ | ngóu | ngóu | ngóu | ngóu | ngóu |
| [ɡɯo⁵⁵] | [ɡio⁵⁵] | [ɡio⁵⁵] | [ŋɔ̃⁵³] | [ŋɔ̃⁵³] | [ŋɔ̃u⁵³] | [ŋɔ̃u⁵³] | [ŋou⁵³] | [ŋou⁴⁵] | [ŋou⁵³] | |
| 蝦 'prawn' | hê | hê | hê | hê | hê͘ | hê͘ | hê͘ | hê | hê | hê |
| [he²⁴] | [he²⁴] | [he²⁴] | [he²⁴] | [hɛ¹³] | [hɛ³¹²] | [hɛ³⁵] | [hɛ⁵⁵] | [hɛ³³] | [hɛ⁵⁵] | |
| 銀 'silver' | girêrn | gêrn | gûn | gûn | gîn | gîn | gîn | ngîrng | ngîng | ngîn |
| [ɡɯən²⁴] | [ɡən²⁴] | [ɡun²⁴] | [ɡun²⁴] | [ɡin¹³] | [ɡin³¹²] | [ɡin³⁵] | [ŋɯŋ⁵⁵] | [ŋiŋ³³] | [ŋin⁵⁵] | |
| 向 'to face' | hiòng | hiòng | hiòng | hiòng | hiàng | hiàng | hiàng | hiàng | hiàng | hiàng |
| [hiɔŋ⁴¹] | [hiɔŋ³¹] | [hiɔŋ⁴¹] | [hiɔŋ³¹] | [hiaŋ²¹] | [hiaŋ¹¹] | [hiaŋ¹¹] | [hiaŋ²¹²] | [hiaŋ⁵³] | [hiaŋ²¹²] | |
According to the traditional Chinese system, Hokkien dialects have 7 or 8 distinct tones, including twoentering tones which end inplosive consonants. The entering tones can be analysed asallophones, giving 5 or 6phonemictones. In addition, many dialects have an additional phonemic tone ("tone 9" according to the traditional reckoning), used only in special or foreign loan words.[43] This means that Hokkien dialects have between 5 and 7 phonemic tones.
Tone sandhi is extensive.[44] There are minor variations between the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou tone systems. Taiwanese tones follow the patterns of Amoy or Quanzhou, depending on the area of Taiwan.
| Tones | level | rising | departing | entering | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dark level | light level | dark rising | light rising | dark departing | light departing | dark entering | light entering | ||
| Tone Number | 1 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 8 | |
| Tone contour | Xiamen, Fujian | ˦˦ | ˨˦ | ˥˧ | – | ˨˩ | ˨˨ | ˧˨ | ˦ |
| 東 taŋ1 | 銅 taŋ5 | 董 taŋ2 | – | 凍 taŋ3 | 動 taŋ7 | 觸 tak4 | 逐tak8 | ||
| Taipei, Taiwan | ˦˦ | ˨˦ | ˥˧ | – | ˩˩ | ˧˧ | ˧˨ | ˦ | |
| – | |||||||||
| Tainan, Taiwan | ˦˦ | ˨˧ | ˦˩ | – | ˨˩ | ˧˧ | ˧˨ | ˦˦ | |
| – | |||||||||
| Zhangzhou, Fujian | ˧˦ | ˩˧ | ˥˧ | – | ˨˩ | ˨˨ | ˧˨ | ˩˨˩ | |
| – | |||||||||
| Quanzhou, Fujian | ˧˧ | ˨˦ | ˥˥ | ˨˨ | ˦˩ | ˥ | ˨˦ | ||
| – | |||||||||
| Penang, Malaysia[45] | ˧˧ | ˨˧ | ˦˦˥ | – | ˨˩ | ˧ | ˦ | ||
| – | |||||||||
Hokkien is spoken in a variety of accents and dialects across theMinnan region. The Hokkien spoken in most areas of the three counties of southern Zhangzhou have merged the coda finals -n and -ng into -ng. The initial consonant j (dz anddʑ) is not present in most dialects of Hokkien spoken in Quanzhou, having been merged into thed orl initials.
