Longyan dialect

The Longyan dialect (simplified Chinese: 龙岩话; traditional Chinese: 龍巖話; pinyin: Lóngyánhuà), also known as Longyan Minnan (simplified Chinese: 龙岩闽南语; traditional Chinese: 龍巖閩南語; pinyin: Lóngyán Mǐnnányǔ) or Liong¹¹lã¹¹guɛ³³⁴, is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the urban city area of Eastern Longyan in the province of Fujian, China, while Hakka is spoken in rural villages of Western Longyan. The Longyan Min people had settled in the region from southern Fujian Province as early as the Tang dynasty (618–907). Due to its close proximity to rural Hakka villages, Longyan Min has some influence from Hakka albeit to a limited extent. The Longyan dialect has a limited degree of intelligibility with other Southern Min dialects. Today, Longyan Minnan is predominantly spoken in Longyan's urban district Xinluo District while Zhangzhou Minnan is spoken in Zhangping City excluding Chishui and Shuangyang towns where Longyan Minnan is spoken. Hakka on the other hand is spoken in the non-urban rest of the rural areas of Longyan prefecture: Changting County, Liancheng County, Shanghang County, Wuping County, and Yongding District.^[5]

Longyan
龙岩话 / 龍巖話 Lóngyánhuà / Liong11lã11guɛ334
Native to	China
Region	Fujian Province
Native speakers	much less than the 840,000 residents of Xinluo District (2021)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Min Coastal Min Southern Min Hokkien Longyan
Early forms	Proto-Sino-Tibetan Old Chinese[a] Proto-Min
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	zhan1240  Zhangping-Longyan
Linguasphere	/-jej 79-AAA-jei /-jej
Distribution of Min Nan dialects. Longyan Min is in yellow.

Branner suggests that the Xinluo and Zhangping dialects should be grouped with the Datian dialect as a coastal Min group separate from both Southern Min and Eastern Min.^[6] However, he argues that the dialect of Wan'an township, in the northern part of Xinluo district, is a coastal Min variety separate from all of these.^[7]

Phonology

The Longyan dialect has 14 initials, 65 rimes, and 8 tones.

Initials

p, pʰ, m, b, pʰ, t, tʰ, n, l, ts, tsʰ, s, k, kʰ, ŋ, h.

Rimes

l, i, u, iu, ui

a, ia, ua, iua, o, io, ei, ie

ue, ɛ, iɛ, uɛ, ai, uai, au, iau

m, im, am, iam, iep, ap, iap

in, un, an, ian, uan

it, at, iat, uat, uot, ŋ

aŋ, iaŋ, uaŋ, oŋ, ioŋ, ak, iak, uak, ok, iok

ĩ, ũ, ũi, ã, iã, uã, iuã, iãt, õ, iõ, ɛ̃, iɛ̃, uɛ̃, ãi, ãu, iãu.

Tones

No.	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Tones	dark level 陰平	light level 陽平	dark rising 陰上	light rising 陽上	dark departing 陰去	light departing 陽去	dark entering 陰入	light entering 陽入
Tone contour	˧˧˦ (334)	˩ (11)	˨˩ (21)	˥˨ (52)	˨˩˧ (213)	˥ (55)	˥ (5)	˧˨ (32)
Example Hanzi	邊	寒	碗	近	漢	尺	曲	白

Tone sandhi

The Longyan dialect has extremely extensive tone sandhi rules: in an utterance, only the last syllable pronounced is not affected by the rules.

The two-syllable tonal sandhi rules are shown in the table below (the rows give the first syllable's original citation tone, while the columns give the citation tone of the second syllable):

	dark level, 334	light level, 11	dark rising, 21	light rising, 52	dark departing, 213	light departing, 55	dark entering, 5	light entering, 32
dark level, 334	remain unchanged
light level, 11	remain unchanged
dark rising, 21	remain unchanged	dark departing, 213		remain unchanged
light rising, 52	light level, 11
dark departing, 213	dark rising, 21	remain unchanged		dark rising, 21
light departing, 55	dark level, 334	remain unchanged		dark level, 334
dark entering, 5	dark level, 334	remain unchanged		dark level, 334
light entering, 32	dark rising, 21

Notes

1. Min is believed to have split from Old Chinese, rather than Middle Chinese like other varieties of Chinese.^[2][3][4]

References

1. "Reclassifying ISO 639-3 [nan]: An Empirical Approach to Mutual Intelligibility and Ethnolinguistic Distinctions" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-09-19.
2. Mei, Tsu-lin (1970), "Tones and prosody in Middle Chinese and the origin of the rising tone", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 30: 86–110, doi:10.2307/2718766, JSTOR 2718766
3. Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (1984), Middle Chinese: A study in Historical Phonology, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, p. 3, ISBN 978-0-7748-0192-8
4. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2023-07-10). "Glottolog 4.8 - Min". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7398962. Archived from the original on 2023-10-13. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
5. Wurm, Stephen Adolphe; Li, Rong; Baumann, Theo; Lee, Mei W. (1987). Language Atlas of China. Longman. ISBN 978-962-359-085-3.
6. Branner, David Prager (1999). "The Classification of Longyan" (PDF). In Simmons, Richard VanNess (ed.). Issues in Chinese Dialect Description and Classification. Journal of Chinese Linguistics monograph series. Vol. 15. pp. 36–83. p. 78.
7. Branner, David Prager (2000). Problems in Comparative Chinese Dialectology — the Classification of Miin and Hakka (PDF). Trends in Linguistics series. Vol. 123. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-015831-1.

Further reading

• Compilation Commission of Chorography of Longyan City 龙岩市地方志编纂委员会 (1993). Longyan Shi zhi 龙岩市志 ["Chorography of Longyan City"]. Vol. 36. Beijing: Zhongguo kexue jishu chubanshe 中国科学技术出版社 ["China Science and Technology Press"]. ISBN 978-7-5046-1575-6. Archived from the original on 2016-04-02.