Overseas populations of Pu-Xian speakers exist in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Speakers of Pu-Xian are also known as Henghua, Hinghua, or Xinghua.
History
Before the year 979 AD, the Pu-Xian region was part of Quanzhou county and hence people there spoke a form of Southern Min.[6][7]
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.[8]
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).[9]
Characteristics
Differences with Southern Min dialects
Pu-Xian differs from most Southern Min varieties in several ways:
The vowel 'a' is replaced by /ɒ/ (o̤) in most cases, e.g. 腳 ko̤ "leg".
The vowel 'ư' /ɯ/ is replaced by /y/ ('ṳ'), e.g. 魚 hṳ "fish".
In Putian 'ng' has changed to /uŋ/ 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[ɬ] instead of the [s] in other Min varieties, similar to Taishanese.
^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
^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
^Cai, Guo-mei 蔡国妹 (2013). "Fúdǐng Àoyāo Púxiān fāngyán dǎo zài diàochá" 福鼎澳腰莆仙方言岛再调查 [A Further Study on Pu-Xian Dialect Zone in Aoyao Village, Fuding]. Lóngyán Xuéyuàn xuébào / Journal of Longyan University (in Chinese). 2013 (1): 38–43. doi:10.16813/j.cnki.cn35-1286/g4.2013.01.008 – via en.cnki.com.cn.
^"Shìjiè shàng gēnběn wú Mǐnnányǔ ~ Wáng Huánán" 世界上根本無閩南語 ~ 王華南 [There is no Hokkien in the World ~ Wang Huanan]. Táiwān wǎng lù jiàohuì 台灣網路教會 (in Chinese). 2011-05-27.
^"Cháozhōuhuà" 潮州话 [Teochew Dialect]. 8944.net (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 2015-06-21. Retrieved 2015-06-19.
^Lien, Chinfa (August 17–19, 1998). "Denasalization, Vocalic Nasalization and Related Issues in Southern Min: A Dialectal and Comparative Perspective". International Symposium on Linguistic Change and the Chinese Dialects.
^Li, Rulong 李如龍; Chen, Zhangtai 陳章太 (1991). Lùn Mǐn fāngyán nèibù de zhǔyào chāyì 論閩方言內部的主要差異 – 閩語硏究 [On the Main Differences in Min Dialects] (in Chinese). Beijing: Yuwen Chubanshe. pp. 58–138.
External links
Pu–Xian Min test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
Pu–Xian Min test of Wiktionary at Wikimedia Incubator
Pu–Xian Min repository of Wikisource, the free library
Motoki Makajima, Conversational Texts in Two Min Dialects, 1979