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Teochew (dialect)

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"Chaozhou Language"
Traditional Chinese: 潮州話
Simplified Chinese: 潮州话
Pronunciation in Mandarin: Cháozhōu huà ?
Pronunciation in Chaozhou: tie tsiu ue ? / Diô-jiǔ-oē ? / Dio7 Ziu1 ?
Pronunciation in Min Nan: Tiô-chiu-oē ?

The Chaozhou language , also called Teochew, Teochiu, Tiuchiu, or Diojiu, is a dialect of the Chinese spoken variant of Minnan 閩南, spoken in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong.

Contents

Classification

Chaozhou is a member of the Southern Min or Minnan dialect group, which in turn constitutes one of the seven major dialect groups of the Sinitic language family. Like other varieties of Chinese, people have yet agreed on whether Chaozhou should be treated as a language or a dialect. However, from a purely linguistic point of view, Chaozhou (or Minnan at large) should be a language of its own right since it is mutually unintelligible with other "dialect groups" of China.

Nevertheless, Chaozhou is mutually intelligible with some other Min-nan languages, notably the dialects of Zhangzhou 漳州 and Quanzhou 泉州 probably because of their proximity. Even within the Chaozhou varieties, there is substantial variation in phonology between different regions of Chaoshan and between different Chaozhou communities overseas.

The Chaozhou languages, in terms of their closeness, can be roughly divided into 3 sub-groups:

1) Shantou sub-group, including Shantou 汕頭, Chaozhou 潮州, Jieyang 揭陽, Chenghai 澄海, Nanao 南澳, Raoping 饒平 and Jiexi 揭西,

2) Chaopu sub-group, including Chaoyang 潮陽, Puning 普寧, Huilai 惠來, and

3) Luhai sub-group, including Shanwei 汕尾, Lufeng 陸豐 and Haifeng 海豐

History and geography

Modern Chaozhou evolved from the more archaic Min-Nan . Between the 9th and the 15th century, a group of Min people migrated south from Fujian to the coastal region of eastern Guangdong 廣東 known as Chaoshan 潮汕. This migration was most likely due in part to over-population in Fujian 福建.

Due to geographical isolation from Fujian, Chaozhou evolved into a separate language.

As seen from above, the Chaoshan region where Chaozhou is spoken includes the cities of Chaozhou, Shantou, which are jointly the source of the name, as well as Jieyang, Chaoyang, Puning, Chao'an 潮安, Raoping, Huilai, Chenghai, Nanao, Lufeng, Haifeng, Shanwei, Weidong 惠東 and Jiexi. Parts of the Hakka-speaking region, like Dabu 大埔 and Fengshun 豐順 are also Chaozhou-speaking

Chaoshan was one of the major sources of Chinese emigration to Southeast Asia during the 18th–20th centuries, forming one of the larger dialect groups among the Overseas Chinese. As a result, Chaozhou is now spoken in many regions outside of Chaoshan.

In particular, the Chaozhou people settled in significant numbers in Thailand and Cambodia, where they form the largest Chinese dialect group. They constitute a significant minority in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia (especially in Riau, near Singapore), North Sumatra, South Sumatra, and West Kalimantan (in Pontianak and Ketapang). Chaozhou speakers also live in Australia, New Zealand, North America, and Europe, a result of both direct emigration from Chaoshan to these nations and secondary emigration from Southeast Asia.

However, as the world globalises, the language is losing popularity among the native speakers. In Singapore, due to common culture and influences from the media, Singaporean Chinese youths whose native language is Chaozhou are either converting to English, Standard Mandarin or Hokkien (with which it shares a certain degree of mutual intelligibility). Chaozhou remains the native language of many Chinese people in Singapore - Chaozhou people are the second largest ethnic group in Singapore, after the Hokkien - although Mandarin is gradually supplanting Chaozhou as their mother tongue, especially among the younger generations.

