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'Amoy' (Xiamen) is a language/dialect which originally comes from Southern Fujian, in the area centered around the city of Xiamen. It is almost identical to Taiwanese, and is widely known as Hokkien in Southeast Asia. Amoy is widely considered to be the prestige dialect within Min Nan. For this reason, Amoy is often simply called Min Nan.
Spoken Amoy and Taiwanese are both mixtures of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou speech. As such, they are very closely aligned phonologically. However, there are some subtle differences between the two, as a result of physical separation and other historical factors. The lexical differences between the two are slightly more pronounced. Generally speaking, Amoy, Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, Taiwanese, and the Hokkien in Southeast Asia are all mutually intelligible.

Contents

History

Special characteristics

Accents

Tones

Tone sandhi

Literary versus vernacular readings

Vocabulary

Grammar

Complement constructions

Negative particles

Cheat sheet

Romanization

See also

References

External links

History

In 1842, as a result of the signing of the Treaty of Nanking, Xiamen (Amoy) was forcibly made into a trading port. Xiamen and Gulangyu islands rapidly developed, which resulted in a large influx of people from neighboring areas such as Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. The mixture of these various accents have formed the basis for Amoy. Over the last several centuries, there have been a large number of descendents from these areas who have migrated to Taiwan. Eventually, Amoy became popularly known as Taiwanese among the locals living there. Just like British and American English, there are subtle lexical and phonologic differences between Taiwanese and Amoy, however these differences do not generally pose any barriers to communication. Amoy speakers also spread to Southeast Asia, where it became widely known as Hokkien.

Special characteristics

Spoken Amoy preserves many of the sounds and words from Middle Chinese. However, the vocabulary of Amoy was also influenced in its early stages by the languages of the Minyue peoples. Spoken Amoy is known for its use of nasalization. Unlike English, Amoy also distinguishes between unaspirated voiceless ([ p ], [ k ]) and unaspirated voiced initial consonants ([ b ], [ g ]).

Accents

Amoy pronunciation is based on two main accents: Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. The following table provides five words that illustrate some of the more commonly seen sound shifts:

English	Chinese character	Accent	Peh-ōe-jī	IPA
two		Quanzhou, Taipei	lī
		Xiamen, Zhangzhou, Tainan	jī
sick		Quanzhou, Xiamen, Taipei	pīⁿ
		Zhangzhou, Tainan	pēⁿ
egg		Quanzhou, Xiamen, Taiwan	nng
		Zhangzhou	nūi
chopsticks		Quanzhou, Lukang	tīr
		Xiamen, Penghu	tū
		Zhangzhou, Taiwan	tī
shoes		Quanzhou	phêr-êr
		Xiamen, Taipei	phê-ôe
		Zhangzhou, Tainan	phôe-ê

Tones

Amoy is similar to other Min Nan dialects/languages in that it makes use of 7 tones. The tones are traditionally numbered from one through eight, but the second and sixth tones are identical in most regions.

1	Yin level
2	Yin rising
3	Yin falling
4	Yin entering
5	Yang level
6=2	Yang rising
7	Yang falling
8	Yang entering

Tone sandhi

Amoy has extremely extensive tone sandhi (tone-changing) rules: in an utterance, only the last syllable pronounced is not affected by the rules. What an 'utterance' is, in the context of this language, is an ongoing topic for linguistic research. For the purpose of this article, an utterance may be considered a word, a phrase, or a short sentence. The diagram illustrates the rules that govern the pronunciation of a tone on each of the syllables affected (that is, all but the last in an utterance):

