Pu–Xian Min

Before the year 979 AD, the Pu-Xian region was part of Quanzhou county and hence people there spoke a form of Southern Min. In 979 AD, during the Song dynasty, the region was administratively separated from Quanzhou and the Chinese spoken there developed separately from the rest of Southern Min. Due to its proximity with Fuzhou, it absorbed some elements of Eastern Min, such as morphophonemic alternations in initial consonants, but its basic linguistic characteristics, i.e. grammar and most of its lexicon, are based on Southern Min. It also shares denasalization of historical nasal consonants and vocalic nasalization with Southern Min varieties. Pu–Xian Min has been shown to be 62% cognate with Quanzhou dialect (Southern Min) and only 39% cognate with the Fuzhou dialect (Eastern Min). ==Characteristics==

Differences with Southern Min dialects Pu-Xian differs from most Southern Min varieties in several ways: • The vowel 'a' is replaced by (o̤) in most cases, e.g. 腳 ko̤ "leg". • The vowel 'ư' is replaced by ('ṳ'), e.g. 魚 hṳ "fish". • In Putian 'ng' has changed to except after zero initial and h- (notation: ng), e.g. 湯 tung "soup". • The vowel /e/ is often replaced by /ɒ/ o̤, e.g. 馬 bo̤ "horse". • Where Quanzhou has 'ĩ' and Zhangzhou has 'ẽ', the corresponding Putian vowel is 'ã', e.g. 病 baⁿ "sick", where ⁿ indicates a nasalized vowel. • The vowel 'io' is replaced by 'iau' (notation: a̤u), e.g. 笑 ciao "laugh". This also holds for nasalized vowels, e.g. 張 da̤uⁿ corresponding to Zhangzhou tioⁿ. • Nasals 'm' sometimes occur in place of voiced stops 'b', e.g. 夢 mang vs. Quanzhou bang. • Initial consonant 'ng' replaces 'g' e.g. 五 'ngo' vs. Quanzhou 'go'. • There is a loss of distinction between voiced and unvoiced stops, e.g. the sounds /b/ and /p/ both correspond to the same phoneme and occur in free variation. Borrowings from Eastern Min • Wife 老媽 (Lau Ma) ==Phonology==

Pu-Xian has 15 consonants, including the zero onset, the same as most other Min varieties. Pu-Xian is distinctive for having a lateral fricative instead of the in other Min varieties, similar to Taishanese. Pu-Xian has 53 finals and 6 phonemic tones. Initials • only appears in connected speech, as a result of consonant mutation of [p]. Finals Pu–Xian Min has 53 finals (including nasalised finals) Tone Register Assimilation 新婦房 ɬiŋ pu paŋ → ɬiŋ mu βaŋ 青草 tsʰɔŋ tsʰau → tsʰɔŋ nau Comparison between Putian Min and Quanzhou Min Nan ==Sentence-final particles==

• ah (): used to express exclamation. • lah (): used to stress or for adding emotional effect to words. • neh (): used for questioning. • nɔ (): used to express emotion. • yɔu (): used to denote obviousness or contention. ==Romanization==

Hing-hua̍ báⁿ-uā-ci̍ () is the Romanization system for Pu–Xian Min. It has 23 letters: . The Romanization only needs five tone marks for seven tones: • 陰平 Ing-báⁿ (unmarked) • 陰上 Ing-siō̤ng ˆ (â) • 陰去 Ing-kṳ̍ ˈ (a̍) • 陰入 Ing-ci̍h (unmarked) • 陽平 Ió̤ng-báⁿ ́ (á) • 陽去 Ió̤ng-kṳ̍ – (ā) • 陽入 Ió̤ng-ci̍h ˈh (a̍h) ==Notes==