The Ningde dialect (Eastern Min: 寧德話) is a dialect of Eastern Min Chinese spoken in urban areas of Ningde, China, which is a prefecture-level city in the northeastern coast of Fujian province.
The Ningde dialect has 15 initials, 78 rimes and 7 tones.
p, pʰ, m, t, tʰ, n, l, ts, tsʰ, s, k, kʰ, ŋ, x, ʔ
10 monophthongs: a, ɛ, œ, ø, ɔ, o, i, u, y
18 compound vowels: ai, ei, ɔi, oi, øy, au, ɛu, eu, ou, ia, ie, iu, iɐu, ua, uo, ui, uai, uoi
15 nasal rimes: aŋ, ɛŋ, eŋ, œŋ, øŋ, ɔŋ, oŋ, iŋ, uŋ, yŋ, iaŋ, iɛŋ, uaŋ, uoŋ, yøŋ
26 checked rimes: aʔ, ɛʔ, œʔ, øʔ, ɔʔ, iʔ, iaʔ, iɛʔ, uaʔ, uoʔ, yøʔ, ak̚, ɛk̚, ek̚, œk̚, øk̚, ɔk̚, ok̚, ik̚, uk̚, yk̚, iak̚, iɛk̚, uak̚, uok̚, yøk̚
These 6 nasal rimes tend to merge into nasal rimes ending with coda -ŋ, and will disappear in future: am, ɛm, em, im, iɛm, ɔn
These 5 checked rimes tend to merge into nasal rimes ending with coda -k̚, and will disappear in future: ap̚, ɛp̚, ep̚, ip̚, iɛp̚
The two-syllable initial assimilation rules are shown in the table below:
The Ningde dialect has extremely extensive tone sandhi rules: in an utterance, only the last syllable pronounced is not affected by the rules. The two-syllable tonal sandhi rules are shown in the table below (the columns give the first syllable's original citation tone, while the rows give the citation tone of the second syllable):