The -ik or -ɪk final consonant that is preserved in the native Hokkien dialects of Zhangzhou and Xiamen is also preserved in the Nan'an dialect (色,德,竹) but are pronounced as -iak in Quanzhou Hokkien.[46]
*Haklau Min (Hai Lok Hong, including the Haifeng and Lufeng dialect), Chaw'an / Zhao'an (詔安話),Longyan Min, and controversially,Taiwanese, are sometimes considered as not Hokkien anymore, besides being underSouthern Min (Min Nan). On the other hand, those underLongyan Min,Datian Min,Zhenan Min have some to little mutual intelligibility with Hokkien, whileTeo-Swa Min, theSanxiang dialect ofZhongshan Min, andQiong-Lei Min also have historical linguistic roots with Hokkien, but are significantly divergent from it in terms of phonology and vocabulary, and thus have almost little to no practical face-to-face mutual intelligibility with Hokkien.[excessive detail?]
The Xiamen dialect is a variant of the Tung'an dialect. Majority ofTaiwanese, fromTainan, toTaichung, toTaipei, is also heavily based on Tung'an dialect while incorporating some vowels of Zhangzhou dialect, whereasSouthern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien, includingSingaporean Hokkien, is based on the Tung'an dialect, withPhilippine Hokkien on the Quanzhou dialect, andPenang Hokkien &Medan Hokkien on the Zhangzhou dialect. There are some variations in pronunciation and vocabulary between Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects. The grammar is generally the same.
Additionally, extensive contact with theJapanese language has left a legacy of Japanese loanwords in Taiwanese Hokkien. On the other hand, the variants spoken inSingapore andMalaysia have a substantial number of loanwords fromMalay and to a lesser extent, fromEnglish and other Chinese varieties, such as the closely related Teochew and someCantonese. Meanwhile, in thePhilippines, there are also a fewSpanish andFilipino (Tagalog) loanwords, while it is also currently a norm to frequentlycodeswitch withEnglish, Tagalog, and in some cases otherPhilippine languages, such asCebuano,Hiligaynon,Bicol Central,Ilocano,Chavacano,Waray-waray,Kapampangan,Pangasinense,Northern Sorsogonon,Southern Sorsogonon, etc.
Tong'an, Xiamen, Taiwanese, Singaporean dialects as a group are moremutually intelligible, but it is less so amongst the forementioned group, Quanzhou dialect, and Zhangzhou dialect.[47]
Although the Min Nan varieties of Teochew and Amoy are 84% phonetically similar including the pronunciations of un-used Chinese characters as well as same characters used for different meanings,[citation needed] and 34%lexically similar,[citation needed], Teochew has only 51% intelligibility with the Tong'an Hokkien|Tung'an dialect (Cheng 1997)[who?] whereas Mandarin and Amoy Min Nan are 62% phonetically similar[citation needed] and 15% lexically similar.[citation needed] In comparison, German and English are 60% lexically similar.[48]
Hainanese, which is sometimes considered Southern Min, has almost no mutual intelligibility with any form of Hokkien.[47]
Hokkien is ananalytic language; in a sentence, the arrangement of words is important to its meaning.[49] A basic sentence follows thesubject–verb–object pattern (i.e. asubject is followed by averb then by anobject), though this order is often violated because Hokkien dialects aretopic-prominent. Unlikesynthetic languages, seldom do words indicatetime,gender andplural by inflection. Instead, these concepts are expressed through adverbs, aspect markers, and grammatical particles, or are deduced from the context. Different particles are added to asentence to further specify its status orintonation.
A verb itself indicates nogrammatical tense. The time can be explicitly shown with time-indicating adverbs. Certain exceptions exist, however, according to the pragmatic interpretation of a verb's meaning. Additionally, an optionalaspect particle can be appended to a verb to indicate the state of an action. Appending interrogative or exclamative particles to a sentence turns a statement into a question or shows the attitudes of the speaker.
Hokkien dialects preserve certain grammatical reflexes and patterns reminiscent of the broad stage ofArchaic Chinese. This includes theserialization of verb phrases (direct linkage of verbs andverb phrases) and the infrequency ofnominalization, both similar to Archaic Chinese grammar.[50]
去
khì
go
買
bué
buy
有
ū
have
錶仔
pió-á
watch
無？
--bô?
no
汝去買有錶仔無？
Líkhìbuéūpió-á--bô?
