Southern Hokkien Quanzhou–Zhangzhou
泉漳閩語 Zuán–Ziāng Bbán'ggǔ 福佬話 Hō-ló-oē/Hô-ló-uē
Spoken in	People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, United States, and other areas of Hoklo settlement
Region	Southern Fujian province, Taiwan, Southeast Asia
Ethnicity	Hoklo (Han Chinese)
Native speakers	c. 47.3 million[1]  (2009)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Chinese Min Coastal Min Min Nan Southern Hokkien Quanzhou–Zhangzhou
Official status
Official language in	None (one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the Republic of China[2])
Regulated by	None
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Linguist List	nan-hok
	nan-fuj (redundant)
	nan-fuk (redundant)
Distribution of Minnan dialects. Hokkien is dark green.
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

 Hokkien (help·info) (traditional Chinese: 福佬話; simplified Chinese: 福佬话; pinyin: Fúlǎohuà; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Hō-ló-oē) or Quanzhou–Zhangzhou (BP: Zuánziū–Ziāngziū) is a group of mutually intelligible Min Nan Chinese dialects spoken by many overseas Chinese throughout Southeast Asia. Its originated from the same dialect in southern Fujian and is mutually intelligible with the Hokkien in Taiwan. It is closely related to Teochew, though mutual comprehension is difficult, and somewhat more distantly related to Hainanese. The Amoy and Taiwanese prestige dialect (based on Tainan variant^[3]) are considered standards.

Names[link]

The term Hokkien is itself a term not used in Chinese as it would be no different than the name of Fujian province. In Chinese linguistics, these dialects are known by their classification under the Quanzhang Division (Chinese: 泉漳片; pinyin: Quánzhāng piàn) of Min Nan, which comes from the first characters of the two main Hokkien urban centers Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. The language is also known by other terms such as the more general Min Nan (traditional Chinese: 閩南語, 閩南話; simplified Chinese: 闽南语, 闽南话; pinyin: Mǐnnányǔ, Mǐnnánhuà; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Bân-lâm-gí,Bân-lâm-oē) or Southern Min, and Fulaohua (traditional Chinese: 福佬話; simplified Chinese: 福佬话; pinyin: Fúlǎohuà; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Hō-ló-oē).

Geographic distribution[link]

Hokkien originated in the Southern region of Fujian province, an important centre for trade and migration, and has since been spread beyond China, being one of the most common Chinese languages overseas.

A form of Hokkien akin to that spoken in southern Fujian is also spoken in Taiwan, where it goes by the name Tâi-oân-oē or Hō-ló-oē. The ethnic group for which Hokkien is considered the native language is the Holo or Hoklo, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo people have limited proficiency in Hokkien while some non-Hoklos are fluent in the dialect.

There are many Hokkien speakers among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia as well as in the United States. Many ethnic Chinese emigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian, and brought the language to what is now Burma (Myanmar), Indonesia (the former Dutch East Indies) and present day Malaysia and Singapore (formerly Malaya and the British Straits Settlements). Many of the Hokkien dialects of this region are highly similar to Taiwanese and Amoy. Hokkien is reportedly the native language of up to 98.5% of the Chinese Filipino in the Philippines, among which is known locally as Lan-nang or Lán-lâng-oē ("Our people’s language"). Hokkien speakers form the largest group of Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.^{[citation needed]}

Classification[link]

Southern Fujian is home to three main Hokkien dialects. They are known by the geographic locations to which they correspond (listed north to south):

• Zuánziū (Chinchew / Quanzhou) (泉州)
• Êbbńg (Amoy / Xiamen) (廈門)
• Ziāngziū (Changchew / Zhangzhou) (漳州)

Since Amoy is the principal city of southern Fujian, its dialect is considered the most important, or even prestige accent. The Amoy dialect is a hybrid of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects. Amoy and the Amoy dialect have played an influential role in history, especially in the relations of Western nations with China, and was one of the most frequently learnt of all Chinese languages/dialects by Westerners during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century.

The variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants, and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Taiwanese is used by a majority of the population and bears much importance from a socio-political perspective, forming the second (and perhaps today most significant) major pole of the language. The variants of Hokkien in Southeast Asia, including Singaporean Hokkien, also originate from these variants.

History[link]

Variants of Hokkien dialects can be traced to two sources of origin: Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. Both Amoy and Taiwanese are based on a mixture of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, while the rest of the Hokkien dialects spoken in South East Asia are either derived from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, or based on a mixture of both dialects.

Quanzhou[link]

During the Three Kingdoms period of ancient China, there was constant warfare occurring in the Central Plain of China. Northerners began to enter into Fujian region, causing the region to incorporate parts of northern Chinese dialects. However, the massive migration of northern Han Chinese into Fujian region mainly occurred after the Disaster of Yongjia. The Jìn court fled from the north to the south, causing large numbers of northern Han Chinese to move into Fujian region. They brought the old Chinese — spoken in Central Plain of China from prehistoric era to 3rd century AD — into Fujian. This then gradually evolved into the Quanzhou dialect.

