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Wuhua
五華話
Native to	Southern China
Region	Wuhua
Native speakers	6,260,000
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Chinese Gan–Hakka Hakka Yue-Tai (Meixian) Wuhua
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None

Wuhua (simplified Chinese: 五华话; traditional Chinese: 五華話; pinyin: Wǔhuá huà) is a major dialect of Hakka Chinese. It is characterized by the pronunciation of many voiced Middle Chinese qu-sheng (fourth Tone) syllables and of Moiyen dialect in the shang-sheng (third Tone). The tone-level of the yin-ping is a rising /13/, /35/ or /24/ instead of the low-level /11/ usually found in Meixian. In Wuhua-dialect-related areas of Northern Bao'an and Eastern Dongguan the same Meixian dialect tone level of the yang-ping is found and two sets of fricatives and affricates (z, c, s, zh, ch, sh, s / ts’ / s, [ts], [tsh], [s] and [ts], [tsh], [s] and [tʃ ], [tʃh], [ ʃ ]) appear, similar to Mandarin. Also distinctive are the "y" final found in the Yuebei (Northern Guangdong) Hakka group and Sichuan group, and retroflexed initials in 知 (Zhi series) “Knowledge”, 曉 (Xiao group) “Dawn”, part of 溪 (Xi) “Brook”, poor usage of medials in Grade III and closed finals. Wuhua dialect exhibits “latter-word” tone sandhi. Phonologically Wuhua exhibits a north–south separation while lexically it also exhibits an east- and middle-Guangdong separation, showing relatedness to inland and coastal Hakka dialects. “Lexically it shows east-west separation in Wuhua, which is quite different from the phonological point of view. And outwardly, lexicons in Wuhua show that Wuhua dialect is on the diglossia that separates east and middle Guangdong, and that distinguishes coast-side dialects from inland ones.” Wuhua dialect is transitional, no matter how we see it historically or geographically. Otherwise the Wuhua Hakka dialect is very similar to the prestige Moiyen (Meixian) Hakka dialect.

Background

The Wuhua patois merges Yangqu with the Shang tone instead, so that voiced characters of MC departing tones have the Shang tone, not Qu. Besides, the Meixian group has a Yangping tone value of 11, but Wuhua has the value of 35 or 24. Most varieties of Jiaying SubDialect [Tue-Tai] belong to the Meixian patois, but those in northern Guangdong and Sichuan and some dialects in western Guangdong belong to the Wuhua patois.

Location

Wuhua County is located in the upper reaches of the Hanjiang River, The southeast border of the county is adjacent to Fengshun, Jiexi and Lufeng, to the southwest with Heyuan and Zijin borders. The northwest border is connected to Longchuan, the northeast to Xingning. As a result, Wuhua is also affected by the dialectal assimilation of the surrounding areas due to language contact.

Wuhua can be found in Wuhua County, Jiexi County, Northern Bao'An (formerly Xin'An (Sin-On), presently called Shenzhen), Eastern Dongguan, in Yuebei or Northern Guangdong around Shaoguan, in Sichuan and Tonggu, Jiangxi. All of these places have the tonal characteristics of Wuhua.

Taiwan as well abides Wuhua Hakka people who came from south Wuhua County in the Qing dynasty. Taiwan Wuhua has changed much in initials, finals, and lexicons, possessing much similarity with neighboring Sixian(四縣) and Hailu(海陸)Dialects. Only tones conserve as in Guangdong. Languages tend to assimilate with authoritative ones, and we see this in Wuhua dialect of Taiwan. the Changle dialect originates in its eponym, the county of Changle (now Wuhua). Currently, speakers of the Yongding and Changle dialects have basically left their own families, so only the Sixian, Hailu, Dabu, Raoping and Zhao'an dialects remain in use in Taiwan. In Taiwan, the only widely used Hakka dialects are Sixian and Hailu.

Language variation

Yuebei group, which is the most dominant dialect in the rural area in Northern Guangdong around Shaoguan. (c. 2M speakers)

Jiexihua, spoken by the inhabitants in the Jiexi county, Guangdong Province. (c. 0.5M speakers)

Dongguan Hakka, spoken by Hakka inhabitants in the Eastern part of Dongguan county and extreme North of Bao’an county. This accent has the Yangping as a level tone of value 11. (c. 60T speakers)

Sichuan group or “Tu-Guangdonghua”, spoken by the “Guangdong migrants” in Sichuan (c. 1-2M speakers)

Tongguhua, spoken by the people in and around Tonggu county, Jiangxi Province. (c. 1M speakers)

The Wuhua Dialect in The County itself has three accents, the North Accent, represented by Huacheng, also called Changle Accent,[Huá Chéng, Qí Lǐng], The Central Accent, represented by Shuizai Town, also called Lowland Accent,[Tán Xià, Zhuǎn Shuǐ, Héng Bēi, Shuǐ Zhài, Hédōng, Guō Tián], The Western Accent represented by Changbu and Datian, also called the Changbu-Datian Accent[Zhǎng Bù, Dàtián ], and The Southern Accent, Represented by An Liu Market Town, also called Upland-Highland Accent.[Ān liú, Zhōu Jiāng, Shuāng Huá, Méilín, Huáyáng, Mián Yáng, lóngcūn].

Phonology

Consonant inventory

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n			ŋ
Plosive	tenuis	p	t			k
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ			kʰ
Affricate			ts	tʂ
Aspirated affricate			tsʰ	tʂʰ
Fricative		f v	s	ʂ			h
Approximant			l

Finals

Most finals are the same with Moiyen, except for:

Moiyen	Wuhua
uon	on
ian	an
	ien
i	ui
in	un
uan	has lost the "u" medial, example: "kan"
uai
uon
ien	en

Vowel inventory

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ	u
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a

Tones

Tone number	Hakka Tone name	Chinese characters	IPA	Description
1	yin ping	陰平	˦	high
2	yang ping	陽平	˩˧	low rising
3	shang	上	˧˩	low falling
4	qu	去	˥˧	high falling
5	yin ru	陰入	˩	extra low
6	yang ru	陽入	˥	extra high

In Wuhua, Shaoguan (and most dialects around it), and Sichuan, the Yangping is usually 35 instead of 11.

Wuhua Romanization and IPA

Romanization	IPA
b	[p]
p	[pʰ]
m	[m]
f	[f]
v	[v]
d	[t]
t	[tʰ]
n	[n]
l	[l]
g	[k]
k	[kʰ]
ng	[ŋ]
h	[h]
j	[ts](i)
q	[tsʰ](i)
x	[s](i)
z*	[ts]
c*	[tsʰ]
s*	[s]
zh*	[tʂ]
ch*	[tʂʰ]
sh*	[ʂ]
a	[a]
o	[ɔ]
i	[i]
u	[u]
ê	[ɛ]
e	[ɨ]

*These graphemes always precede an [i].