"Did you go to buy a watch?"
As in many east Asian languages,classifiers are required when using numerals, demonstratives and similar quantifiers.
Choice of grammatical function words also varies significantly among the Hokkien dialects. For instance, (乞;knit) (denoting the causative, passive or dative) is retained inJinjiang (also unique to the Jinjiang dialect is度;thō͘ and inJieyang, but not inLongxi and Xiamen, whose dialects use互／予;hō͘ instead.[51]
Hokkien dialects differ in the pronunciation of some pronouns (such as the second person pronounlí,lú, orlír), and also differ in how to form plural pronouns (such asn orlâng). Personal pronouns found in the Hokkien dialects are listed below:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person | 我 góa | 阮1 gún, góan 咱2 or俺 lán orán 我儂1,3 góa-lâng |
| 2nd person | 汝 lí, lír, lú | 恁 lín 汝儂3 lí-lâng, lú-lâng |
| 3rd person | 伊 i | 𪜶 in 伊儂3 i-lâng |
Possessive pronouns can be marked by the particle的;ê), in the same way as normal nouns. In some dialects, possessive pronouns can also be formed with a nasal suffix, which means that possessive pronouns and plural pronouns arehomophones:[52]
The most commonreflexive pronoun iska-kī (家己). In formal contexts,chū-kí (自己) is also used.
Hokkien dialects use a variety ofdemonstrative pronouns, which include:
The interrogative pronouns include:
States and qualities are generally expressed usingstative verbs that do not require a verb meaning 'to be':
With noun complements, the verbsī (是) serves as the verb 'to be'.
昨昏
cha-hng
是
sī
八月節。
poeh-ge̍h-choeh.
昨昏是八月節。
cha-hngsīpoeh-ge̍h-choeh.
"Yesterday was the Mid-Autumn festival."
To indicate location, the wordstī (佇)tiàm (踮),leh (咧), which are collectively known as the locatives or sometimes coverbs in Chinese linguistics, are used to express '(to be) at':
我
goá
踮
tiàm
遮
chia
等
tán
汝。
lí.
我踮遮等汝。
goátiàmchiatánlí.
"I am here waiting for you."
伊
i
這摆
chit-mái
佇
tī
厝
chhù
裡
lāi
咧
leh
睏。
khùn.
伊這摆佇厝裡咧睏。
ichit-máitīchhùlāilehkhùn.
"They're sleeping at home now."
Hokkien dialects have a variety of negation particles that are prefixed or affixed to the verbs they modify. There are six primary negation particles in Hokkien dialects (with some variation in how they arewritten in characters):[excessive detail?]
)Other negative particles include:
The particlem̄ (毋，呣，唔，伓) is general and can negate almost any verb:
The particlemài (莫，【勿爱】), a concatenation ofm-ài (毋愛) is used to negate imperative commands:
莫
mài
講！
kóng
莫講！
màikóng
"Don't speak!"
The particlebô (無) indicates the past tense:[dubious –discuss]
伊
i
無
bô
食。
chia̍h
伊無食。
ibôchia̍h
"They did not eat."
The verb 'to have',ū (有) is replaced bybô (無) when negated (not無有):
伊
i
無
bô
錢。
chîⁿ
伊無錢。
ibôchîⁿ
"They do not have any money."
The particleput (不) is used infrequently, mostly found in literary compounds and phrases:
伊
i
真
chin
不孝。
put-hàu
伊真不孝。
ichinput-hàu
They are really unfilial."
The majority of Hokkien vocabulary ismonosyllabic.[53][better source needed] Many Hokkienwords havecognates in other Chinese varieties. That said, there are also many indigenous words that are unique to Hokkien and are potentially not ofSino-Tibetan origin, while others are shared by all theMin dialects (e.g. 'congee' is糜mê,bôe,bê, not粥zhōu, as in other dialects).