Languages in Contact

Putonghua

Chaozhou children are introduced to Putonghua as early as in kindergarten; however, Chaozhou remains the primary medium of instruction until the early years of primary education when Putonghua becomes the sole language of instruction at school, although the students continue to talk to each other in Chaozhou. Putonghua is widely understood in Chaozhou, however minimally, amongst the younger generations; the elderly usually do not speak Putonghua since, in their times, teaching was done in the local vernacular.

Chaozhou Accent in Putonghua

Chaozhou people find the neutral tone in Putonghua hardest to master. Chaozhou has lost the alveolar nasal ending [-n] and so the people often replace the sound in Putonghua with the velar nasal [-ŋ]. None of the southern Min dialects has a front rounded vowel, therefore a typical Chaozhou accent supplants the unrounded counterpart [i] for [y]. Chaozhou, like its ancient ancestor, lacks labio-dentals; people therefore substitute [h] for [f] when they speak Putonghua. Chaozhou does not have any of the retroflex consonants in the northern dialects, so they say [ts], [tsʰ], [s], and [z] instead of [tʂ], [tʂʰ], [ʂ] and [ʐ].

Hakka

Since Chao'an, Raoping and Jieyang border the Hakka-speaking region in the north, some people in these regions speak Hakka, though they can usually speak Chaozhou as well. Chaozhou people have a lot of contact with the Hakka people, but, interestingly, the Hakka language has little, if any, influence on Chaozhou. Similarly, in Dabu and Fengshun, where the Chaozhou- and Hakka-speaking regions meet, Chaozhou is also spoken though Hakka remains the primary language there.

Cantonese

Because of influence from Hong Kong soap operas and the importance of Guangzhou in Guangdong province, many young Chaozhou people can understand quite a lot Cantonese even if they cannot speak it.

Non-Chinese language

In the mountainous area of Fenghuang 鳳凰, a non-Sinitic language is spoken by a few hundred aboriginal She people 畲, therefore the She language. It belongs to the Hmong-Mien language family.

Phonetics and Phonology

Consonants

Chaozhou (and other southern Min languages) is one of the few Sinitic languages which preserve the Middle Chinese voiced stops. Chaozhou is typified by the lack of labio-dentals.

 IPA chart for Chaozhou consonants
bilabial alveolar velar glottal
nasal m n ŋ
plosive voiced b g
voiceless unaspirated p t k ʔ
voiceless aspirated pʰ tʰ kʰ
fricative s h
affricate voiced dz
voiceless unaspirated ts
voiceless aspirated tsʰ
lateral approximant l

Oral Vowels

Nasalised Vowels

Syllable

Syllables in Chaozhou contain an initial consonant, an optional medial glide, a nucleus, usually in the form of a vowel, but can also be occupied by a syllabic consonant like [ŋ], and a final consonant.

Onsets

Initial consonants of Chaozhou, are represented in the Guangdong Peng'im system as: B, BH, C, D, G, GH, H, K, L, M, N, NG, P, R, S, T, and Z.

Examples:

Rimes

Medial Glides

The medial glide is optional in a Chaozhou syllable and is occupied by an approximant, either [j] or [w].

Nucleus

The nucleus is the only obligatory and therefore most important element of a syllable. It can be occupied by a vowel, a nasalised vowel or a syllabic consonant in chaozhou.

Vowels and vowel combinations in the Chaozhou dialect include: A, E, Ê, I, O, U, AI, AO, IA, IO, IU, OI, OU, UA, UAI, UE, and UI.

Examples:

Coda

The coda position is usually fulfilled by a stop or nasal consonant(which, technically, is also a stop sound because the soft palate is lowered to stop the air flowing through the oral cavity) but is nevertheless optional.

Ending consonants in Chaozhou include M and NG as well as the stops discussed below.

Examples:

Chaozhou retains many consonant stops lost in Mandarin. These stops include a labial stop: "b"; velar stop: "g"; and glottal stop: "h".

Examples:

Many words in Chaozhou are nasalized. This is represented by the letter "n" in the Guangdong Pengim system.