Zhangzhou[link]

In 677 (during the reign of Emperor Gaozong), Chen Zheng (陳政), together with his son Chen Yuanguang (陳元光), led a military expedition to pacify the rebellion in Fujian. They settled in Zhangzhou and brought the Middle Chinese phonology of northern China during the 7th century into Zhangzhou; In 885 AD (during the reign of Emperor Xizong of Tang), the two brothers Wang Chao (王潮) and Wang Shenzhi (王審知), led a military expedition force to pacify the Huang Chao rebellion. They brought the Middle Chinese phonology commonly spoken in Northern China into Zhangzhou. These two waves of migrations from the north generally brought the northern Middle Chinese languages into Fujian region. This then gradually evolved into the Zhangzhou dialect.

Xiamen[link]

Xiamen dialect, sometimes known as Amoy, is the main dialect spoken in the Chinese city of Xiamen and its surrounding regions of Tong'an and Xiang'an, both of which are now included in the Greater Xiamen area. This dialect developed in the late Ming dynasty when Xiamen was increasingly taking over Quanzhou's position as the main port of trade in southeastern China. Quanzhou traders began travelling southwards to Xiamen to carry on their businesses while Zhangzhou peasants began traveling northwards to Xiamen in search of job opportunities. It is at this time when a need for a common language arose. The Quanzhou and Zhangzhou varieties are similar in many ways (as can be seen from the common place of Henan Luoyang where they originated), but due to differences in accents, communication can be a problem. Quanzhou businessmen considered their speech to be the prestige accent and considered Zhangzhou's to be a village dialect. Over the centuries, dialect leveling occurred and the two speeches mixed to produce the Amoy dialect.

Hokkien linguistics classics[link]

Chinese scholars of late Ming and Qing had systematically studied the Hokkien dialects of those times and compiled a number of Chinese linguistics books about Hokkien. These include The Phonology of Quanzhou speech (彙音妙悟) by Huang Qian (黃謙), The Phonology of common Zhangzhou speech (彙集雅俗通十五音) by Xie Xiulan (謝秀嵐) etc.

Phonology[link]

Hokkien has one of the most diverse phonologies among Chinese languages, with more consonants than Standard Mandarin or Cantonese. Vowels are more or less similar to that of standard Mandarin. Hokkien dialects 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 sixth century in other Chinese dialects.^[4]

Initials[link]

Southern Min has aspirated, unaspirated as well as voiced consonant initials. This distinction makes Southern Min one of the harder dialects for non-native speakers to learn. For example, the words for opening and closing (khui (開) vs. kuiⁿ (關)) a door have the same vowel but differ only by aspiration of the initial and nasality of the vowel. In addition, Southern Min also has labial initial consonants such as m in m̄-sī (毋是) (meaning "is not").

Another example from Taiwanese is "boy" (cha-po·-kiáⁿ, 查埔囝) vs. "girl" (cha-bó·-kiáⁿ, 查某囝), which differ in the second syllable in consonant voicing and in tone.

Finals[link]

Unlike Mandarin, Southern Min retains all the final consonants of Middle Chinese. While Mandarin only preserves the n and ŋ finals, Southern Min also preserves the m, p, t and k finals and developed the ʔ (glottal stop).

Vowels[link]

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close	i (y) ɨ u       e o (ɤ) ə ɛ ɔ ɐ a
Near‑close
Close‑mid
Mid
Open‑mid
Near‑open
Open

Tones[link]

In general, Hokkien dialects have 7 to 9 tones, and tone sandhi is extensive.^[5] There are minor variations between the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou tone systems. Taiwanese tones follow the patterns of Amoy or Quanzhou, depending on the area of Taiwan. Both Amoy and Taiwanese Hokkien typically has 7 tones; the 9th tone is used only in special or foreign loan words. Quanzhou is the only Hokkien dialect with 8 tones, of which 6th tone is present.^[6]

Comparison[link]

The Amoy dialect (Xiamen) is a hybrid of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects. Taiwanese is also a hybrid of these two dialects. Taiwanese in northern Taiwan tends to be based on the Quanzhou variety, whereas the Taiwanese spoken in southern Taiwan tends to be based on Zhangzhou's. There are minor variations in pronunciation and vocabulary between Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects. The grammar is generally the same. Additionally, Taiwanese includes several dozen loanwords from Japanese as well as Taiwanese aboriginal languages. On the other hand, the variants spoken in Singapore and Malaysia have a substantial number of loanwords from Malay and to a lesser extent, from English and other Chinese dialects such as the closely related Teochew and some Cantonese.

Mutual intelligibility[link]

The Quanzhou dialect, Xiamen dialect, Zhangzhou dialect, Taiwanese, Penang Hokkien, Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien and Singaporean Hokkien are mutually intelligible.