As compared to Mandarin, Hokkien dialects prefer to use the monosyllabic form of words, without suffixes. For instance, the Mandarin noun suffix子;zi is not found in Hokkien words, while another noun suffix,仔;á is used in many nouns. Examples are below:
In other bisyllabic words, the syllables are inverted, as compared to Mandarin. Examples include the following:
In other cases, the same word can have different meanings in Hokkien and Mandarin. Similarly, depending on the region Hokkien is spoken in, loanwords from local languages (Malay, Tagalog, Burmese, among others), as well as other Chinese dialects (such as Southern Chinese dialects like Cantonese andTeochew), are commonly integrated into the vocabulary of Hokkien dialects.
The existence ofliterary and colloquial readings is a prominent feature of some Hokkien dialects and indeed in many Sinitic varieties in the south. The bulk of literary readings (文讀;bûn-tha̍k), based on pronunciations of the vernacular during theTang dynasty, are mainly used in formal phrases and written language (e.g. philosophical concepts, given names, and some place names), while the colloquial (or vernacular) ones (白讀;pe̍h-tha̍k) are usually used in spoken language, vulgar phrases and surnames. Literary readings are more similar to the pronunciations of the Tang standard of Middle Chinese than their colloquial equivalents.
The pronounced divergence between literary and colloquial pronunciations found in Hokkien dialects is attributed to the presence of several strata in the Min lexicon. The earliest, colloquial stratum is traced to theHan dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE); the second colloquial one comes from the period of theNorthern and Southern dynasties (420–589 CE); the third stratum of pronunciations (typically literary ones) comes from the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) and is based on theprestige dialect ofChang'an (modern dayXi'an), its capital.[54]
Some commonly seen sound correspondences (colloquial → literary) are as follows:
This table displays some widely used characters in Hokkien that have both literary and colloquial readings:[55][56]
| Chinese character | Reading pronunciations | Spoken pronunciations /†explications | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| 白 | pe̍k | pe̍h | white |
| 面 | biān | bīn | face |
| 書 | su | chu | book |
| 生 | seng | seⁿ / siⁿ | student |
| 不 | put | m̄† | not |
| 返 | hóan | tńg† | return |
| 學 | ha̍k | o̍h | to study |
| 人 | jîn / lîn | lâng† | person |
| 少 | siàu | chió | few |
| 轉 | chóan | tńg | to turn |
This feature extends toHokkien numerals, which have both literary and colloquial readings.[56] Literary readings are typically used when the numerals are read out loud (e.g. phone numbers, years), while colloquial readings are used for counting items.
| Numeral | Reading | Numeral | Reading | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Literary | Colloquial | Literary | Colloquial | ||
| 1 | it | chi̍t | 6 | lio̍k | la̍k |
| 2 | jī, lī | nn̄g | 7 | chhit | |
| 3 | sam | saⁿ | 8 | pat | peh, poeh |
| 4 | sù, sìr | sì | 9 | kiú | káu |
| 5 | ngó͘ | gō͘ | 10 | si̍p | cha̍p |
Quite a few words from the variety ofOld Chinese spoken in the state ofWu, where the ancestral language of Min and Wu dialect families originated, and later words fromMiddle Chinese as well, have retained the original meanings in Hokkien, while many of their counterparts inMandarin Chinese have either fallen out of daily use, have been substituted with other words (some of which are borrowed from other languages while others are new developments), or have developed newer meanings. The same may be said of Hokkien as well, since some lexical meaning evolved in step with Mandarin while others are wholly innovative developments.
