Shaxian dialect (Central Min: 沙縣事, Mandarin Chinese: 沙縣話) is a dialect of Central Min Chinese spoken in Sha County, Sanming in Western Fujian Province of China.
Phonology Shaxian dialect has 17 initials, 36 rimes and 6 tones.
Initials BilabialAlveolarPostalveolarVelarVoicelessVoicedVoicelessVoicedVoicelessVoicedVoicelessVoicedNasal ()罵慢 ()鈴南 ()雅眼StopTenuis布婆母毛 東大 哥間 蟻額Aspirated普抱 通頭 溪欠 AffricateTenuis 酒曹朱足 Aspirated ʦʰ秋春 出穿 Fricative 心沙 水船 好興 Lateral 納力 Zero consonant zero consonant影黃 Notes: , , only connected with round mouth rimes (); , , cannot be connected with nasal vowel rimes; , , only connected with nasal vowel rimes.
Rimes / 資 / 子 / 西 / 死 / 故 / 古 / 居 / 舉 / 抽 / 丑 / 追 / 嘴 / 威 / 偉 / 波 / 保 / 腰 / 約 / 排/八 / 吹 / 血 家 遮 瓜 蟻 猜 乖 交 曉 光 講 望 心 英 永 風 鍾 廠 / 仙 / 險 / 翻/粉 / 根 / 卷 爭 驚 燈 Some rimes come in pairs in the above table, and they are closely related with the tones: the one to the left only exist in dark level (), light level (), light rising () and departing (); while the other only exist in dark rising () and entering (). It can be compared with close and open rimes of Fuzhou dialect, Eastern Min.
Tones No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Tone name dark level陰平 light level陽平 dark rising陰上 light rising陽上 departing去聲 entering入聲 Tone contour 33 31 21 53 24 212 Example Hanzi 詩 南 始 是 四 失 The entering tones in Sanming dialect don't have any entering tone coda () such as , , and . It's quite different from many other Chinese dialects.
Tone sandhi Shaxian 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 level33light level31dark rising21light rising53departing24entering212dark level3344light level3133dark rising2155light rising53dark rising (21)departing24dark rising (21)44dark rising (21)entering2124 Some rimes may change their pronunciation because they are closely related with the tones (see above).
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