Contents

Shaxian dialect

Shaxian dialect (Central Min: 沙縣事, Mandarin Chinese: 沙縣話) is a dialect of Central Min Chinese spoken in Sha County, Sanming in Western Fujian ProvinceofChina.

Shaxian dialect has 17 initials, 36 rimes and 6 tones.

Notes:

1. /tʃ/, /tʃʰ/, /ʃ/ only connected with round mouth rimes (撮口呼韻母);
2. /b/, /l/, /g/ cannot be connected with nasal vowel rimes;
3. /m/, /n/, /ŋ/ only connected with nasal vowel rimes.

Some rimes come in pairs in the above table, and they are closely related with the tones: the one to the left only exist in dark level (陰平), light level (陽平), light rising (陽上) and departing (去聲); while the other only exist in dark rising (陰上) and entering (入聲). It can be compared with close and open rimesofFuzhou dialect, Eastern Min.

The entering tones in Sanming dialect don't have any entering tone coda (入聲韻尾) such as /-ʔ/, /-p̚/, /-t̚/ and /-k̚/. It's quite different from many other Chinese dialects.

Shaxian 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 (the rows give the first syllable's original citation tone, while the columns give the citation tone of the second syllable):

Some rimes may change their pronunciation because they are closely related with the tones (see above).

• Compilation Commission of Chorography of Sha County 沙县地方志编纂委员会 (1992). Sha xian zhi 沙县志 ["Chorography of Sha County"]. Vol. 32. Beijing: Zhongguo kexue jishu chubanshe 中国科学技术出版社 ["China Science and Technology Press"]. ISBN 7-110-02307-9.