Literary versus vernacular readings

Like other varieties of Min Nan, Amoy has complex rules for literary and vernacular readings of Chinese characters. For example, the character for ''big'' has a vernacular reading of tōa (), but a literary reading of tāi (). Because of the loose nature of the rules governing when to use a given pronunciation, a student of the language must often simply memorize the appropriate reading for a word on a case by case basis. For single syllable words, it is more common to use the vernacular pronunciation. This situation is comparable to the on and kun readings of Japanese.
The vernacular readings are generally thought to predate the literary readings; the literary readings appear to have evolved from middle Chinese. The following chart illustrates some of the more commonly seen sound shifts:

vernacular	literary	example
[p-], [pʰ-]	[h-]		'p'un	'h'un	''divide''
[tɕ-], [tɕʰ-], [ts-], [tsʰ-]	[ɕ-]		'ch'iâⁿ	's'êng	''to become''
[k-], [kʰ-]	[tɕ-], [tɕʰ-]		'k'í	'ch'í	''finger''
[-ã], [-uã]	[-an]		kh'òaⁿ'	kh'àn'	''to see''
[-ʔ]	[-t]		chia̍'h'	si̍'t'	''to eat''
[-i]	[-e]		s'ì'	s'è'	''world''
[-e]	[-a]		k'e'	k'a'	''family''
[-ia]	[-i]		kh'iā'	kh'ì'	''to stand''

Vocabulary

: ''For further information, read the article: Swadesh list''
The Swadesh word list, developed by the linguist Morris Swadesh, is used as a tool to study the evolution of languages. It contains a set of basic words which can be found in every language.

★ The

★ The (Standard Mandarin, Cantonese, 'Amoy', Teochew, Hakka, Burmese)

Grammar

Amoy grammar shares a similar structure to other Chinese dialects, although it is slightly more complex than Standard Mandarin. Moreover, equivalent Amoy and Mandarin particles are usually not cognates.

Complement constructions

As the following example shows, Amoy complement construnctions are roughly parallel Standard Mandarin, with some exceptions (in red).

particle	English
adverb	He runs quick'ly'.	Amoy	i	cháu	'ē'	kín
		Mandarin	tā	pǎo	'dé'	kuài
		English	He	runs	'obtains'	quick
adverb	He runs 'very' quick'ly'.	Amoy	i	cháu		'chiok'	kín
		Mandarin	tā	pǎo	'dé'	'hěn'	kuài
		English	He	runs		'very'	quick
adverb	He 'does not' run quick'ly'.	Amoy	i	cháu	'bē'	kín
		Mandarin	tā	pǎo	'bù'	kuài
		English	He	runs	'not'	quick
can	He 'can' see.	Amoy	i	khòaⁿ	'ē'	''tioh''
		Mandarin	tā	kàn	'dé'	''dào''
		English	He	sees	'obtains'	''already achieved''
can	He 'can not' see.	Amoy	i	khòaⁿ	'bē'	''tioh''
		Mandarin	tā	kàn	'bù'	''dào''
		English	He	sees	'not'	''already achieved''
so	He was 'so' startled, that he could not speak.	Amoy	i	kiaⁿ	'kah'	ōe	mā	kóng	bē	chhut-lâi
		Mandarin	tā	xià	'dé'	huà	dōu	shuō	bù	chūlái
		English	He	startled	'to the point of'	words	also	say	not	come out

★ view chart in simplified Chinese script

★ view chart in traditional Chinese script

Negative particles

Negative particle syntax is parallel to Standard Mandarin about 70% of the time. Here is a fairly complete description (parallel usage to Mandarin is bolded):
# 'm - is not + noun' (Mandarin: bù)
#: i m-sī gún lāu-bú. ''She is not my mother.''
# 'm - does not + verb/will not + verb' (Mandarin: bù)
#: i m lâi. ''He does not come.''/''He will not come.''
# verb + bē + particle - is not able to (Mandarin: bù)
#: góa khòaⁿ-bē-tio̍h. ''I am not able to see it.''
# bē + helping verb - can not (opposite of ē ''is able to''/Mandarin: bù)
#: i bē-hiáu kóng Eng-gú. ''He can't speak English.''
#
★ helping verbs that go with bē
#
★ :bē-sái - is not permitted to (Mandarin: bù kěyǐ)
#
★ :bē-hiáu - does not know how to (Mandarin: búhuì)
#
★ :bē-tàng - not able to (Mandarin: bùnéng)
# 'mài - do not (imperative)' (Mandarin: bié)
#: mài kóng! ''Don't speak!''
# bô - do not + helping verb (Mandarin: bù)
#: i bô beh lâi. ''He is not going to come.''
#
★ helping verbs that go with bô:
#
★ :beh - want to + verb; will + verb
#
★ :ài - must + verb
#
★ :èng-kai - should + verb
#
★ :kah-ì - like to + verb
# 'bô - does not have' (Mandarin: méiyǒu)
#: i bô chîⁿ. ''He does not have any money.''
# 'bô - did not' (Mandarin: méiyǒu)
#: i bô lâi. ''He did not come.''
# bô - is not + adjective (Mandarin: bù)
#: i bô súi. ''She is not beautiful.''
#
★ An exception can be made for hó (good), m-hó = bô-hó - ''not good''.

