The Fuqing dialect has lost the voiced obstruents from
Middle Chinese, has merged the final nasal consonants into one phoneme and similarly for the entering tone final stop consonant. But it has also preserved many readings from Middle Chinese: its pattern of entering tone readings greatly matches that of Middle Chinese, apart from the colloquial layer of character readings which has lost them.
Overview Initials Old and Middle Chinese had a large array of
voiced consonants, which are preserved in the
Wu group of Chinese varieties, e.g. in the
Suzhou dialect. But the Fuqing dialect has devoiced the obstruents, turning them into voiceless consonants, just as other
Eastern Min varieties of Chinese have. The Fuqing dialect does have two voiced obstruent phonemes, and , but these appear in connected speech, and are not considered part of the initials. The 疑 initial of Middle Chinese, reconstructed as the velar nasal , has not been preserved by many modern varieties of Chinese. In
standard Mandarin, the initial has been completely lost, with some having merged into the initial (e.g. 牛, 虐, 擬). In
Wu,
Yue and
Hakka, the initial with front vowels and have either been lost (hence merging into the 影 initial) or become another initial. But in the Fuqing dialect, the 疑 initial is preserved as in front of front and back vowels alike, with a few exceptions having merged into . In some
Mandarin varieties as well as Yue, a sound is added to the beginning of back vowels of the null initial class 影 (e.g. pronouncing 安 as ), but in the Fuqing dialect the 影 initial always remains null. The Late Middle Chinese 非 initial is pronounced in the Fuqing dialect not with but with , or . This lack of
labiodental consonants is common to all of the
Min varieties as well as
Sino-Korean. For example, 發 is read as , 蜂 is read as , while 非 is read as . A group in Middle Chinese with the initial 知 is pronounced with alveolar stops or , and not with retroflex or palatal affricates, for example, 知 as , 竹 as , 重 as . This feature is also common to most of
Min, implying that it has conserved this feature from
Old Chinese.
Codas The three nasal codas of Middle Chinese have become one velar nasal in the Fuqing dialect. The three entering tone voiceless stop codas also all became a velar stop , which has weakened to a glottal stop .
Tones The Fuqing dialect possesses just one tone derived from the historical rising tone (上聲) of Middle Chinese, corresponding to the dark rising tone where those with historical voiceless initials have remained. Those with historical voiced obstruents in the former light rising tone have merged with the light departing tone. Those with historical sonorants underwent a
split: in colloquial readings they grouped with light departing tone, whereas in literary readings these joined the dark rising tone. There is also an innovation in
entering tone characters. Where in the rime book
Qī Lín Bāyīn (戚林八音), an entering tone character begins with an unvoiced consonant (e.g. the initials 花, 嘉, 歌, 之, 過, 橋, 奇), in the colloquial reading these lose their final glottal stop. Thus, the tones merge into their phonetically closest non-checked equivalent: dark entering merges into dark departing, and light entering merges into the dark level tone. In the
Fuzhou dialect these preserve their identity as entering tone in the colloquial reading. Nevertheless, in literary reading, these characters retain their glottal stop as a marker of the entering tone in Fuqing as well as in Fuzhou.
Literary and colloquial readings The Fuqing dialect exhibits a split between
literary and colloquial readings. Initials, rimes and tones may be affected independently of each other, yielding a total of seven possible outcomes: • Difference in initials: 富 ( / ) • Difference in rimes: 清 ( / ) • Difference in tones: 利 ( / ) • Difference in initial and rime: 夫 ( / ) • Difference in initial and tone: 遠 ( / ) • Difference in rime and tone: 兩 ( / ) • Difference in initial, rime and tone: 網 ( / ) When there is a difference between literary and colloquial readings, the colloquial one is used in vernacular speech,
common surnames and
place names of the
Greater Fuzhou area, whilst the literary reading is generally used in more literary compound words, in
given names, and place names outside the local area. For example, the common verb
listen has the colloquial reading , whereas the historical noun
manservant / office attendant, which has the same lexeme, uses the literary reading (realized after sandhi as ). The in the names of
Minqing 閩清 and
Fuqing 福清 are pronounced , though the name of
Qingliu County 清流縣, being outside the Fuzhou area, uses the literary pronunciation . Literary pronunciations are also used in poetry, with some readings specifically used only in this context; additionally,
neologisms generally use literary pronunciation. Thus a more recent compound such as
foreign uses the literary reading for
outside, , whereas an older compound
maternal grandfather uses the vernacular reading . It is possible to have more than one literary or more than one vernacular reading; for example the verb
drag, haul has the literary reading , and two vernacular readings and used in separate compound words. ==Vocabulary==