Example (nasalized):

Tones

Citation Tones

Chaozhou, like other Chinese languages is a tonal language. It has eight tones and extensive tone sandhi.

Tones:

  1. Middle level
  2. Falling
  3. Low rising
  4. Low stop
  5. High level
  6. High rising
  7. Low level
  8. High stop
Here, the tones are shown following the traditional tone class categorization above, and are correlated with the tones of Middle Chinese (shown in Han characters, last column below):

  1. |33| yin level (陰平)
  2. |52| yin rising (陰上)
  3. |12| yin departing (陰去)
  4. |1| yin entering (陰入)
  5. |55| yang level (陽平)
  6. |35| yang rising (陽上)
  7. |11| yang departing (陽去)
  8. |5| yang entering (陽入)
The numbers given in | | are tone contours, where 1 is the lowest and 5 is highest.

Tone Sandhi

Intonation

Grammar

The grammar of Chaozhou is similar to southern Chinese dialects, especially with Hakka and Cantonese. The sequence 'subject verb object' is typical, like Mandarin, although 'subject object verb' is also possible using particles.

Morphology

Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

The personal pronouns in Chaozhou, like in other Sinitic languages, do not show case marking, therefore 我 [ua] means both I and me and 伊人 [i naŋ] means they and them. The southern Min dialects, like some northern dialects, have the distinction between an inclusive and exclusive we, meaning that when the addressee is being included, the inclusive pronoun 俺 [naŋ] would be used, otherwise 阮 [ŋ]. None of the other southern dialects like Cantonese or Hakka has this distinction.

Singular Plural
1st person 我 ua2 I / me Inclusive 俺 naŋ2 we / us
Exclusive 阮 ŋ2 we / us
2nd person 汝 lɤ2 you 恁 niŋ2 you (all)
3rd person 伊 i1 he/she/it/him/her 伊人 i1 naŋ5 they/them

Possessive Pronouns
Demonstrative Pronouns
Interrogative Pronouns

Numerals

Classifiers

Syntax

The Noun Phrase

Reduplication
Nominalisation
Modification of the NP

The Verb Phrase

Auxiliary Verbs
Tense
Aspect
Transitivity
Voice

In Chaozhou passive construction, the agent phrase by somebody always has to be present, and is introduced by either 乞 [kʰoiʔ4] § or 分 [puŋ1], even though it is in fact a zero or indefinite agent as in:

伊分人刣掉

[i1 puŋ1 naŋ5 tʰai5 tiau7]

s/he was killed (by someone)

§ some speakers use [kʰɤʔ] or [kʰiɤʔ] instead

Remember that while in Putonghua we can have the agent introducer 被 bèi or 給 gěi alone without the agent itself, it is not grammatical to say

* 個杯分敲掉

[kai5 pue1 puŋ1 kʰa1 tiau7]

the cup was broken.

(cf. Putonghua: 杯子給打破了 bēizi gěi dǎ pò le)

Instead, we have to say:

個杯分人敲掉

[kai5 pue1 puŋ1 naŋ5 kʰa1 tiau7]

Even though this 人 [naŋ5] is unknown.

Note also that the agent phrase 分人 [puŋ1 naŋ5] always comes immediately after the subject, not at the end of the sentence or between the auxiliary and the past participle like in some European languages (e.g. German, Dutch)

Modality

Sentence Final Particles

Adverbs

Coverbs

Negation

Interrogation

Comparison

Vocabulary

The vocabulary of Chaozhou shares a lot of similarities with Cantonese owing to their continuous contact with each other. Like Cantonese, Chaozhou has a great deal of monosyllabic words, which to a certain extent reflects the age of the Chaozhou language since monosyllabic words were prevalent in Ancient Chinese. However, ever since the standardisation of Modern Chinese, Chaozhou has absorbed a lot of Putonghua vocabulary, which is predominantly polysyllabic. In addition, due to the migration to Southeast Asia, Chaozhou has also borrowed extensively from Malay.

