View Shopping Cart Your Famous Chinese Account Shopping Help Famous Chinese Homepage China Chinese Chinese Culture Chinese Restaurant & Chinese Food Travel to China Chinese Economy & Chinese Trade Chinese Medicine & Chinese Herb Chinese Art
logo
Search
March 8, 2014
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
Hui (linguistics)

Wikipedia

 
: The Hui (徽) dialects are unrelated to the Hui (回) ethnic group of China.

Hui, or Hui-yu (Simplified Chinese: 徽语; Traditional Chinese: 徽語; Hanyu Pinyin: Huīyǔ), or Huizhou-hua (Simplified Chinese: 徽州话; Traditional Chinese: 徽州話; Hanyu Pinyin: Huīzhōuhuà), is a subdivision of Chinese spoken language|spoken Chinese. Its exact status is greatly disputed among linguists. Some prefer to classify it under Wu (linguistics)|Wu, others prefer to classify it under Gan (linguistics)|Gan, still others set it apart as an independent branch.

Hui is spoken over a small area compared to other Chinese varieties: about ten or so mountainous county of China|counties in southern Anhui, plus a few more in neighbouring Zhejiang and Jiangxi. Despite its small size, Hui displays a very high degree of internal variation. Nearly every county has its own distinct dialect unintelligible to a speaker a few counties away. It is for this reason that bilingualism and multilingualism are common among speakers of Hui.

Like all other varieties of Chinese language|Chinese, there is plenty of dispute as to whether Hui is a language or a dialect. See Chinese_language#Is_Chinese_a_Language_or_a_Family_of_Languages?|here for the issues surrounding this dispute.

language|name=Hui|nativename=徽语
|familycolor=tomato
|states=China
|region=southern Anhui, neighbouring portions of Zhejiang and Jiangxi, about 12 counties in total
|speakers=3.2 million|rank=Not in top 100
|family=Sino-Tibetan

 Chinese language|Chinese

  Hui
|nation=-
|agency=-
|iso1=zh|iso2=chi (B) / zho (T)|sil=CZH




Hui can be divided into five dialects:

  • Jixi-Shexian, spoken in Jixi County|Jixi, She County, Anhui|She County, Huizhou District|Huizhou, Jingde County|Jingde, and Ningguo, Anhui province, as well as Chun'an County|Chun'an, Zhejiang province

  • Xiuning-Yixian, spoken in Tunxi District|Tunxi, Huangshan District|Taiping, Xiuning County|Xiuning, Yi County, Anhui|Yi County, and Qimen County|Qimen, as well as Wuyuan County|Wuyuan, Jiangxi province

  • Qimen-Dexing, spoken in Qimen County|Qimen and Dongzhi County|Dongzhi, Anhui province, as well as Fuliang County|Fuliang, Dexing, and Wuyuan County|Wuyuan, Jiangxi province

  • Yanzhou, spoken in Chun'an County|Chun'an and Jiande, Zhejiang province

  • Jingde-Zhanda, spoken in Jingde County|Jingde, Qimen County|Qimen, Shitai County|Shitai, Yi County, Anhui|Yi County, and Ningguo, Anhui province





Phonologically speaking, Hui is noted for its massive loss of coda (linguistics)|codas, including -i, -u, and nasal consonant|nasals
Character !! Meaning !! Hui of Tunxi District|Tunxi !! Mandarin of Beijing
burn ɕiɔ ʂɑu
firewood sa tʂʰai
line siːɛ ɕiɛn
sheet tɕiau tʂɑŋ
web mau wɑŋ
threshold kʰɔ kʰan

Many dialects of Hui have diphthongs with a high vowel|higher, lengthened first part. For example, 話 "speech" is /uːɜ/ in Xiuning County (Putonghua /xuɑ/), 園 "yard" is /yːɛ/ in Xiuning County (Putonghua /yɛn/); 結 "knot" is /tɕiːaʔ/ in Yi County, Anhui|Yi County (Putonghua / tɕiɛ/), 約 "agreement" is /iːuʔ/ in Yi County, Anhui|Yi County (Putonghua /yɛ/). A few areas take this to extremes. For example, Likou in Qimen County has /fũːmɛ̃/ for 飯 "rice" (Putonghua /fan/), with the /m/ appearing directly as a result of the lengthened, nasalization|nasalized /ũː/.

Because nasal consonant|nasal coda (linguistics)|codas have mostly dropped off, Hui reuses the /-n/ ending as a diminutive. For example, in the Tunxi dialect, there is 索 "rope" /soːn/ < /soʔ/ + /-n/.

Chinese language

Category:Chinese language

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Hui (linguistics)".


Last Modified:   2005-02-27


Search
All informatin on the site is © FamousChinese.com 2002-2005. Last revised: January 2, 2004
Are you interested in our site or/and want to use our information? please read how to contact us and our copyrights.
To post your business in our web site? please click here. To send any comments to us, please use the Feedback.
To let us provide you with high quality information, you can help us by making a more or less donation: