Teochew (dialect)

History and Geography

The modern teochew comes from the evolution of the old Minnan. Between 9th and 15th centuries, a group of population speaking the Minnan (閩南/闽南) migrated towards the South of Fujian, on the littoral part of the East of the province of Guangdong (廣東省/广东省), known today under the name of Chaoshan (潮汕). It is supposed that the cause of this emigration was a problem of overpopulation of Fujian.

Because of geographical insulation of the area, linguistic influence of the Cantonese then Hakka, the language changed and the dialect teochew was born.

Chaoshan was one of the principal hearths of emigration about the Southeast Asia between 18th and the 20th century. Thus in Thailand and with the Kampuchea, the teochew became the Chinese language mainly spoken. This displacement of population explains, partly, why the group min is currently one of the most important groups in term of speakers, and why the teochew is spoken in so many areas apart from Chaoshan.

The teochew is also spoken by some significant minorities with HongKong, with the Vietnam, in Malaysia, with Singapore and in Indonesia. One finds also speakers in Australia, in New Zealand, North America and Europe (the Chinese district of the XIII^e district of Paris shelters many speakers teochew), as well by direct emigration of Chaoshan as of Southeast Asia.

However, the teochew loses its popularity among the speakers of native tongue. In Singapore, due to the influence of the media and common culture, the young people prefer speech English, Mandarin or Hokkien. The language remains nevertheless the most spoken native tongue there, even if Mandarin takes this role gradually.

Phonology

The teochew, like all the Chinese languages, is monosyllabic and tonal, i.e. the unit of sound and direction is the Syllabe, with which a tone is associated. Moreover, the teochew applies a nasalisation for some of its rhymes.

Syllable

The Syllabe S consist of two different manners:

initial Consonant (attacks) + Rime
Rime only

There are 17 initial consonants different (声母/聲母). Here a table classifying these sounds by type, represented by the pronunciation API:

Let us note that the initial ones, and are marked and by certain speakers.

The rhymes (韵母/韻母) are all made up of a median (or semivowel) and/or of a core, sometimes followed (E) (S) of a coded. Here thus how the table of the rhymes is presented:

The teochew preserved many Occlusive S finales lost in Mandarin which are the bilabial - B and - m, the velar - G and the Glottal stop - H.

With regard to the rhymes, it should be known that their pronunciation differs according to the areas. For a native speaker, this difference of accent is enough important to be able to distinguish from which the interlocutor comes but the dialog remains possible.
all the same One can compare that with the difference between the French of North of France, the South of France, the countries of overseas, certain countries of Africa, etc

Nasalisation

Many words are ''' nasalized ''' in teochew, i.e. the rhyme of the vowel is marked while making pass from the air in the nasal fossae.

In French , this phenomenon also exists. For example, the nasalisation of the sound (as in batch ) is the sound (as in its ).

Tons

The teochew comprises eight Your S. Contrairement to the Mandarin, the height of the voice account as well as the melody .

To characterize them, one has recourse to a pallet of sounds, graduated from 1 to 5,1 correspondent with the most serious sound, 5 with the sound more aigu.
Let us tons are then represented by two digits : the first symbolizes the height of the voice in beginning of syllable and the fine second in of syllable . For example, the first tone corresponds to an acute pronunciation of the syllable, the second tone with a pronunciation active of acute towards the low register, etc

The fourth and eighth let us tons are reserved for the syllables finishing itself by the sounds, and. Indeed, their ends of syllable are coded consonant and cannot be associated with a height with voice, this is why they are noted by only one figure .
Here the list of let us tons in teochew:

Your 1: 33 (陰平 its medium)
Your 2: 52 (陰上 its energy of acute towards the low register)
Your 3: 12 (陰去 its on the basis of the low register and going slightly towards the acute one)
Your 4: 1 (陰入 its serious not prolonged)
Your 5: 55 (陽平 its acute)
Your 6: 35 (陽上 its energy of the medium towards the acute one)
Your 7: 11 (陽去 its low register)
Your 8: 5 (陽入 its acute not prolonged)