The Min Nan varieties of Teochew and Amoy are 84% phonetically similar^[7] and 34% lexically similar,^[8] whereas Mandarin and Amoy Min Nan are 62% phonetically similar^[7] and 15% lexically similar.^[8] In comparison, German and English are 60% lexically similar.^[9]

Grammar[link]

Hokkien dialects are analytic; in a sentence, the arrangement of words is important to its meaning.^[10] A basic sentence follows the subject–verb–object pattern (i.e. a subject is followed by a verb then by an object), though this order is often violated because Hokkien dialects are topic-prominent. Unlike synthetic languages, seldom do words indicate time, gender and plural by inflection. Instead, these concepts are expressed through adverbs, aspect markers, and grammatical particles, or are deduced from the context. Different particles are added to a sentence to further specify its status or intonation.

A verb itself indicates no grammatical tense. The time can be explicitly shown with time-indicating adverbs. Certain exceptions exist, however, according to the pragmatic interpretation of a verb's meaning. Additionally, an optional aspect particle can be appended to a verb to indicate the state of an action. Appending interrogative or exclamative particles to a sentence turns a statement into a question or shows the attitudes of the speaker.

Hokkien dialects preserve certain grammatical reflexes and patterns reminiscent of the broad stage of Archaic Chinese. This includes the serialization of verb phrases (direct linkage of verbs and verb phrases) and the infrequency of nominalization, both similar to Archaic Chinese grammar.^[11]

你(Lí) 去(khì) 買(bé) 有(ū) 錶仔(pió-á) 無(bo)？

You-go-buy-have watch-no (Gloss)

"Did you go to buy a watch?"

Choice of grammatical function words also varies significantly among the Hokkien dialects. For instance, 乞 khit (denoting the causative, passive or dative) is retained in Jinjiang (also unique to the Jinjiang dialect is 度 thoo) and Jieyang, but not in Longxi and Xiamen, whose dialects use 互 (hoo) instead.^[12]

Pronouns[link]

Hokkien dialects differ in their preferred choice of pronouns. For instance, while the second person pronoun lí (你) is standard in Taiwanese Hokkien, the Teochew loanword lú (汝) is more common among Hokkien-speaking communities in Southeast Asia. The plural personal pronouns tend to be nasalized forms of the singular ones. Personal pronouns found in the Hokkien dialects are listed below:

¹ Inclusive

² Exclusive

³ 儂 (-lâng) is typically suffixed in Southeast Asian Hokkien dialects

Possessive pronouns are marked by the particle ê (的), or its literary version chi (之). Plural pronouns are typically unmarked (the nasalized final serves as the possessive indicator):^[13]

阮(góan) 翁(ang) 姓(sèⁿ) 陳(Tân)。

"My husband's surname is Tan."

Reflexive pronouns are made by appending the pronouns ka-kī, ka-tī (家己) or chū-kí (自己).

Hokkien dialects use a variety of differing demonstrative pronouns, which are as follows:

• this - che (這, 即), chit-ê (這個, 即個)
• that - he (許, 彼), hit-ê (彼個)
• here - chia (者), hia/hiâ (遮, 遐), chit-tau 這兜)
• there - hia (許, 遐), hit-tau (彼兜)

The interrogative pronouns are:

• what - siáⁿ-mih (啥物), sīm-mi̍h (甚麼)
• when - tī-sî (底時), kī-sî (幾時), tang-sî (當時), sīm-mi̍h-sî-chūn (甚麼時陣)
• where - to-lo̍h (倒落), tó-uī (佗位, 叨位)
• who - siáⁿ-lâng (啥人) or siáⁿ (啥)
• why - án-chóaⁿ (按怎), khah (盍)
• how - án-chóaⁿ (按怎) lû-hô (如何) chóaⁿ-iūⁿ (怎樣)

Copula ("to be")[link]

States and qualities are generally expressed using stative verbs that do not require the verb "to be":

我(goá) 腹肚(pak-tó͘) 枵(iau)。

"I am hungry." (lit. I-stomach-hungry)

With noun complements, the verb sī (是) serves as the verb "to be".

昨昏(cha-hng) 是(sī) 八月節(peh-go̍eh-cheh)。

"Yesterday was the Mid-Autumn festival."

To indicate location, the words tī (佇) tiàm (踮), teh/leh (咧), which are collectively known as the locatives or sometimes coverbs in Chinese linguistics, are used to express "(to be) at":

我(goá) 踮(tiàm) 遮(chia) 等(tán) 你(lí)。

"I am here waiting for you."

伊(i) 這馬(chit-má) 佇(tī) 厝(chhù) 裡(lí) 咧(teh) 睏(khùn)。

"He's sleeping at home now."

