Fangcheng Yue Dialect

Fangcheng Yue
防城白話
Native to	China, Vietnam
Region	Fangchenggang/Fongsinggong, Mong Cai
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Yue/Jyut Qin-Lian Yue/Hamlim Jyut Fangcheng Yue
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

Initials

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⟩	/kʷ/ ⟨gw⟩	(ʔ)
	aspirated	/pʰ/ ⟨p⟩	/tʰ/ ⟨t⟩			/kʰ/ ⟨k⟩	/kʰʷ/ ⟨kw⟩
Affricate	tenuis				/tɕ/ ⟨z⟩
	aspirated				/tɕʰ/ ⟨c⟩
Fricative		/f/ ⟨f⟩			/ɕ/ ⟨s⟩			/h/ ⟨h⟩
Approximant		/ʋ/ ⟨v⟩	/l/ ⟨l⟩	/ɬ/ ⟨sl⟩	/j/ ⟨j⟩

Rimes

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

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

nucleus	note	coda
		-∅	-i	-u	-m	-n	-ŋ	-p	-t	-k
-a-	IPA	a	ai	au	am	an	aŋ	ap	at	ak
	e.g.	花 faa1	買 maai2	鬧 naau4	藍 laam4	山 saan1	冷 laang2	鴨 aap3	襪 maat4	白 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.	車 ce1		貓 meu1	鉗 kem4	剪 zen2	贏 jeng4	碟 dep4	裂 let3	赤 cek3
	meaning	car		cat	plicer	to cut(use scissors)	to win	(small)dish	to split	red
-ø͡ɔ-	IPA							ø͡ɔŋ	ø͡ɔt	ø͡ɔk
	e.g.							梁 loeng4	噦 oet4	脚 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

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	衣	1	45
Rising tone (soeng2-seng1 上聲)	˩˧	middle level	子	2	13
Yin-departing (jam1-hi3 陰去)	˧˧	middle level	貢	3	21
Upper Yin-entering (soeng4-jam1-jap4 上陰入)	˥	high stopped	谷	1	5
Lower Yin-entering (haa4-jam1-jap4 下陰入)	˧	middle stopped	百	3	3
Yang-level (joeng4-ping4 陽平)	˩˨	low falling	群	4	21
Yang-entering (joeng4-jap4 陽入)	˨	low stopped	物	4	2
High rising (gau1-gong3-diu4 高降調)	˥˧	high rising	乜	`53	53

References

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