Features
Phonologically speaking, Hui is noted for its massive loss of codas, including -i, -u, and nasals:
| Character | Meaning | Hui of Tunxi | Wu of Shanghai | Huai(Jianghuai) of Hefei | Mandarin of Beijing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 燒 | burn | /ɕiɔ/ | /sɔ/ | /ʂɔ/ | /ʂɑu/ |
| 柴 | firewood | /sa/ | /za/ | /tʂʰɛ/ | /tʂʰai/ |
| 綫 | line | /siːɛ/ | /ɕi/ | /ɕĩ/ | /ɕiɛn/ |
| 張 | sheet | /tɕiau/ | /tsɑ̃/ | /tʂɑ̃/ | /tʂɑŋ/ |
| 網 | web | /mau/ | /mɑ̃/ | /wɑ̃/ | /wɑŋ/ |
| 檻 | threshold | /kʰɔ/ | /kʰɛ/ | /kʰã/ | /kʰan/ |
Many dialects of Hui have diphthongs with a higher, lengthened first part. For example, 話 ("speech") is /uːɜ/ in Xiuning County (Putonghua /xuɑ/), 園 ("yard") is /yːɛ/ in Xiuning County (Putonghua /yɛn/); 結 ("knot") is /tɕiːaʔ/ in Yi County (Putonghua /tɕiɛ/), 約 ("agreement") is /iːuʔ/ in Yi County (Putonghua /yɛ/). A few areas take this to extremes. For example, Likou in Qimen County 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 Tunxi dialect, there is 索 ("rope") /soːn/ < /soʔ/ + /-n/.
Read more about this topic: Huizhou Chinese
Famous quotes containing the word features:
“All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“However much we may differ in the choice of the measures which should guide the administration of the government, there can be but little doubt in the minds of those who are really friendly to the republican features of our system that one of its most important securities consists in the separation of the legislative and executive powers at the same time that each is acknowledged to be supreme, in the will of the people constitutionally expressed.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“The features of our face are hardly more than gestures which force of habit made permanent. Nature, like the destruction of Pompeii, like the metamorphosis of a nymph into a tree, has arrested us in an accustomed movement.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)