Negation[link]

Hokkien dialects have a variety of negation particles that are prefixed or affixed to the verbs they modify. There are five primary negation particles in Hokkien dialects:

1. m̄ (毋, 呣, 唔)
2. bē, bōe (袂, 未)
3. mài (莫, 勿)
4. bô (無)
5. put (不) - literary

Other negative particles include:

1. biàu (嫑) - a contraction of bô iàu (無要), as in biàu-kín (嫑緊)
2. bàng (甭)
3. bián (免)
4. thài (汰)

The particles m̄ (毋, 呣, 唔) is general and can negate almost any verb:

伊(i) 毋(m̄) 捌(bat) 字(jī)。

"He cannot read." (lit. he-not-read-word)

The particle mài (莫, 勿), a concatenation of m-ài (毋愛) is used to negate imperative commands:

莫(mài) 講(kóng)!

"Don't speak!"

The particle bô (無) indicates the past tense:

伊(i) 無(bô) 食(chia̍h)。

"He did not eat."

The verb 'to have', ū (有) is replaced by bô (無) when negated (not 無有):

伊(i) 無(bô) 錢(chîⁿ)。

"He does not have any money."

The particle put (不) is used infrequently, mostly found in literary compounds and phrases:

伊(i) 真(chin) 不孝(put-hàu)。

"He is truly unfilial."

Vocabulary[link]

The majority of Hokkien vocabulary is monosyllabic.^[14] Many Hokkien words have cognates in other Chinese languages. That said, there are also many indigenous words that are unique to Hokkien and are not potentially of Sino-Tibetan origin, while others are shared by all the Min languages (e.g. 'congee' is 糜 mê, bôe, bê, not 粥 zhōu, as in other dialects).

As compared to Standard Chinese (Mandarin), Hokkien dialects prefer the usage the monosyllabic form of words, without suffixes. For instance, the Mandarin noun suffix 子 (zi) is not found in Hokkien words, while another noun suffix, 仔 (á) is used in many nouns. Examples are below:

• 'duck' - 鸭 ah or 鴨仔 ah-á (SC: 鸭子 yāzi)
• 'color' - 色 sek (SC: 顏色 yán sè)

In other bisyllabic morphemes, the syllables are inverted, as compared to Standard Chinese. Examples include the following:

• 'guest' - 人客 lâng-kheh (SC: 客人 kèrén)
• 'to like' - 歡喜 hoaⁿ-hí (SC: 喜歡 xǐhuan)

In other cases, the same word can have different meanings in Hokkien and standard written Chinese. Similarly, depending on the region Hokkien is spoken in, loanwords from local languages (Malay, Tagalog, Burmese, among others), as well as other Chinese dialects (such as Southern Chinese dialects like Cantonese and Teochew), are commonly integrated into the vocabulary of Hokkien dialects.

Literary and colloquial readings[link]

The existence of literary and colloquial readings (文白異讀), called tha̍k-im (讀音), is a prominent feature of some Hokkien dialects and indeed in many Sinitic varieties in the south. The bulk of literary readings (文讀, bûn-tha̍k), based on pronunciations of the vernacular during the Tang dynasty, are mainly used in formal phrases and written language (e.g. philosophical concepts, surnames, and some place names), while the colloquial (or vernacular) ones (白讀, pe̍h-tha̍k) are basically used in spoken language and vulgar phrases. Literary readings are more similar to the pronunciations of the Tang standard of Middle Chinese than their colloquial equivalents.

However, some dialects of Hokkien, such as Penang Hokkien as well as Philippine Hokkien (Lan-lang-oe) overwhelmingly favor colloquial readings. For example, in both Penang Hokkien and Philippine Hokkien, the characters for 'university,' 大學, are pronounced toā-ȯh (colloquial readings for both characters), instead of the literary reading tāi-hȧk, which is common in Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese dialects.

The pronounced divergence between literary and colloquial pronunciations found in Hokkien dialects is attributed to the presence of several strata in the Min lexicon. The earliest, colloquial stratum is traced to the Han dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE); the second colloquial one comes from the period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420 - 589 CE); the third stratum of pronunciations (typically literary ones) comes from the Tang Dynasty and is based on the prestige dialect of Chang'an (modern day Xi'an), its capital.^[15]

Some commonly seen sound shifts (colloquial → literary) are as follows:

• p- ([p-], [pʰ-]) → h ([h-])
• ch-, chh- ([ts-], [tsʰ-], [tɕ-], [tɕʰ-]) → s ([s-], [ɕ-])
• k-, kh- ([k-], [kʰ-]) → ch ([tɕ-], [tɕʰ-])
• -ⁿ ([-ã], [-uã]) → n ([-an])
• -h ([-ʔ]) → t ([-t])
• i ([-i]) → e ([-e])
• e ([-e]) → a ([-a])
• ia ([-ia]) → i ([-i])

This table displays some widely used characters in Hokkien that have both literary and colloquial readings:

This feature extends to Chinese numerals, which have both literary and colloquial readings. Literary readings are typically used when the numerals are read out loud (e.g. phone numbers), while colloquial readings are used for counting items.^[16]

Semantic differences between Hokkien and Mandarin[link]

Quite a few words from the variety of Old Chinese spoken in the state of Wu (where the ancestral language of Min and Wu dialect families originated and which was likely influenced by the Chinese spoken in the state of Chu which itself was not founded by Chinese speakers), and later words from Middle Chinese as well, have retained the original meanings in Hokkien, while many of their counterparts in Mandarin Chinese have either fallen out of daily use, have been substituted with other words (some of which are borrowed from other languages while others are new developments), or have developed newer meanings. The same may be said of Hokkien as well, since some lexical meaning evolved in step with Mandarin while others are wholly innovative developments.

