Fuzhou dialect

Fuzhounese
福州話 / Hók-ciŭ-uâ
福州語 / Hók-ciŭ-ngṳ̄
平話 / Bàng-uâ
Pronunciation[huʔ˨˩ tsju˥˧ uɑ˨˦˨]
Native toChina (Fuzhou and its surrounding counties) and Taiwan (Matsu Islands), Thailand (Chandi and Lamae), Singapore, Malaysia (Sibu, Miri, Sepang, Bintulu, Yong Peng, Sitiawan and Ayer Tawar) and Indonesia (Semarang and Surabaya)
EthnicityFuzhou
Native speakers
(10 million cited 1994)[1]
Early forms
Dialects
Chinese characters and Foochow Romanized
Official status
Official language in
Matsu Islands, Taiwan (as local language[5])[6]
Recognised minority
language in
one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the Matsu Islands[7]
Language codes
ISO 639-3
ISO 639-6fzho
Glottologfuzh1239
Linguasphere79-AAA-ice
The Fuzhou dialect in Fujian Province, regions where the standard form is spoken are deep blue.
1: Fuzhou City Proper, 2: Minhou, 3: Fuqing, 4: Lianjiang, 5: Pingnan
6: Luoyuan, 7: Gutian, 8: Minqing, 9: Changle, 10: Yongtai, 11: Pingtan
12: Regions in Fuding, 13: Regions in Xiapu, 14: Regions in Ningde
15: Regions in Nanping, 16: Regions in Youxi
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.
Fuzhounese
Traditional Chinese
Simplified Chinese
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinFúzhōuhuà
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutpingfuk1 zau1 waa2
Southern Min
Hokkien POJHok-chiu-oē
Eastern Min
Fuzhou BUCHók-ciŭ-uâ
(huʔ˨˩ tsiu˥˧ ua˨˦˨)
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese
Simplified Chinese
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinFúzhōuyǔ
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutpingfuk1 zau1 jyu5
Southern Min
Hokkien POJHok-chiu-gí
Eastern Min
Fuzhou BUCHók-ciŭ-ngṳ̄
(huʔ˨˩ tsiu˥˧ ŋy˧)
Everyday language
Traditional Chinese
Simplified Chinese
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinPíng huà
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutpingping4 waa2
Eastern Min
Fuzhou BUCBàng-uâ
(paŋ˨˩ wa˨˦˨)

The Fuzhou language (simplified Chinese: 福州话; traditional Chinese: 福州話; pinyin: Fúzhōuhuà, FR: Hók-ciŭ-uâ IPA: [huʔ˨˩ tsiu˥˧ ua˨˦˨]), also Foochow, Hokchew, Hok-chiu, or Fuzhounese, is the prestige variety of the Eastern Min branch of Min Chinese spoken mainly in the Mindong region of Eastern Fujian Province. As it is mutually unintelligible to neighbouring varieties (e.g. Hokkien) in the province, under a technical linguistic definition Fuzhou is a language and not a dialect (conferring the variety a 'dialect' status is more socio-politically motivated than linguistic). Thus, while Fuzhou may be commonly referred to as a 'dialect' by laypersons, this is colloquial usage and not recognised in academic linguistics. Like many other varieties of Chinese, the Fuzhou dialect is dominated by monosyllabic morphemes that carry lexical tones,[8] and has a mainly analytic syntax. While the Eastern Min branch it belongs to is relatively closer to other branches of Min such as Southern Min or Pu-Xian Min than to other Sinitic branches such as Mandarin, Wu Chinese or Hakka, they are still not mutually intelligible.

Centered in Fuzhou City, the Fuzhou dialect covers 11 cities and counties in China: Fuzhou City Proper, Pingnan, Gutian, Luoyuan, Minqing, Lianjiang, Minhou, Changle, Yongtai, Fuqing and Pingtan; and Lienchiang County (the Matsu Islands), in Taiwan (the ROC). It is also the second local language in many northern and middle Fujian cities and counties such as Nanping, Shaowu, Shunchang, Sanming and Youxi.[9]

The Fuzhou dialect is also widely spoken in some regions abroad, especially in Southeastern Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. The Malaysian city of Sibu is called "New Fuzhou" due to the influx of immigrants there in the late 19th century and early 1900s. Many Fuzhou people have also emigrated to Japan, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

  1. ^ Li, Rulong 李如龙; Liang, Yuzhang 梁玉璋, eds. (1994). Fúzhōu fāngyán cídiǎn 福州方言词典 [Fuzhou dialect dictionary]. Fuzhou: Fujian People's Publishing House. ISBN 7-211-02354-6.
  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. ^ 本土語言納中小學必修 潘文忠:將按語發法實施 (in Chinese)
  6. ^ "國家語言發展法 第二條".
  7. ^ 大眾運輸工具播音語言平等保障法
  8. ^ "WALS Online - Language Fuzhou". World Atlas of Language Structures. Retrieved 9 February 2015.
  9. ^ 陈泽平. (1998). 福州方言研究: 福建人民出版社, 福州.


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