This table shows some Hokkien dialect words from Classical Chinese, as contrasted to the written Mandarin:
| Gloss | Hokkien | Mandarin | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hanji | POJ | Hanzi | Pinyin | |
| 'eye' | 目睭／目珠 | ba̍k-chiu | 眼睛 | yǎnjīng |
| 'chopstick' | 箸 | tī, tīr, tū | 筷子 | kuàizi |
| 'to chase' | 逐 | jiok, lip | 追 | zhuī |
| 'wet' | 澹[57] | tâm | 濕 | shī |
| 'black' | 烏 | o͘ | 黑 | hēi |
| 'book' | 冊 | chheh | 書 | shū |
For other words, the classical Chinese meanings of certain words, which are retained in Hokkien dialects, have evolved or deviated significantly in other Chinese dialects. The following table shows some words that are both used in both Hokkien dialects and Mandarin Chinese, while the meanings in Mandarin Chinese have been modified:
| Word | Hokkien | Mandarin | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| POJ | Gloss (and Classical Chinese) | Pinyin | Gloss | |
| 走 | cháu | 'to flee' | zǒu | 'to walk' |
| 細 | sè, sòe | 'tiny', 'small, 'young' | xì | 'thin', 'slender' |
| 鼎 | tiáⁿ | 'pot' | dǐng | 'tripod' |
| 食 | chia̍h | 'to eat' | shí | 'to eat' (largely superseded by吃) |
| 懸 | kôan, koâiⁿ, kûiⁿ | 'tall', 'high' | xuán | 'to hang', 'to suspend' |
| 喙 | chhùi | 'mouth' | huì | 'beak' |
Some commonly used words, shared by all[citation needed][dubious –discuss] Min Chinese languages, came from theOld Yue languages.Jerry Norman suggested that these languages wereAustroasiatic. Some terms are thought be cognates with words inTai Kadai andAustronesian languages. They include the following examples, compared to theFuzhou dialect, aMin Dong language:
| Word | Hokkien POJ | Foochow Romanized | Gloss |
|---|---|---|---|
| 骹 | kha[kʰa˥] | kă[kʰa˥] | 'foot and leg' |
| 囝 | kiáⁿ[kjã˥˩] | giāng[kjaŋ˧] | 'son', 'child', 'whelp', 'a small amount' |
| 睏 | khùn[kʰun˨˩] | káung[kʰɑwŋ˨˩˧] | to sleep |
| 骿 | phiaⁿ[pʰjã˥] | piăng[pʰjaŋ˥] | 'back', 'dorsum' |
| 厝 | chhù[tsʰu˨˩] | chuó, chió[tsʰwɔ˥˧] | 'home', 'house' |
| 刣 | thâi[tʰaj˨˦] | tài[tʰaj˥˧] | 'to kill', 'to slaughter' |
| (肉) | bah[baʔ˧˨] | — | 'meat' |
| 媠 | suí[sui˥˧] | — | 'beautiful' |
| 檨 | soāiⁿ[suãi˨˨] | suông[suɔŋ˨˦˨] | 'mango' (Austroasiatic)[58][59] |
 | This articlemay containexcessive orirrelevant examples. Please helpimprove the article by adding descriptive text and removingless pertinent examples.(May 2024) |
Loanwords are not unusual among Hokkien dialects, as speakers readily adopted indigenous terms of the languages they came in contact with. As a result, there is a plethora of loanwords that are not mutually comprehensible among Hokkien dialects.
Taiwanese Hokkien, as a result of linguistic contact withJapanese[60] andFormosan languages, contains many loanwords from these languages. Many words have also been formed ascalques from Mandarin, and speakers will often directly use Mandarin vocabulary throughcodeswitching. Among these include the following examples:
Singaporean Hokkien,Penang Hokkien and other Malaysian Hokkien dialects tend to draw loanwords fromMalay,English as well as other Chinese dialects, primarilyTeochew. Examples include:
Philippine Hokkien, as a result of centuries-old contact with bothPhilippine languages andSpanish and due to recent 20th century modern contact withEnglish, also incorporate words from these languages. Speakers today will also often directly useEnglish andFilipino (Tagalog), or other Philippine languages likeBisaya, vocabulary throughcodeswitching. Examples of loans considered by native speakers to be part of the language already include:
Philippine Hokkien usually follows the 3 decimal placeHindu-Arabic numeral system used worldwide, but still retains the concept of萬;bān; 'ten thousand' from theChinese numeral system, so 'ten thousand' would be一萬;chi̍t-bān, but examples of the 3 decimal place logic have produced words like:
| Gloss | Characters | Mandarin | Yue | Hokkien[63] | Korean | Vietnamese | Japanese |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 'book' | 冊 | cè | caak8 | chheh | chaek | tập/sách | saku/satsu/shaku |
| 'bridge' | 橋 | qiáo | kiu4 | kiô | kyo | cầu/kiều | kyō |
| 'dangerous' | 危險 | wēixiǎn | ngai4 him2 | guî-hiám | wiheom | nguy hiểm | kiken |
| 'flag' | 旗 | qí | kei4 | kî | ki | cờ/kỳ | ki |
| 'insurance' | 保險 | bǎoxiǎn | bou2 him2 | pó-hiám | boheom | bảo hiểm | hoken |