This table shows some Hokkien dialect words from Classical Chinese, as contrasted to the written Chinese standard, Mandarin:

For other words, the classical Chinese meanings of certain words, which are retained in Hokkien dialects, have evolved or deviated significantly in other Chinese dialects. The following table shows some words that are both used in both Hokkien dialects and Mandarin Chinese, while the meanings in Mandarin Chinese have been modified:

Words from Minyue[link]

Some commonly used words, shared by all Min languages, came from the ancient Minyue languages. They include the following examples (compared to the Fuzhou dialect, a Min Dong language:

¹ lâng is now typically represented by 人 (literary reading jîn).

Loanwords[link]

Loanwords are not unusual among Hokkien dialects, as speakers readily adopted indigenous terms of the languages they came in contact with. As a result, there is a plethora of loanwords that are not mutually comprehensible among Hokkien dialects.

Taiwanese Hokkien, as a result of linguistic contact with Japanese^[17] and aboriginal languages, contains many loanwords from these languages. Among these include the following examples:

• 'toilet' - 便所 piān-só·, from Japanese 便所 benjo

  Other Hokkien variants: 屎礐 (sái-ha̍k), 廁所 (chhek-só͘)

• 'car' - 自動車 chū-tōng-chhia, from Japanese 自動車 jidōsha

  Other Hokkien variants: 風車 (hong-chhia), 汽車 (khì-chhia)

• 'to admire' - 感心 kám-sim, from Japanese 感心 kanshin

  Other Hokkien variants: 感動 (kám-tōng)

• 'pineapple' - 王梨 ông-lâi, from Aboriginal onrai^[16]

  Other Hokkien variants: 鳳梨/鳳萊 (hōng-lâi), 黃梨 (hông-lâi)

Singaporean Hokkien and Malaysian Hokkien dialects like Penang Hokkien tend to draw loanwords from Malay, English as well as other Chinese dialects, primarily Teochew. Examples include:

• 'but' - tapi, from Malay

  Other Hokkien variants: 但是 （tān-sī）

• 'doctor' - 老君 lu-gun, from Malay dukun

  Other Hokkien variants: 醫生(i-sing)

• 'market' - 巴刹 pa-sat, from Malay pasar

  Other Hokkien variants: 市場 (chhī-tiûⁿ)

• 'they' - 伊儂 i lâng from Teochew (i1 nang5)

  Other Hokkien variants: (亻因) (in)

• 'together' - 做瓠 chò-bú from Teochew 做瓠 (jo3 bu5)

  Other Hokkien variants: 做夥 (chò-hóe), 同齊 (tâng-chê) or 鬥陣 (tàu-tīn)

Philippine Hokkien dialects, as a result of centuries-old contact with both Philippine language and Spanish also incorporate words from these languages. Examples include:

• 'cup' - ba-su, from Spanish vaso and Tagalog baso

  Other Hokkien variants: 杯子 (poe-á)

• 'office' - o-pi-sin, from Spanish oficina and Tagalog opisina

  Other Hokkien variants: 辦公室 (pān-kong-sek)

• 'soap' - sa-bun, from Spanish jabon and Tagalog sabon

  Other Hokkien variants:

Standard Hokkien[link]

After the Opium War in 1842, Xiamen (Amoy) became one of the major treaty ports to be opened for trade with the outside world. From mid 19th century onwards, Xiamen slowly developed to become the political, economical and cultural center of the Hokkien-speaking region in China. This caused Amoy dialect to gradually become the "Prestige Standard Hokkien", thus replacing the position of dialect variants from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. Up to today, it is still being regarded as the representative Standard Hokkien dialect. From mid 19th century till the end of World War II, western diplomats usually learned Amoy Hokkien as the preferred dialect if they were to communicate with the Hokkien-speaking populace in China or South-East Asia. In the 1940s and 1950s, Taiwan also held Amoy Hokkien as its standard and tended to incline itself towards Amoy dialect.

However, from 1980s onwards, the development of Hokkien entertainment and media industry in Taiwan caused the Hokkien cultural hub to shift from Xiamen to Taiwan. The flourishing Hokkien entertainment and media industry from Taiwan in the 1990s and early 21st century led Taiwan to emerge as the new significant cultural hub for Hokkien.

In 1990s, marked by the liberalization of language development and mother tongue movement in Taiwan, Taiwanese Hokkien had undergone a fast pace in its development. In 1993, Taiwan became the first region in the world to implement the teaching of Taiwanese Hokkien in Taiwanese schools. In 2001, the local Taiwanese language program was further extended to all schools in Taiwan, and Taiwanese Hokkien became one of the compulsory local Taiwanese languages to be learned in schools.^[18] The mother tongue movement in Taiwan even influenced Xiamen (Amoy) to the point that in 2010, Xiamen also began to implement the teaching of Hokkien dialect in its schools.^[19] In 2007, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan also completed the standardization of Chinese characters used for writing Hokkien and developed Tai-lo as the standard Hokkien pronunciation and romanization guide. A number of universities in Taiwan also offer Hokkien degree courses for training Hokkien language talents to work for the Hokkien media industry and education. Taiwan also has its own Hokkien literary and cultural circles whereby Hokkien poets and writers compose poetry or literature in Hokkien on a regular basis.

Thus by the 21st century, Taiwan has truly emerged as one of the most significant Hokkien cultural hub of the world. Although Amoy Hokkien continued to be regarded as the historical "Prestige Standard Hokkien", the historical changes and development in Taiwan had led Taiwanese Hokkien to become the more influential pole of the Hokkien dialect after mid 20th century. Today, Taiwanese prestige dialect (Taiyu Youshiqiang/Tongxinqiang 台語優勢腔/通行腔), which is based on Tainan variant and heard on Taiwanese Hokkien media, has also become one of the major "Standard Hokkien" along with Amoy.

Writing systems[link]

Chinese script[link]

Hokkien dialects are typically written using Chinese characters (漢字, Hàn-jī). However, the written script was and remains adapted to the literary form, which is based on classical Chinese, not the vernacular and spoken form. Furthermore, the character inventory used for Mandarin (standard written Chinese) does not correspond to Hokkien words, and there are a large number of informal characters (替字, thè-jī or thuè-jī; 'substitute characters') which are unique to Hokkien (as is the case with Cantonese). For instance, about 20 to 25% of Taiwanese morphemes lack an appropriate or standard Chinese character.^[20]

While most Hokkien morphemes have standard designated characters, they are not always etymological or phono-semantic. Similar-sounding, similar-meaning or rare characters are commonly borrowed or substituted to represent a particular morpheme. Examples include "beautiful" (美 bí is the literary form), whose vernacular morpheme suí is represented by characters like 媠 (an obsolete character), 婎 (a vernacular reading of this character) and even 水 (transliteration of the sound suí), or "tall" (高 ko is the literary form), whose morpheme kuân is 懸.^[21] Common grammatical particles are not exempt; the negation particle m̄ (not) is variously represented by 毋, 呣 or 唔, among others. In other cases, characters are invented to represent a particular morpheme (a common example is the non-standard character 亻因 i, which represents the personal pronoun "you"). In addition, some characters have multiple and unrelated pronunciations, adapted to represent Hokkien words, such as 肉 for bah ("meat"), although it also has distinct colloquial and literary readings as well (hi̍k and jio̍k, lio̍k respectively).^[13] Another case is the word 'to eat,' chia̍h, which is often transcribed in Taiwanese newspapers and media as 呷 (a Mandarin transliteration, xiā, to approximate the Hokkien term), even though its recommended character in dictionaries is 食.^[22]

Moreover, unlike Cantonese, Hokkien does not have a universally accepted standardized character set. Thus, there is some variation in the characters used to express certain words and characters can be ambiguous in meaning. In 2007, the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China formulated and released a standard character set to overcome these difficulties.^[23] These standard Chinese characters for writing Taiwanese Hokkien are now taught in schools in Taiwan.

Latin script[link]

Hokkien, especially Taiwanese, is sometimes written in the Latin script using one of several alphabets. Of these the most popular is Pe̍h-ōe-jī (traditional Chinese: 白話字; simplified Chinese: 白话字; pinyin: Báihuàzì). POJ was developed first by Presbyterian missionaries in China and later by the indigenous Presbyterian Church in Taiwan; use of this alphabet has been actively promoted since the late 19th century. The use of a mixed script of Han characters and Latin letters is also seen, though remains uncommon. Other Latin-based alphabets also exist.

Minnan texts, all Hokkien, can be dated back to the 16th century. One example is the Doctrina Christiana en letra y lengua china, presumably written after 1587 by the Spanish Dominicans in the Philippines. Another is a Ming Dynasty script of a play called Romance of the Lychee Mirror (1566), supposedly the earliest Southern Min colloquial text. Xiamen University has also developed an alphabet based on Pinyin, which has been published in a dictionary called the Minnan Fangyan-Putonghua Cidian (閩南方言普通話詞典) and a language teaching book, which is used to teach the language to foreigners and Chinese non-speakers. It is known as Pumindian.

