Native to Southern China Glottolog None | Region Wenchang, Hainan Linguasphere 79-AAA-kd | |
Language family Sino-Tibetan
Chinese
Min
Hainanese
Wenchang dialect | ||
Wenchang dialect (simplified Chinese: 文昌话; traditional Chinese: 文昌話; pinyin: Wénchāng huà) is a dialect of Hainanese which spoken in Wenchang, a county-level city in the northeast of Hainan, an island province in southern China. It is considered the prestige form of Hainanese, and is used by the provincial broadcasting media.
Phonology
The initials of the Wenchang dialect are:
The semivowels [w] and [j] are in complementary distribution with [ɦ], and may be treated as allophones of the same phoneme. The voiced stops /d/ and /g/ occur with only about ten words each.
There are five vowels, /i/, /u/, /e/, /o/ and /a/. The high vowels /i/ and /u/ may also occur as medials.
The possible finals are:
There are also two syllabic nasals, /m̩/ and /ŋ̍/, which occur in a total of three words.
Wenchang dialect has six tones on isolated syllabes: