Hui (linguistics)
- The Hui dialects are unrelated to the Hui 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 spoken Chinese. Its exact status is greatly disputed among linguists. Some prefer to classify it under Wu, others prefer to classify it under counties in southern Anhui, plus a few more in neighbouring Zhejiang and Jiangxi. Despite its small size, Hui displays more internal variation than any other division of Chinese except arguably Min. 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, there is plenty of dispute as to whether Hui is a language or a dialect. See here for the issues surrounding this dispute.
Dialects
Hui can be divided into five dialects:
- Jixi-Shexian, spoken in Jixi, Shexian, Huizhou, Jingde, and Ningguo, Anhui province, as well as Chun'an, Zhejiang province
- Xiuning-Yixian, spoken in Tunxi, Taiping, Xiuning, Yixian, and Qimen, as well as Wuyuan, Jiangxi province
- Qimen-Dexing, spoken in Qimen and Dongzhi, Anhui province, as well as Fuliang, Dexing, and Wuyuan, Jiangxi province
- Yanzhou, spoken in Chun'an and Jiande, Zhejiang province
- Jingde-Zhanda, spoken in Jingde, Qimen, Shitai, Yixian, and Ningguo, Anhui province
Features
Phonologically speaking, Hui is noted for its massive loss of codas, including -i, -u, and nasals:
| Character | Meaning | Hui of Tunxi | Mandarin of Beijing
|
| 燒 | burn | ɕiɔ | ʂɑu
|
| 柴 | firewood | sa | tʂʰai
|
| 綫 | line | siːɛ | ɕiɛn
|
| 張 | sheet | tɕiau | tʂɑŋ
|
| 網 | web | mau | wɑŋ
|
| 檻 | threshold | kʰɔ | kʰan
|
Many dialects of Hui have diphthongs with a higher, lengthened first part. For example, 話 "speech" is /uːɜ/ in Xiuning (Putonghua /xuɑ/), 園 "yard" is /yːɛ/ in Xiuning (Putonghua /yɛn/); 結 "knot" is /tɕiːaʔ/ in Yixian (Putonghua / tɕiɛ/), 約 "agreement" is /iːuʔ/ in Yixian (Putonghua /yɛ/). A few areas take this to extremes. For example, Likou, Qimen has /fũːmɛ̃/ for 飯 "rice" (Putonghua /fan/), with the /m/ appearing directly as a result of the lengthened, nasalized /ũː/.
Because nasal codas have mostly dropped off, Hui reuses the /-n/ ending as a diminutive. For example, in the Chinese: spoken varieties
|-
| align="right" style="font-size: 90%;" rowspan="2"|Subdivisions:
| align="left" style="font-size: 90%;" |Mandarin | Jin | Wu | Hui | Xiang | Gan | Hakka | Yue | Pinghua | Min
|-
| align="left" style="font-size: 90%;" |Dungan | Danzhouhua | Shaozhou Tuhua | Min:
| align="left" style="font-size: 90%;" |Min Dong | Min Bei | Min Zhong | Pu Xian | Min Nan | Qiong Wen | many.
|-
| align="right" style="font-size: 90%;"|Official spoken varieties:
| align="left" style="font-size: 90%;" |Putonghua (PRC) | Guoyu (ROC) | Cantonese (Hong Kong & Macau)
|-
| align="right" style="font-size: 90%;" |Historical phonology:
| align="left" style="font-size: 90%;" |Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Proto-Min | Proto-Mandarin | Haner
|-
| style="background:#FAFFCC" align="center" colspan="2"| Chinese: written varieties
|-
| align="right" style="font-size: 90%;" |Official written varieties:
| align="left" style="font-size: 90%;" |Classical Chinese | Vernacular Chinese
|}