★ view negative particles in simplified Chinese script

★ view negative particles in traditional Chinese script

Cheat sheet

Here is an English/Amoy/Mandarin conversion list for some of the more commonly seen particles:

Particle	English	yellow: dual use particle; red: two different particles
passive	They were cheated.	Amoy	in	'hō·'	lâng	phiàn khì
		Mandarin	tāmen	'bèi'		piàn le
		English	They	'by'	person	was cheated
object identifier (1)	He handed the money to you.	Amoy	i	'kā'	chîⁿ	kau	hō·	lí
		Mandarin	tā	'bǎ'	qián	jiāo	gěi	nǐ
		English	He	'(object identifier)'	money	hand over	give	you
more (1)	He ate one more bowl.	Amoy	i	'ke'	chiah		chit	óaⁿ
		Mandarin	tā	'duō'	chī	le	yī	wǎn
		English	He	'more'	eat	(past tense)	one	bowl
object identifier (2)	I'm telling you ...	Amoy	góa	'kā'	lí	kóng
		Mandarin	wǒ	'gēn'	nǐ	jiǎng
		English	I	'(object identifier)'	you	say
more (2)	He has more friends.	Amoy	i	ū	'khah'	'chē'	ê	pêng-iú
		Mandarin	tā	yǒu	'bǐjiào'	'duō'	de	péngyǒu
		English	He	has	'comparatively'	'many'	of	friends

★ view chart in simplified Chinese script

★ view chart in traditional Chinese script

Romanization

★ A number of Romanization schemes have been devised for Amoy. Peh-ōe-jī is one of the oldest and best established. However, the Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet has been steadily gaining popularity in Taiwan.

See also

★ Languages of China

★ Min Nan

★ Quanzhou

★ Zhangzhou

★ Taiwanese

★ Penang Hokkien

★ Lan-nang

★ Languages of Taiwan

★ Chinese in Singapore

★

★

References

★ 愛說台語五千年 -- 台語聲韻之美 ''To understand the beauty of Taiwanese'' (ISBN 9789867101471)

★ 華台英詞彙句式對照集 ''A vocabulary and sentence structure comparison between Mandarin, Taiwanese and English'' (ISBN 9571138223)

★ ''Papers on Southern Min Syntax'' (ISBN 9571509485)

External links

★ 台語-華語線頂辭典, Amoy-Mandarin on-line dictionary

★ 臺灣本土語言互譯及語音合成系統, Amoy-Hakka-Mandarin on-line conversion

★ listen to the news in Amoy Min Nan (site is in Chinese script)

★ Database of Pronunciations of Chinese Dialects (in English, Chinese and Japanese)

★ Glossika - Chinese Languages and Dialects

★ Voyager - Spacecraft - Golden Record - Greetings From Earth - Amoy, includes translation and sound clip

★ : (The voyager clip says: Thài-khong pêng-iú, lín-hó. Lín chiah-pá bē? Ū-êng, toh lâi gún chia chē ô·! 太空朋友，恁好。恁食飽未？有閒著來阮遮坐哦!)