lingvo.wikisort.org - Language

The Wenchang dialect (simplified Chinese: 文昌话; traditional Chinese: 文昌話; pinyin: Wénchānghuà) is a dialect of Hainanese spoken in Wenchang, a county-level city in the northeast of Hainan, an island province in southern China.

Wenchang dialect
文昌话
Native to	Southern China
Region	Wenchang, Hainan
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Min Coastal Min Hainanese Wenchang dialect
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
Linguasphere	79-AAA-kd > 79-AAA-kdb
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

It is considered the prestige form of Hainanese, and is used by the provincial broadcasting media.

Phonology

The initials of the Wenchang dialect are as follows:[1]

Wenchang dialect initials

		Bilabial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop / Affricate	voiceless		t	tɕ	k	ʔ
	voiced implosive	ɓ	ɗ
	voiced	b	d	dʑ	g
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Fricative	voiceless	ɸ	s	ɕ		h
	voiced	(w)		(j)		ɦ
Lateral			l

The semivowels [w] and [j] are in complementary distribution with [ɦ], and may be treated as allophones of the same phoneme.[2] The voiced stops /d/ and /g/ occur with only about ten words each.[3]

There are five vowels, /i/, /u/, /ɛ/, /ɔ/ and /a/.[4] The high vowels /i/ and /u/ may also occur as medials.[5]

The possible finals are:[6]

Wenchang dialect finals

Vocalic codas			Nasal codas			Stop codas
a 阿	ai 爱	au 后	am 暗	an 安	aŋ 红	ap 盒	at 达	ak 北
ɛ 下	ei 事				eiŋ 英			eik 益
i 皮		iu 手		in 新		ip 邑	it 必
ia 写		iau 妖	iam 念	iɛn 联	iaŋ 谁	iap 狭	iɛt 捏	iak 菊
iɔ 笑			iom 心		iɔŋ 用	iop 涩		iɔk 育
ɔ 歌	ɔi 鞋	ou 侯	ɔm 栾	ɔn 春	ɔŋ 公	ɔp 合	ɔt 黜	ɔk 乐
u 有	ui 气			un 轮			ut 脫
ua 娃	uai 快			uan 湾	uaŋ 广		uat 挖	uak 廓
ue 话
			m̩ 毋		ŋ̍ 嗯

The Wenchang dialect has six tones on isolated syllabes:[7]

Wenchang dialect tones

	Middle Chinese tone
	level (píng 平)	rising (shàng 上)	departing (qù 去)	entering (rù 入)
upper (yīn 阴)	44	21ʔ	11	51ʔ
lower (yáng 阳)	33	42ʔ

References

Sources

• Woon, Wee-Lee (1979a), "A synchronic phonology of Hainan dialect: Part I", Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 7 (1): 65–100, JSTOR 23753034.
• Woon, Wee-Lee (1979b), "A synchronic phonology of Hainan dialect: Part II", Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 7 (2): 268–302, JSTOR 23752923.

---