Taiwan has also developed a Latin alphabet for Taiwanese Hokkien, derived from Pe̍h-ōe-jī.^[24] It is known as Tai-lo and since 2006 has been officially promoted by Taiwan's Ministry of Education and taught in Taiwanese schools.

Computing[link]

The character for the third person pronoun (they) in some Hokkien dialects, 亻因 (in), is currently unsupported by the Unicode Standard.

Hokkien is registered as "Southern Min" per RFC 3066 as zh-min-nan.^[25]

When writing Hokkien in Chinese characters, some writers create 'new' characters when they consider it impossible to use directly or borrow existing ones; this corresponds to similar practices in character usage in Cantonese, Vietnamese chữ nôm, Korean hanja and Japanese kanji. These are usually not encoded in Unicode (or the corresponding ISO/IEC 10646: Universal Character Set), thus creating problems in computer processing.

All Latin characters required by Pe̍h-ōe-jī can be represented using Unicode (or the corresponding ISO/IEC 10646: Universal Character Set), using precomposed or combining (diacritics) characters. Prior to June 2004, the vowel akin to but more open than o, written with a dot above right, was not encoded. The usual workaround was to use the (stand-alone; spacing) character Interpunct (U+00B7, ·) or less commonly the combining character dot above (U+0307). As these are far from ideal, since 1997 proposals have been submitted to the ISO/IEC working group in charge of ISO/IEC 10646—namely, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2—to encode a new combining character dot above right. This is now officially assigned to U+0358 (see documents N1593, N2507, N2628, N2699, and N2713). Font support is expected to follow.

See also[link]

	China portal
	Languages portal

• Penang Hokkien
• Taiwanese Hokkien
• Singaporean Hokkien
• Amoy dialect
• Lan-nang (Philippine dialect of Hokkien)
• Teochew dialect
• Languages of China
• Languages of Taiwan
• Amoy Min Nan Swadesh list

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Branner, David Prager (2000). Problems in Comparative Chinese Dialectology — the Classification of Miin and Hakka. Trends in Linguistics series, no. 123. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-015831-0. 
• Chung, R.-f (196). The segmental phonology of Southern Min in Taiwan. Taipei: Crane Pub. Co. ISBN 957-9463-46-8. 
• DeBernardi, J. E (1991). "Linguistic nationalism--the case of Southern Min". Dept. of Oriental Studies, University of Pennsylvania.. http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp025_taiwanese.html. 

External links[link]

• 當代泉州音字彙, a dictionary of Quanzhou speech
• 台語-華語線頂辭典, Taiwanese-Mandarin on-line dictionary
• 台語線頂字典, Taiwanese Hokkien Han Character online dictionary.
• 臺灣本土語言互譯及語音合成系統, Taiwanese-Hakka-Mandarin on-line conversion
• 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典, Dictionary of Taiwanese Hokkien-Mandarin by Ministry of Education in Republic of China (Taiwan).
• Voyager - Spacecraft - Golden Record - Greetings From Earth - Amoy, includes translation and sound clip

  (The voyager clip says: Thài-khong pêng-iú, lín-hó. Lín chia̍h-pá—bē? Ū-êng, to̍h lâi gún chia chē—ô•! 太空朋友，恁好。恁食飽未？有閒著來阮遮坐哦!)

Chee Soon Juan
Secretary-General of the Singapore Democratic Party
Incumbent
Assumed office 1996
Preceded by	Chiam See Tong
Personal details
Born	1962 Singapore
Political party	Singapore Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Huang Chih-Mei
Alma mater	University of Georgia
Profession	Politician Activist

Chee Soon Juan (simplified Chinese: 徐顺全; traditional Chinese: 徐順全; pinyin: Xú Shùnquán, born 1962) is a politician and political activist from Singapore. He is currently the leader of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party (SDP).

A controversial political figure, Chee has been arrested and jailed several times for his political activities, mainly for repeatedly breaking Singapore's laws requiring organisers to obtain a police permit before staging political demonstrations or making public speeches on political issues. He has also been sued for defamation on multiple occasions as a result of comments he has made about members of Singapore's governing People's Action Party (PAP). He is currently barred from standing in parliamentary elections because he was declared bankrupt in 2006 after failing to pay damages from a lawsuit owed to Singapore's former Prime Ministers, Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong.

Chee joined the SDP in 1992, and became its Secretary-General following the resignation of the party's founder, Chiam See Tong (with whom Chee and the rest of the party's leadership have had a number of disagreements). The party had three Members of Parliament (MPs) at the time Chee took over as Secretary-General, but was reduced to no MPs at the 1997 general election and has not had any of its members elected to Parliament since then.