| 'news' | 新聞 | xīnwén | san1 man4 | sin-bûn | shinmun | tân văn | shinbun |
| 'student' | 學生 | xuéshēng | hok6 saang1 | ha̍k-seng | haksaeng | học sinh | gakusei |
| university' | 大學 | dàxué | daai6 hok9 | tāi-ha̍k (tōa-o̍h) | daehak | đại học | daigaku |
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Quanzhou was historically the cultural center for Hokkien, as various traditional Hokkien cultural customs such asNanguan music,Beiguan music,glove puppetry, and thekaoka andlewan genres ofHokkien opera originated from Quanzhou. This was mainly due to the fact that Quanzhou had become an important trading and commercial port since the Tang dynasty and had prospered into an important city. After theOpium War in 1842, Xiamen became one of the majortreaty ports to be opened for trade with the outside world. From the mid-19th century onwards, Xiamen slowly developed to become the political and economical center of the Hokkien-speaking region in China. This caused the Amoy dialect to gradually replace the position of dialects from Quanzhou andZhangzhou. From the mid-19th century until the end ofWorld War II,[citation needed] western diplomats usually learned Amoy as the preferred dialect if they were to communicate with the Hokkien-speaking populace in China or Southeast Asia. In the 1940s and 1950s, Taiwan[who?] also tended towards the Amoy dialect.
Theretreat of the Republic of China to Taiwan in 1949 drove party leaders to seek to both culturally and politically assimilate the islanders. As a result, laws were passed throughout the 1950s to suppress Hokkien and other languages in favor of Mandarin. By 1956, speaking Hokkien in ROC schools or military bases was illegal. However, popular outcry from both older islander communities and more recent Mainlander immigrants prompted a general wave of education reform, during which these and other education restrictions were lifted. The general goal of assimilation remained, with Amoy Hokkien seen as less 'native', and therefore preferred.[64]
However, from the 1980s onwards, the development ofTaiwanese Min Nan pop music and media industry in Taiwan caused theHokkien cultural hub to shift from Xiamen to Taiwan.[citation needed] The flourishingTaiwanese Min Nan entertainment and media industry from Taiwan in the 1990s and early 21st century led Taiwan to emerge as the new significant cultural hub for Hokkien.
In the 1990s, marked by the liberalization of language development andmother tongue movement in Taiwan, Taiwanese Hokkien had developed quickly. In 1993, Taiwan became the first region in the world to implement the teaching of Taiwanese Hokkien in Taiwanese schools. In 2001, the local Taiwanese language program was further extended to all schools in Taiwan, and Taiwanese Hokkien became one of the compulsory local Taiwanese languages to be learned in schools.[65] Themother tongue movement in Taiwan even influenced Xiamen (Amoy) to the point that in 2010, Xiamen also began to implement the teaching of Hokkien dialect in its schools.[66] In 2007, theMinistry of Education in Taiwan also completed the standardization of Chinese characters used for writing Hokkien and developedTai-lo as the standard Hokkien pronunciation and romanization guide. A number of universities in Taiwan also offer Taiwanese degree courses for training Hokkien-fluent talents to work for the Hokkien media industry and education. Taiwan also has its own Hokkien literary and cultural circles whereby Hokkien poets and writers compose poetry or literature in Hokkien.
Thus, by the 21st century, Taiwan had become one of the most significant Hokkien cultural hubs of the world. The historical changes and development in Taiwan had ledTaiwanese Hokkien to become the most influential pole of the Hokkien dialect after the mid-20th century. Today, the Taiwanese prestige dialect (台語優勢腔／通行腔) is heard on Taiwanese media.
Hokkien texts can be dated back to the 16th century. One example is theDoctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china, written around 1593 by the SpanishDominican friars in the Philippines. Another is aMing dynasty script of a play calledTale of the Lychee Mirror (1566), the earliest known Southern Min colloquial text, which mixes both Hokkien andTeochew.