It should be added that these tons are prone to the tonal Sandhi, which wants to say that they change if they are followed of a mot. These changes follow the rules below:

Your 1 => Your 1
Your 2 => Your 6
Your 3 => Your 2 or your 5
Your 4 => Your 8
Your 5 => Your 7
Your 6 => Your 7
Your 7 => Your 7
Your 8 => Your 4

Let us take an example: the figure a " 蜀 " ( zek⁸ ) is eighth tone whereas in the word hundred " 蜀百 " ( zek⁴-beh⁷ ), " 蜀 " is followed of another word (百), it thus becomes a word of the fourth tone .

Romanisation

detailed Article: Peng'im

The program of romanisation of the teochew (潮州话拼音方案), also called Peng' im (拼音), created in September 1960 by the Department of the Education of the province of Guangdong , is the system of romanisation dedicated to the teochew. The standard followed for its development was the pronunciation of the prefecture of Shantou (汕頭/汕头 suan¹tao⁵ ). This system transcribes the sounds of the language by the Latin alphabet and let us tons them by figures put in exhibitor .

Vocabulary

Like all the other Chinese languages, the vocabulary of the teochew comes primarily from the medieval Chinese , itself resulting from the antiquated Chinese . The origin of the majority of the words is thus the same one as that of the other Chinese languages; however, a considerable number of terms in teochew differs with some from these dialects.

For example, in teochew, the word “eye” decides mag , and is written 目. In Mandarin, one will prefer to say yanjing , which is written 眼睛, although the character 目 driven exists well in this language and means the same thing, it is only much less employé.
À to note that characters composing the word " 眼睛 " have both the radical of the eye " 目 ".

Grammar

The grammar of the teochew is rather similar to those of the languages Minnan and the Cantonese, following their former influences.

For the active forms, the structure of sentence SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) is very much used, as well as the structure SOV (the latter is rather used to emphasize the object).

Being a insulating Language, there exists neither variation, nor Conjugaison, the words are invariable.

For the use of the adjectives, one can note that they can be only antéposés compared to the name (example: 红车 ang⁵chia¹ a red conveys). The placed after adjectival forms are in truth of the attributive forms (example: 只个花园雅 zi ² gai⁵huê¹heng⁵ngia ² this garden (is) pretty). One can very often see appearing with the oral examination in this case, a form suitable for the teochew which rests on the redoubling of the adjective, and of which the required effect is an insistence on the " thing qualifiante" , for example: with an effect of gradation, " a small-petite" mouse; mean small, very small mouse; with an effect of exclusiveness " a cat black-noir" mean cat black, completely black, without obligatorily integrating a rise in the intensity in the color.

This phenomenon of redoubling is also present in adverbial forms: " I return vite-vite to the maison" or " I vite-vite rentre" mean thus I come quickly completely quickly to the house;

and in the verbal forms: " he speaks to play-jouer" with an effect of attenuation, by light joke " I will go-marcher" I will make a turn, I will revive myself the legs " this dog is death-mort" this dog is dying, but is not it yet; -)

(part on the adjective to be corrected and supplement)

Writing and orthography

The teochew is transcribed using the Chinese characters.

The near total of the characters used is found in the other languages but there exist characters created by the teochew and which are not present in the data-processing character set GB2312, nor in the Unicode.

If one compares with Mandarin, certain characters are not used in teochew which employs others with the place.
of them For example, 你 nor (pronoun “you”) in Mandarin is uncommon in teochew which uses 汝 the in the place. In the same way, the expression 什么 shenme (pronoun “what, which”) becomes 乜个 mihgai in teochew.

Chinese Languages
Minnan
Peng' im
Town of Chaozhou

External bonds

GagiNang cultural gate Chaozhou
Omniglot a page comprising various interesting bonds.

Zh-min-nan: Tiô-chiu-oē Zh-yue: 潮州話

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