TheMeixian dialect (Chinese:梅縣話;Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: Mòi-yan-fa; IPA:[moi˩jan˥fa˥˧]), also known asMoiyan dialect, as well asMeizhou dialect (梅州話), orJiaying dialect andGayin dialect,Kayin dialect^[1] is theprestige dialect ofHakka Chinese. It is named afterMeixian District,Meizhou,Guangdong.Sixian dialect (in Taiwan) is very similar to Meixian dialect.

Source:^[2][3]

There are two series of stops and affricates in Hakka, both voiceless: tenuis /pttsk/ and aspirated /pʰtʰtsʰkʰ/.

* When the initials /k/⟨g⟩, /kʰ/⟨k⟩, /h/⟨h⟩, and /ŋ/⟨ng⟩ are followed by apalatalmedial /j/⟨i⟩, they become [c̟]/[c]⟨g(i)⟩, [c̟ʰ]/[cʰ]⟨k(i)⟩, [ç]⟨h(i)⟩, and [ɲ̟]/[ɲ]⟨ng(i)⟩, respectively.^[4][5]

Moiyan Hakka has seven vowels,/ɹ̩/,/i/,/e/,/a/,/ə/,/ɔ/ and/u/, that are romanised as ii, i, ê, a, e, o and u, respectively.

Moreover, Hakka finals exhibit the final consonants found in Middle Chinese, namely[m,n,ŋ,p,t,k] which are romanised as m, n, ng, b, d, and g respectively in the official Moiyan romanisation.

Moiyan Hakka has six tones. TheMiddle Chinese fully voiced initial syllables became aspirated voiceless initial syllable in Hakka. Before that happened, thefour Middle Chinese 'tones',ping, shang, qu, ru, underwent a voicing split in the case ofping andru, giving the dialect six tones in traditional accounts.

These so-called yin-yang tonal splittings developed mainly as a consequence of the type of initial a Chinese syllable had during theMiddle Chinese stage in the development of Chinese, with voiceless initial syllables[p-t-k-] tending to become of the yin type, and the voiced initial syllables[b-d-ɡ-] developing into the yang type. In modern Moiyan Hakka however, part of the Yin Ping tone characters have sonorant initials[mnŋl] originally from the Middle Chinese Shang tone syllables and fully voiced Middle Chinese Qu tone characters, so the voiced/voiceless distinction should be taken only as a rule of thumb.

Hakka tone contours differs more as one moves away from Moiyen. For example, the Yin Ping contour is˧ (33) inChangting and˨˦ (24) in Sixian (四縣),Taiwan.

Entering tone

Hakka preserves all of the entering tones of Middle Chinese and it is split into two registers. Meixian has the following:

• 陰入 [ ˩ ] a low pitched checked tone
• 陽入 [ ˥ ] a high pitched checked tone

Middle Chinese entering tone syllables ending in [k] whose vowel clusters have become front high vowels like [i] and [e] shifts to syllables with [t] finals in modern Hakka^[7] as seen in the following table.

For Moiyan Hakka, theyin ping andqu tone characters exhibitsandhi when the following character has a lower pitch. The pitch of theyin ping tone changes from˦ (44) to˧˥ (35) when sandhi occurs. Similarly, thequ tone changes from˥˧ (53) to˦ (55) under sandhi. These are shown in red in the following table.

The neutral tone occurs in some postfixes. It has a mid pitch.

The Meixian dialect can be divided into four accents, which are:

Meicheng accent: Most of the townships in the central part of Meixian County (including present-day Meijiang District)

Songkou accent: Songkou, Longwen, Taoyao.

Meixi accent: Meixi.

Shejiang River accent: Shejiang River in the southwest of Meixian County.

• Lee, Wai-Sum & Zee, Eric (2009)."Hakka Chinese". Illustrations of the IPA.Journal of the International Phonetic Association.39 (1):107–111.doi:10.1017/S0025100308003599{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link), with supplementary sound recordings.

• Hakka Chinese
• Meizhou

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