Northern Min () is a group of
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...
Min
Min or MIN may refer to:
Places
* Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China
** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian
* Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China
* Min River (Fujian)
* Min River (Sichuan)
* Mineola (Amtr ...
varieties spoken in
Nanping prefecture of northwestern
Fujian
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its ...
.
Classification and distribution
Early classifications of
varieties of Chinese
Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of mai ...
, such as those of
Li Fang-Kuei in 1937 and
Yuan Jiahua
Yuan Jiahua (, ; January 19034 September 1980) was a Chinese linguist and dialectologist from Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu province. He graduated from the English Department of Peking University in 1932, worked as an editor in the North Shanghai New Boo ...
in 1960, divided Min into Northern and Southern subgroups.
However, in a 1963 report on a survey of Fujian, Pan Maoding and colleagues argued that the primary split was between inland and coastal groups.
In a reclassification that has been followed by most dialectologists since, they restricted the term Northern Min to inland dialects of Nanping prefecture, and classified the coastal dialects of
Fuzhou
Fuzhou (; , Fuzhounese: Hokchew, ''Hók-ciŭ''), alternately romanized as Foochow, is the capital and one of the largest cities in Fujian province, China. Along with the many counties of Ningde, those of Fuzhou are considered to constitute ...
and
Ningde as
Eastern Min.
According to the ''
Language Atlas of China'', Northern Min varieties are spoken throughout the counties of
Wuyishan (formerly Chong'an),
Jianyang,
Jian'ou,
Zhenghe and
Songxi, in the southern part of
Pucheng County and the northeastern part of
Shunchang County, and in
Yanping District except for the
Nanping dialect of the urban area of Nanping, which is an island of an isolated
Mandarin dialect of uncertain affinity.
The
Jianyang and
Jian'ou dialects are often taken as representative.
Although coastal Min varieties can be derived from a
proto-language
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattes ...
with four series of stop or affricate initials at each point of articulation (e.g. , , and ), Northern Min varieties contain traces of two further series, one voiced and the other voiceless.
In Northern Min dialects, these initials have a different tonal development from other stops and affricates, though the details vary between varieties.
Moreover, although in Jian'ou and Zhenghe these initials yield voiceless unaspirated initials (as in coastal varieties), they yield voiced sonorants or the zero initial in Jianyang and Wuyishan.
Because of these reflexes,
Jerry Norman called these initials "softened" stops and affricates.
References
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Further reading
*Akitani, Hiroyuki 秋谷裕幸. 2008. ''Minbeiqu sanxianshi fangyan yanjiu'' 閩北區三縣市方言研究. Taipei:
Academia Sinica
Academia Sinica (AS, la, 1=Academia Sinica, 3=Chinese Academy; ), headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. Founded in Nanking, the academy supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging fro ...
. (Documents three Northern Min dialects in detail: Shibei 石陂 of
Pucheng County; Zhenqian 镇前 of
Zhenghe County; Dikou 迪口 of
Jian'ou City)
*Fujian Normal University Research Institute 福建师范学院. n.d. ''Mindong, Bei fangyan diaocha ziliao huibian (part 1)'' 闽东、北方言调查资料汇编: 第1辑.
Fujian Normal University Research Institute 福建师范学院, Dialectology group, Chinese language department 中文系语言教研组 方言调查小组.
*Huang Chin-wen 黄金文. 2001. 方言接觸與閩北方言演變 / ''Language contact and the phonological changes in North Min''. Taipei: National Taiwan University.
*Ma Chongqi 馬重奇. 2014. 明清閩北方言韻書手抄本音系研究 / ''A phonological study of the manuscripts of Northern Fujian Dialect rhyme books in the Ming and Qing Dynasties''. Beijing: Commercial Press.
*Pan Weishui 潘渭水. 2007. ''Minbei fangyan yanjiu'' 闽北方言研究. Fuzhou: Fujian Educational Press 福建教育出版社.
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{{Chinese language