Fangcheng Yue Dialect Explained

Fangcheng Yue
Nativename:	防城白話
States:	China, Vietnam
Region:	Fangchenggang/Fongsinggong, Mong Cai
Speakers:	?
Familycolor:	Sino-Tibetan
Fam2:	Sinitic
Fam3:	Yue/Jyut
Fam4:	Qin-Lian Yue/Hamlim Jyut
Isoexception:	dialect

The Fangcheng dialect (; local Jyutping: Fong⁴sing⁴ baak⁴waa⁴; IPA: pronounced as /[fɔŋ˩˨ ɕeɪŋ˩˨ pak̚˨ ʋa˩˨]/,) also rendered Fongsing Jyut dialect, is a dialect of Yue (Cantonese), spoken in the southern area closer to the sea of former Fangcheng County(防城縣), which was divided present-day Dongxing City(東興市), Fangcheng District(防城區) and Gangkou District(港口區).

As a variety of Cantonese, it is intelligible with Guangzhou Cantonese.

Due to the policy on the promotion of Putonghua and the influx of foreign population who doesn't speak Yue Chinese, the level of dialect use among local young people is declining.

Phonology

Initials

Except for most of the consonants that are the same as in Standard Cantonese, there are also several other consonants in Fangcheng Yue Dialect. The extended Jyutping(Jyut++) will be used to transcribe the phonemes as follows.

! rowspan="2"

Labial	Dental		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
Normal				Labialized
Nasal		/pronounced as /link//	/pronounced as /link//		[{{IPA link|ɲ}}]	/pronounced as /link//
Plosive		/pronounced as /link//	/pronounced as /link//			/pronounced as /link//	/pronounced as /link//	(pronounced as /link/)
		/pronounced as /link//	/pronounced as /link//			/pronounced as /link//	/pronounced as /link//
Affricate					/pronounced as /link//
					/pronounced as /link//
Fricative		/pronounced as /link//			/pronounced as /link//			/pronounced as /link//
Approximant		/pronounced as /link//	/pronounced as /link//	/pronounced as /link//	/pronounced as /link//

Rimes

Fangcheng Yue has six vowels, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, and pronounced as /link/.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	/pronounced as /link//		/pronounced as /link//
Mid	/pronounced as /link//	/pronounced as /link//	/pronounced as /link//
Open		/pronounced as /link//

And two diphthongs only exist before -ŋ and -k, each pair of sounds of theirs has almost equal weight respectively, which do not lend themselves to analysis as ending analyzed to ending as -j or -w phonemely.

• pronounced as //e͡ɐ//
• pronounced as //ø͡ɔ// Some speakers pronounce pronounced as //ø͡ɔ// as pronounced as //e͡ɐ//, just like the younger speakers of neighboring Qinzhou Dialect.

Finals

Moreover, Fangcheng Yue finals exhibit the final consonants found in Middle Chinese, namely pronounced as /[m, n, ŋ, p, t, k]/. Which are romanized as m, n, ng, p, t, and k respectively.

nucleus! rowspan="2"

note	coda
-∅	pronounced as /-i/	pronounced as /-u/	pronounced as /-m/	pronounced as /-n/	pronounced as /-ŋ/	pronounced as /-p/	pronounced as /-t/	pronounced as /-k/
rowspan="3"	-a-	IPA	pronounced as /a/	pronounced as /ai/	pronounced as /au/	pronounced as /am/	pronounced as /an/	pronounced as /aŋ/	pronounced as /ap/	pronounced as /at/	pronounced as /ak/
e.g.	花 faa^1	買 maai^2	鬧 naau^4	藍 laam^4	山 saan^1	冷 laang^2	鴨 aap^3	襪 maat^4	白 baak^4
meaning	flower	to buy	to scold	blue	mountain	cold	duck	sock	white
rowspan="3"	-ɛ-	IPA	ɛ		ɛu	ɛm	pronounced as /ɛn/	e͡ɐŋ	pronounced as /ɛp/	pronounced as /ɛt/	e͡ɐk
e.g.	車 ce^1		貓 meu^1	鉗 kem^4	剪 zen^2	贏 jeng^4	碟 dep^4	裂 let^3	赤 cek^3
meaning	car		cat	plicer	to cut(use scissors)	to win	(small)dish	to split	red
rowspan="3"	-ø͡ɔ-	IPA							ø͡ɔŋ	ø͡ɔt	ø͡ɔk
e.g.							梁 loeng^4	噦 oet^4	脚 goek^3
meaning							lintel; a surname Leung, Liang etc.	yuck(an onomatopoeia for vomiting)	foot
-i-	∅-	pronounced as /i/		pronounced as /iu/	pronounced as /im/	pronounced as /in/	eɪŋ	pronounced as /ip/	it	eɪk
Syllabics							pronounced as /ŋ̩/

Tone

Fangcheng Yue dialect has 6 or 7 tones.

Name	Tone contour	Description	Example	Number	five-scale IPA
Yin-level (jam^1-ping^4 Chinese: 陰平)	pronounced as /˦˥/	high rising	Chinese: 衣	1	45
Rising tone (soeng^2-seng^1 Chinese: 上聲)	pronounced as /˩˧/	middle level	Chinese: 子	2	13
Yin-departing (jam^1-hi^3 Chinese: 陰去)	pronounced as /˧˧/	middle level	Chinese: 貢	3	21
Upper Yin-entering (soeng^4-jam^1-jap^4 Chinese: 上陰入)	pronounced as /˥/	high stopped	Chinese: 谷	1	5
Lower Yin-entering (haa^4-jam^1-jap^4 Chinese: 下陰入)	pronounced as /˧/	middle stopped	Chinese: 百	3	3
Yang-level (joeng^4-ping^4 Chinese: 陽平)	pronounced as /˩˨/	low falling	Chinese: 群	4	21
Yang-entering (joeng^4-jap^4 Chinese: 陽入)	pronounced as /˨/	low stopped	Chinese: 物	4	2
High rising (gau^1-gong^3-diu^4 Chinese: 高降調)	˥˧	high rising	Chinese: 乜	`53	53

References

施. 日梅. 广西防城区粤语音系. 2009. Journal of Baise University.