Puxian Min, also known asPuxian (莆仙語／莆仙语,莆仙話／莆仙话),Hinghua (興化話／兴化话), is a branch ofMin Chinese spoken inPutian City.

Historically, Puxian Min was written usingBáⁿ-uā-ci̍ (平話字／平话字) system (Hinghwa Romanized), which recorded the accent of urban Putian in the late 19th century. This system differs significantly from the phonology of various modern Puxian accents. Consequently, online communities, led by the Puxian Dialect Society (莆仙鄉音社 /莆仙乡音社), developed Pouseng Ping'ing (莆仙話拼音 /莆仙话拼音(literally“Puxian Min phonetic notation”)) to document modern phonologies. Wiktionary uses Pouseng Ping'ing as the main romanization system, while Báⁿ-uā-ci̍ is automatically output by the module.

This article aims to introduce the phonology of Puxian Min across seven dialect points—Putian,Jiangkou,Nanri,Donghai,Xianyou,Youyang, andFengting—and the usage of these two romanization systems. Unless otherwise specified, transcriptions not enclosed in slashes are Pouseng Ping'ing, while the others areInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Most Puxian Min dialects have 15 initial consonants (including the zero initial), conforming to the common "fifteen sounds" system of Min languages.

The initial consonants vary little among Puxian Min dialects. The main differences include:

• In most dialects, s is pronounced as a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative/ɬ/, except inYouyang,Zhongshan,Shicang in Xianyou,Zhuangbian,Xinxian,Dayang in northern Putian, and Fengji Village inXincuo, Fuqing, it is pronounced as a voiceless dental fricative/θ/.
• The Xianyou dialect has more characters pronounced with the lateral initial than Putian. Characters from the ancient日 and孃 initials are pronounced as/t/ in Putian, but in Xianyou they are generally pronounced/l/.
• A very small number of Puxian Min dialects that are geographically close to Southern Min areas still preserve voiced initials such as bb/b/, gg/ɡ/, and zz/dz/. For a more complete chart, please refer tothis.

They can be arranged according to their Middle Chinese origins as follows.

The number of finals varies significantly among different Puxian Min dialects, ranging approximately from 35 to 60.

Puxian Min finals can be generally classified into four types:

• Finals ending with nasal sounds (陽聲韻): Most Puxian Min dialects have only one nasal ending, which is/ŋ/; a few dialects geographically close to Southern Min areas have two nasal endings: n/n/ and ng/ŋ/.
• Finals ending with a glottal stop (入聲韻): Puxian Min has only one stop ending, which is h/ʔ/.
• Finals ending with oral vowels (陰聲韻).
• Nasalized finals: Nasalized finals (鼻化韻) have disappeared in many dialect points in Putian area (merged into yin-sheng rhymes), but are still preserved in southern Huating Town near Xianyou, mountainous areas in northern Putian, and some coastal townships; nasalized finals are preserved throughout the Xianyou region.

The following classification is organized according to Middle Chinese rhyme categories, with modern Puxian Min pronunciations that are identical grouped together to clearly show the relationship between rhyme categories and example characters. Example characters corresponding to ancient rhyme categories that are isolated cases are not listed (such as:做 from遇 She,龜 from止 She,艾 from蟹 She,借 from假 She,茄 from果 She,店 from咸 She,張 from宕 She,硬 from梗 She,風 from通 She, and so on).

Finals used only for function words, sounds without corresponding characters, and exceptional character readings (such as the final ae/ɛ/ for十 in Putian, or the final aonn/ãũ/ for猴 in Xianyou) are also not listed. For a more complete chart, please refer tothe module orthis table.

Most Puxian Min dialects have seven tones, with similar tone values across different dialects. Some dialects' conservative accents have eight tones, but these are not adopted in Wiktionary (see notes in the table).

The following table lists the seven tones of Puxian Min, paired with the four tones and voicing distinctions of Middle Chinese to reflect historical tonal changes.

Additionaly, some pronouns in Puxian Min sounds similar in pitch to the rising tone but with a -h coda. In Wiktionary, these characters are marked withS3.

Initial assimilation is a distinctive feature of Puxian Min, referring to the phenomenon where the initial consonant of a non-initial syllable changes its pronunciation due to the influence of the final of the preceding syllable.

Based on the type of final in the preceding syllable, assimilation can be classified into the 4 categories. The following explanation uses Pouseng Ping'ing.

1. When the preceding syllable ends with the nasal final -ng:

   b, p, m → m

   d, t, n, l, z, c, s → n

   g, k, h, ng, (zero) → ng

2. When the preceding syllable ends with a checked tone final -h:

   All initial consonants remain unchanged

3. When the preceding syllable is an open syllable:

   b, p → zero initial (in Putian, Jiangkou, Nanri) or w (in Xianyou, Youyang, Fengting, Donghai)

   m, n, l, ng → remain unchanged (m, n, l, ng)

   d, t, z, c, s → l

   g, k, h, (zero) → (zero)

4. When the preceding syllable ends with a nasalized final (only in Xianyou, Youyang, Fengting, Donghai):

   b, m, p → m

   d, t, n, l, z, c, s → n (in Xianyou, Youyang, Fengting, and for syllables with nasalized finals in Donghai) or l (for syllables with other finals in Donghai)

   g, k, h, (zero) → (zero)

   ng → ng

For dialects with nasalized finals, syllables with initials m, n, ng and vocalic final are sometimes treated as having nasalized finals and sometimes as regular open syllable. Wiktionary defaults to the former interpretation. For example:

• 暝頭:

  ma²tao² → ma⁵nao²
  /ma²⁴⁻²¹^(tʰ-)nau²⁴/

• 暝班

  ma²bang¹ → ma⁵wang¹
  /ma²⁴⁻²¹^(p-)βaŋ⁵⁴⁴/

While consonant assimilation is a prominent feature of Puxian Min, it does not occur in all words or phrases during connected speech. Generally, literary vocabulary and neologisms borrowed from the standard language are less likely to undergo assimilation. Phrases typically do not undergo assimilation either (except for some that have already fossilized).

Some words' assimilated pronunciations preserve ancient sounds and therefore do not follow regular patterns. For example (using Putian dialect pronunciation):

• 心肝 sing¹ gua¹ → sing⁵mua¹ (ancient Puxian Min had the character心 ending with *-m, compare toHokkiensim-koaⁿ.

Tone sandhi rules in the Puxian Min are complex. Generally, only non-final syllables in a word undergo tone sandhi.

Regular two-syllable tone sandhi are automatically done by the module. The table below shows these sandhi rules. The rows represent the tone of the first syllable, while the columns represent the tone of the second syllable. Each cell in the table indicates the resulting tone of the first syllable after tone sandhi occurs. For cells divided by a slash, the left side represents the Putian dialect, while the right side represents the Xianyou dialect.

Examples: