The Swatow dialect, or in Mandarin the Shantou dialect, is a Chinese dialect mostly spoken in Shantou in Guangdong, China. It is a dialect of Chaoshan Min language.[4] It is similar to and largely mutually intelligible with the Teochew dialect.

Swatow dialect
Shantou
汕頭話 Suan¹tao⁵ uê⁷
Native toChina
RegionMainly in Shantou, southeastern Guangdong province.
Early forms
Peng'im
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottologshan1244
Linguasphere79-AAA-jif
  Shantou dialect

Phonology

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Shantou dialect has 18 initials, 61 rimes and 8 tones.

Initials

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Bilabial Alveolar Velar Glottal
plain sibilant
Nasal /m/
/n/
/ŋ/
Plosive/
Affricate
tenuis /p/
/t/
/ts/
/k/
/ʔ/
aspirated /pʰ/
/tʰ/
/tsʰ/
/kʰ/
voiced /b/
/g/
Continuant voiceless /s/
voiced /l/
/z/
/h/

Rimes

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i
u
a
ia
ua
o
io
e
ue
ɯ
ai
uai
oi
ui
au
iau
ou
iu
ĩ
ã
ĩã

ĩõ

ɯ̃
ãĩ
õĩ
im
am
iam



iaŋ
uaŋ

ioŋ

ɤŋ


iaʔ
uaʔ

ioʔ

oiʔ
iuʔ
ip̚
ap̚
iap̚
uap̚
ik̚
uk̚
ak̚
iak̚
uak̚
ok̚
iok̚
ek̚

Tones

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No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Tones dark level
陰平
dark rising
陰上
dark departing
陰去
dark entering
陰入
light level
陽平
light rising
陽上
light departing
陽去
light entering
陽入
Tone contour ˧ (33) ˥˧ (53) ˨˩˧ (213) ˨ (2) ˥ (55) ˧˥ (35) ˩ (11) ˥ (5)
Example Hanzi

Tone sandhi

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Shantou dialect has extremely extensive tone sandhi rules: in an utterance, only the last syllable pronounced is not affected by the rules. The two-syllable tonal sandhi rules are shown in the table below:

Tone sandhi of first syllable
Original citation tone Tone sandhi
dark level
33
23
light level
55
21
dark rising
53
35
light rising
35
21
dark departing
213
55
light departing
11
12
dark entering
2
5
light entering
5
2

Notes

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  1. ^ Min is believed to have split from Old Chinese, rather than Middle Chinese like other varieties of Chinese.[1][2][3]

References

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  1. ^ Mei, Tsu-lin (1970), "Tones and prosody in Middle Chinese and the origin of the rising tone", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 30: 86–110, doi:10.2307/2718766, JSTOR 2718766
  2. ^ Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (1984), Middle Chinese: A study in Historical Phonology, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, p. 3, ISBN 978-0-7748-0192-8
  3. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2023-07-10). "Glottolog 4.8 - Min". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7398962. Archived from the original on 2023-10-13. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
  4. ^ Shantou Dialect entry in Glossika

Further reading

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