A Comparative Phonological Study Of Longyan Dialect

As a northern branch of South Min dialect, the formation of Longyan dialect can betraced back from earlier Tang Dynasty. Longyan had been subordinated to Zhangzhou from themiddle Tang to earlier Qing Dynasty. Longyan dialect is closely related with Zhangzhougeographically and historically. However, as a result of the barrier of high mountains, Longyanand Zhangzhou had been two administratively independent parts since Qing Dynasty.Additionally, because of the direct contact with the Hakka dialect and dialects in central Fujian,Longyan dialect has formed its distinctive linguistic features. From the perspective of historicalcomparative, and in accordance with the phonological system of mediaeval times, this paperinvestigates the similarities and differences of Longyan and Zhangzhou dialects through thecomparison of their tones, initials and finals.In tones, Longyan dialect differs from Zhangzhou dialect both in single words and tone sandhi.For instance, the voiced Qu tone becomes Yinping, the stableness of ping tones, theexclusiveness of the same low and high pitches; in initials, Longyan and Zhangzhou dialect sharethe common features of South Min dialect. Whereas there are certain differences fromZhangzhou dialect in ~*m and ~*mwj initials, and also in ~*tj initial group and ~*(?) initial; in finals,Longyan dialect and Zhangzhou dialect have common corresponding examples, but theydistinguish from each other in four basic areas: the disappearance of head vowels in ~*tj- and ~*t(?)-groups, the adding of vowels, the u-class finals being pronounced as a-class finals, and thedisappearing of glottal stops in ru-tones.There are 6 parts in this paper. The first chapter is a brief introduction to the initial, final andtone system of Longyan dialect, and also to the cultural and geographical environment ofLongyan. A tone comparison is made in the second chapter, including tones of single words andtone sandhi in di-tonal groups. And in the third chapter, the author compares the initials ofLongyan and Zhangzhou dialect. Final comparison is done in the fourth chapter, including thesame correspondence of ancient and modern times, differences of literally and orallypronunciation, focused on the four basic differences of the finals in the two dialects. The fifthchapter is a summary of the similarities and differences of Longyan and Zhangzhou dialects andthe affirmation of the phonetic features of Longyan dialect. And at last, it is the appendix in thesixth part.