Archaic Vocabulary

Chaozhou preserves a good deal of Ancient Chinese vocabulary, such as 目 [mak] eye (cf. Putonghua: 眼睛 yǎnjīng), 灱 [ta] dry (cf. Putonghua: 乾 gān), 囥 [kʰɤŋ] hide (cf. Putonghua: 藏 cáng)etc.

Foreign Borrowings

Apart from borrowing from Malay, Chaozhou has also absorbed some words from English.

Malay:

嗎淡 [matã] mata-mata police

巴薩 [pasak] pasak market

咕哩 [kuli] kuli coolies

mana wu chia ? - where got car?

English:

目頭 [mak tʰau] mark

基羅 [ki lo] kilogramme

巴仙 [pa sieŋ] percent

Onomatopoeia

Script and orthographies

Traditionally, Chaozhou was written with traditional Chinese characters, although a small fraction of the words are by the Chaozhou themselves.

A romanization system exists in Guangdong province to represent Chaozhou pronunciation for linguistic study and dictionaries, although the Taiwanese Pe̍h-oē-jī could be used, because the Christian missionaries adapt it to be suitably used for all Min-nan dialects.

A modified version of the Guangdong romanization system is also used on the Internet.

External links

References

Beijing da xue Zhongguo yu yan wen xue xi yu yan xue jiao yan shi. 2003. Han yu fang yin zi hui. (Chinese dialectal vocabulary) Beijing, China : Yu wen chu ban she (北京大學中國語言文學系語言學教研室, 2003. 漢語方言字匯. 北京: 語文出版社)

Cai Junming. 1991. Putonghua dui zhao Chaozhou fang yan ci hui. (Chaozhou dialectal vocabulary, contrasted with Mandarin) Hong Kong, China: Wu Duotai Zhongguo yu wen yan jiu zhong xin (蔡俊明, 1991. 普通話對照潮州方言詞匯. 香港: 香港中文大學吳多泰中國語文研究中心)

Chappell, Hilary (ed.) 2001. Sinitic grammar : synchronic and diachronic perspectives. Oxford; New York: OUP

Chen, Matthew Y. 2000. Tone Sandhi : patterns across Chinese dialects. Cambridge, England: CUP

DeFrancis, John. 1984. The Chinese language: fact and fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press

Li, Xin Kui. 1994. Guangdong di fang yan. (Dialects of Guangdong) Guangzhou, China: Guangdong ren min chu ban she (李新魁, 1994. 廣東的方言. 廣州: 廣東人民出版社)

Li, Yongming. 1959. Chaozhou fang yan. (Chaozhou dialect) Beijing, China : Zhonghua. (李永明, 1959. 潮州方言. 北京: 中華)

Lin, Lun Lun.1997. Xin bian Chaozhou yin zi dian. (New Chaozhou pronunciation dictionary) Shantou, China : Shantou da xue chu ban she. (林倫倫, 1997. 新編潮州音字典. 汕頭: 汕頭大學出版社)

Norman, Jerry. 2002. Chinese. Cambridge, England: CUP

Ramsey, S. Robert 1986. Languages of China. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press

See also


Chinese: spoken varieties  
Categories: Gan | Hakka | Hui | Jin | Mandarin | Min | Ping | Xiang | Wu | Cantonese
Danzhouhua | Shaozhou Tuhua
Subcategories of Min: Min Bei | Min Dong | Min Nan | Min Zhong | Puxian | Qiongwen | Shaojiang
Subcategories of Mandarin: Northeastern | Beijing | Ji-Lu | Jiao-Liao | Zhongyuan | Lan-Yin | Southwestern | Jianghuai | Dungan
Note: The above is only one classification scheme among many.
The categories in italics are not universally acknowledged to be independent categories.
Comprehensive list of Chinese dialects
Official spoken varieties: Standard Mandarin | Standard Cantonese
Historical phonology: Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Proto-Min | Proto-Mandarin | Haner
Chinese: written varieties
Official written varieties: Classical Chinese | Vernacular Chinese
Other varieties: Written Vernacular Cantonese 

















 





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