Phonology
Hokkien has one of the most diverse phoneme inventories among Chinese languages, with more consonants than Standard Mandarin or Cantonese. Vowels are more or less similar to that of Standard Mandarin. Hokkien varieties retain many pronunciations that are no longer found in other Chinese dialects. These include the retention of the /t/ initial, which is now /tʂ/ (Pinyin 'zh') in Mandarin (e.g. 'bamboo' 竹 is tik, but zhú in Mandarin), having disappeared before the 6th century in other Chinese dialects.
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