The Ruian dialect (; pronounced in the Rui'an dialect; standard ) is a

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that ...

of Wu Chinese spoken in Ruian. It belongs to the Oujiang sub-group of Wu Chinese dialects. It is closely related to the Pingyang dialect and Lucheng dialect, generally referred to as Wenzhounese.

Phonology

Initials

Finals

Rui'an has the following finals: 嘸 , 兒姹 , 好 , 包海 , 先 , 思下 , 布 ~ 圖 ~ 水全 , 安 , 歌會 , 走李 , 六涼 , 關 , 花經 , 聽 , 公 . Additional finals for older accents include 天 , 橋 , 頭

Tones

In the Ruian dialect, a monosyllabic word can have one of the eight tones, but there are only four phonetically distinguished tones, divided into high (陰) and low (陽) categories. In combination with another tone, it can change depending on the tone sandhi system. Yin Ping 陰平 44 江天飛三 Yang Ping 陽平 31 來同魚球 Yin Shang 陰上 35 懂紙古本 Yang Shang 陽上 24 近淡厚似 Yin Qu 陰去 52 對去貨歲 Yang Qu 陽去 22 外地路住 Yin Ru 陰入 323 七博塔各 Yang Ru 陽入 212 六肉白石

Tone sandhi

In bisyllabic words, the Rui'an dialect phonetically has only six tones, ''high flat'' ˦, ''middle flat'' ˧, ''rising'' ˨˦, ''departing'' ˦˨, ''entering'' ˨˩˨ and ''short'' ˨. We'll now use A, B, C, D, E, and 0 for these six tones.

Grammar

Sentence Structure

Classifiers

Verbs

Adverbs

;Ruian dialect

Lexicon

Pronouns

Numerals

:¹ used when are alone or follow 第 to form ordinal numerals, and the later three lectures are cardinal numerals and are generally followed by a classifier. :² the first lecture is considered literal, the second colloquial.

Vocabulary

Below is a list of the most common vocabulary in Ruian dialect.

Readings

Like other Wu dialects, in the Ruian dialect a Chinese character can have more than one reading, divided into vernacular readings (白讀) and literary readings (文讀), in comparison with other Wu dialects, the Ruian dialect has relatively few multiple readings. Below are some samples.

References

A Study on the Phonetics of Ruian Dialect
Wu Chinese {{St-lang-stub