Hokkien can be written usingChinese characters (漢字;Hàn-jī). However, the written script was and remains adapted to the literary form, which is based onClassical Chinese, not the vernacular and spoken form. Furthermore, the character inventory used for Mandarin (standard written Chinese) does not correspond to Hokkien words, and there are a large number of informal characters (替字;thè-jī, thòe-jī; 'substitute characters') which are unique to Hokkien, as is the case withwritten Cantonese. For instance, about 20 to 25% of Taiwanesemorphemes lack an appropriate or standard Chinese character.[55]
While many Hokkien words have commonly used characters, they are not always etymologically derived from Classical Chinese. Instead, many characters are phonetic loans (borrowed for their sound) or semantic loans (borrowed for their meaning).[67] As example of a phonetic loan character, the wordsúi meaning "beautiful" might be written using the character水, which can also be pronouncedsúi but originally with the meaning of "water". As an example of a semantic loan character, the wordbah meaning "meat" might be written using the character肉, which can also mean "meat" but originally with the pronunciationhe̍k orjio̍k. Common grammatical particles are not exempt; the negation particlem̄ is variously represented by毋,呣 or唔, among others. In other cases, new characters have been invented. For example, the wordin meaning "they" might be written using the character𪜶.
Moreover, unlike Cantonese, Hokkien does not have a universally accepted standardized character set. Thus, there is some variation in the characters used to express certain words and characters can be ambiguous. In 2007, the Ministry of Education of theRepublic of China formulated and released a standard character set to overcome these difficulties.[68] These standard Chinese characters for writingTaiwanese Hokkien are now taught in schools in Taiwan.
Hokkien can be written in theLatin script using one of several systems. A popular system isPOJ, developed first byPresbyterianmissionaries in China and later by the indigenousPresbyterian Church in Taiwan. Use of POJ has been actively promoted since the late 19th century, and it was used byTaiwan's first newspaper, theTaiwan Church News. A more recent system isTâi-lô, which was adapted from POJ. Since 2006, it has been officially promoted by Taiwan's Ministry of Education and taught in Taiwanese schools.Xiamen University has also developed a system based onPinyin calledBbánlám pìngyīm. The use of amixed script of Chinese characters and Latin letters is also seen.
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Hokkien is registered as "Southern Min" per RFC 3066 aszh-min-nan.[69]
When writing Hokkien inChinese characters, some writers create 'new' characters when they consider it impossible to use directly or borrow existing ones; this corresponds to similar practices in character usage inCantonese, Vietnamesechữ Nôm, Koreanhanja and Japanesekanji. Some of these are not encoded inUnicode, thus creating problems in computer processing.
AllLatin characters required byPe̍h-ōe-jī can be represented usingUnicode (or the corresponding ISO/IEC 10646: Universal Character Set), using precomposed or combining (diacritics) characters. Prior to June 2004, the vowel akin to but more open thano, written with a dot above right, was not encoded. The usual workaround was to use an (stand-alone; spaced)interpunct (U+00B7, ·) or less commonly the combining character dot above (U+0307). As these are far from ideal, since 1997 proposals have been submitted to the ISO/IECworking group in charge of ISO/IEC 10646—namely,ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2—to encode a new combining characterdot above right. This is now officially assigned to U+0358.[70]
In 2002, theTaiwan Solidarity Union, a party with about 10% of theLegislative Yuan seats at the time, suggested making Taiwanese a second official language.[71] This proposal encountered strong opposition not only from mainland Chinese groups but also fromHakka andTaiwanese aboriginal groups who felt that it would slight their home languages. Because of these objections, support for this measure was lukewarm among moderateTaiwan independence supporters, and the proposal did not pass.
Hokkien was finally made an official language of Taiwan in 2018 by the ruling DPP government.
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{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Hokkien version of theDoctrina Christiana en lengua española y tagala (1593):Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
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| WesternHimalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand,Nepal,Sikkim) |
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| EasternHimalayas (Tibet,Bhutan,Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo- Burmese border |
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| East andSoutheast Asia |
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| Dubious (possible isolates) (Arunachal) |
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| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
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