Distribution of Min Nan dialects. Longyan Min is in yellow.
The Longyan dialect or Longyanese[b] is a variety of Hokkien spoken in the urban city area of Eastern Longyan in Fujian Province, while Hakka is spoken in rural villages of Western Longyan. The Longyan Min people had settled in the region from Southern Fujian as early as the Tang dynasty (618–907). Due to its close proximity to rural Hakka villages, Longyan Min has some influence from Hakka albeit to a limited extent. The Longyan dialect has a limited degree of intelligibility with other Southern Min varieties. Today, Longyanese is predominantly spoken in Longyan's urban district Xinluo District while Zhangzhou Minnan is spoken in Zhangping City excluding Chishui and Shuangyang towns where Longyan Minnan is spoken. Hakka on the other hand is spoken in the non-urban rest of the rural areas of Longyan prefecture: Changting County, Liancheng County, Shanghang County, Wuping County, and Yongding District.[5]
Branner suggests that the Xinluo and Zhangping dialects should be grouped with the Datian dialect as a coastal Min group separate from both Southern Min and Eastern Min.[6]
However, he argues that the dialect of Wan'an township, in the northern part of Xinluo district, is a coastal Min variety separate from all of these.[7]
Phonology
The Longyan dialect has 14 initials, 65 rimes, and 8 tones.
The Longyan 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):
dark level, 334
light level, 11
dark rising, 21
light rising, 52
dark departing, 213
light departing, 55
dark entering, 5
light entering, 32
dark level, 334
remain unchanged
light level, 11
remain unchanged
dark rising, 21
remain unchanged
dark departing, 213
remain unchanged
light rising, 52
light level, 11
dark departing, 213
dark rising, 21
remain unchanged
dark rising, 21
light departing, 55
dark level, 334
remain unchanged
dark level, 334
dark entering, 5
dark level, 334
remain unchanged
dark level, 334
light entering, 32
dark rising, 21
Notes
↑Min is believed to have split from Old Chinese, rather than Middle Chinese like other varieties of Chinese.[2][3][4]
↑Mei, Tsu-lin (1970), "Tones and prosody in Middle Chinese and the origin of the rising tone", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 30: 86–110, doi:10.2307/2718766, JSTOR2718766
↑Branner, David Prager (1999). "The Classification of Longyan"(PDF). In Simmons, Richard VanNess (ed.). Issues in Chinese Dialect Description and Classification. Journal of Chinese Linguistics monograph series. Vol.15. pp.36–83. p. 78.
