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Fangcheng Yue Dialect

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Fangcheng Yue
防城白話
Native toChina, Vietnam
RegionFangchenggang/Fongsinggong, Mong Cai
Sino-Tibetan
Language codes
ISO 639-3

The Fangcheng dialect (Chinese: 防城白話; local Jyutping: Fong4sing4 baak4waa4; IPA: [fɔŋ˩˨ ɕeɪŋ˩˨ pak̚˨ ʋa˩˨], lit. 'Fangcheng plain speech') also rendered Fongsing Jyut dialect, is a dialect of Yue (Cantonese), spoken in the southern area closer to the sea of former Fangcheng County(防城縣), which was divided present-day Dongxing City(東興市), Fangcheng District(防城區) and Gangkou District(港口區).

As a variety of Cantonese, it is intelligible with Guangzhou Cantonese.

Due to the policy on the promotion of Putonghua and the influx of foreign population who doesn't speak Yue Chinese, the level of dialect use among local young people is declining.

Phonology

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Initials

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Except for most of the consonants that are the same as in Standard Cantonese, there are also several other consonants in Fangcheng Yue Dialect. The extended Jyutping(Jyut++) will be used to transcribe the phonemes as follows.

Labial Dental Palatal Velar Glottal
Normal Labialized
Nasal /m/ ⟨m⟩ /n/ ⟨n⟩ [ɲ] ⟨nj⟩ /ŋ/ ⟨ng⟩
Plosive tenuis /p/ ⟨b⟩ /t/ ⟨d⟩ /k/ ⟨g⟩ // ⟨gw⟩ (ʔ)
aspirated // ⟨p⟩ // ⟨t⟩ // ⟨k⟩ /kʰʷ/ ⟨kw⟩
Affricate tenuis // ⟨z⟩
aspirated /tɕʰ/ ⟨c⟩
Fricative /f/ ⟨f⟩ /ɕ/ ⟨s⟩ /h/ ⟨h⟩
Approximant /ʋ/ ⟨v⟩ /l/ ⟨l⟩ /ɬ/ ⟨sl⟩ /j/ ⟨j⟩    

Rimes

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Fangcheng Yue has six vowels, a, ɐ, ɛ, i, ɔ, and u.

Front Central Back
Close /i/ ⟨i⟩ /u/ ⟨u⟩
Mid /ɛ/ ⟨e⟩ /ɐ/ ⟨a⟩ /ɔ/ ⟨o⟩
Open /a/ ⟨aa⟩

And two diphthongs only exist before -ŋ and -k, each pair of sounds of theirs has almost equal weight respectively, which do not lend themselves to analysis as ending analyzed to ending as -j or -w phonemely.

  • /e͡ɐ/ ⟨e⟩
  • /ø͡ɔ/ ⟨oe⟩ Some speakers pronounce /ø͡ɔ/ as /e͡ɐ/, just like the younger speakers of neighboring Qinzhou Dialect.

Finals

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Moreover, Fangcheng Yue finals exhibit the final consonants found in Middle Chinese, namely [m, n, ŋ, p, t, k]. Which are romanized as m, n, ng, p, t, and k respectively.

Finals of Fangcheng Yue dialect[1]
nucleus note coda
-∅ -i -u -m -n -p -t -k
-a- IPA a ai au am an ap at ak
e.g. faa1 maai2 naau4 laam4 saan1 laang2 aap3 maat4 baak4
meaning flower to buy to scold blue mountain cold duck sock white
-ɛ- IPA ɛ ɛu ɛm ɛn e͡ɐŋ ɛp ɛt e͡ɐk
e.g. ce1   meu1 kem4 zen2 jeng4 dep4 let3 cek3
meaning car   cat plicer to cut(use scissors) to win (small)dish to split red
-ø͡ɔ- IPA ø͡ɔŋ ø͡ɔt ø͡ɔk
e.g. loeng4 oet4 goek3
meaning lintel; a surname Leung, Liang etc. yuck(an onomatopoeia for vomiting) foot
-i- ∅- i   iu im in eɪŋ ip it eɪk
Syllabics ŋ̩

Tone

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Fangcheng Yue dialect has 6 or 7 tones.

Name Tone contour Description Example Number five-scale IPA
Yin-level (jam1-ping4 陰平) ˦˥ high rising 1 45
Rising tone (soeng2-seng1 上聲) ˩˧ middle level 2 13
Yin-departing (jam1-hi3 陰去) ˧˧ middle level 3 21
Upper Yin-entering (soeng4-jam1-jap4 上陰入) ˥ high stopped 1 5
Lower Yin-entering (haa4-jam1-jap4 下陰入) ˧ middle stopped 3 3
Yang-level (joeng4-ping4 陽平) ˩˨ low falling 4 21
Yang-entering (joeng4-jap4 陽入) ˨ low stopped 4 2
High rising (gau1-gong3-diu4 高降調) ˥˧ high rising `53 53

References

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  1. ^ Cheung, Yuk Man (2011). Vowels and Tones in Mei Xian Hakka: An Acoustic and Perceptual Study (PhD thesis). City University of Hong Kong.

施, 日梅 (2009). 广西防城区粤语音系 (Thesis). Journal of Baise University.

Further reading

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