Chee is the Chairman of the Asian Alliance for Reforms and Democracy. He was a recipient of Parliamentarians for Global Action's "Defender of Democracy" award in 2003 ^[1] as well as Liberal International's "Prize for Freedom" award in 2011.^[2][3]

Prior to entering politics, Chee was a Psychology lecturer at the National University of Singapore (NUS). However, he was dismissed from this position in 1993 after being accused of misappropriating research funds. He has since served as a fellow at the Monash Asia Institute (1997), the University of Chicago (2001), and the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Program at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C. (2004).^[4]

Biography[link]

Chee had his early education at Anglo-Chinese School in Singapore. He then trained as a neuropsychologist, earning a PhD from the University of Georgia in the United States in 1990. After completing his doctorate, he returned to Singapore to take up a teaching position in Department of Psychology at NUS.

Entry into politics[link]

In 1992, Chee was recruited to join the Singapore Democratic Party by the party's founder and Secretary-General, Chiam See Tong. Chiam had become the party's first Member of Parliament in 1984 when he was elected to represent the constituency of Potong Pasir. At the 1991 general election, Chiam was joined in Parliament by two further SDP MPs (Ling How Doong as MP for Bukit Gombak and Cheo Chai Chen as MP for Nee Soon Central).^[5]

Chee was first introduced to the public as a member of the SDP's team to stand in a by-election in the Marine Parade Group Representation Constituency in 1992. Chee's candidacy attracted considerable public interest as it was the first time that an academic at a state-run university had stood against the governing People's Action Party in an election.^[6] However the SDP team was unsuccessful in the election, with the PAP winning 72.94% of the votes, the SDP 24.50%, and other smaller parties 2.56%.

Shortly after the Marine Parade by-election, Chee became the SDP's Assistant Secretary-General.

Dismissal from the National University of Singapore[link]

In 1993, a few months after Chee joined the SDP, he was fired from his position at the National University of Singapore by the Head of the Psychology Department, Dr S Vasoo (who was an MP for the PAP at the time), for allegedly using research funds to send his wife's doctoral thesis to the United States. Chee denied that he had misused university funds and claimed that he was the victim of a political vendetta.^[7] He staged a five-day hunger strike to protest his sacking (however he later criticised for consuming glucose water during his hunger strike).^[8] Vasoo and two other members of staff at NUS subsequently sued Chee for his claims that his sacking had been politically motivated, and the courts found against Chee and ordered him to pay damages.

Rise to leadership of the SDP[link]

After initially backing Chee, Chiam became critical of Chee's hunger strike and his public comments condemning the PAP for his sacking. Chiam wanted to censure Chee for his comments, but the party's Central Executive Committee (CEC) backed Chee. Chiam then resigned as Secretary-General of the party. Chee, as the Assistant Secretary-General, then became the party's Acting Secretary-General (and was subsequently elected as Secretary-General). Read more...

After Chiam publicly criticised the CEC, they attempted to expel him from the party (which would have forced him to vacate his seat in Parliament), but Chiam won a court case to prevent them from doing so on procedural grounds. Chiam remained an SDP member and MP until shortly before the 1997 general election, when he left to join the Singapore People's Party (a party founded in 1994 by ex-SDP members who were supportive of Chiam).^[9]

After taking over as the SDP's Secretary-General, Chee began regularly travelling abroad and to talk about his views on the lack of democracy in Singapore to the foreign media. He also published his second political book, Dare To Change: An Alternative Vision for Singapore. In 1994, to respond to criticisms of the book made by Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Chee wrote a letter to The Straits Times. The PAP's Second Organising Secretary, Matthias Yao (a Parliamentary Secretary and MP for Marine Parade GRC), then wrote to the newspaper to reply to Chee's comments. This led to a two month long exchange of letters between Chee and Yao which were published in the paper, which ended with Chee issuing a challenge for Yao to stand against him in a single member constituency at the next general election. At Yao's request, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong agreed to separate Yao's MacPherson ward from the rest of Marine Parade GRC at the next general election so that he could take up Chee's challenge.

1997 general election[link]

The SDP's first general election under Chee's leadership in 1997 proved to be a major setback for the party as they failed to win any seats in Parliament. Ling How Doong and Cheo Chai Chen were both defeated in their bids to be re-elected as MPs. And Chee lost the high-profile contest in MacPherson to Matthias Yao by 6,713 (34.86%) votes to 12,546 (65.14%).^[10][11] Meanwhile Chiam See Tong was re-elected as the MP for Potong Pasir representing his new party.

2001 general election[link]

At the 2001 general election, Chee stood as one of the SDP's candidates in the Jurong Group Representation Constituency. The SDP's team lost to the PAP team by 20.25% of the votes to 79.75%. The SDP's candidates were also unsuccessful in all the other constituencies in which they stood.

During the run-up to the election, Chee captured national media attention when he came across Prime Minister Goh while campaigning at a hawker centre, and used a megaphone to ask him: "Where is the S$18 billion that you have lent to (Indonesian President) Suharto?" The PAP took Chee to task for this, claiming that any accusation that Parliament had been misled about an alleged loan to Suharto was untrue, and demanding that he either apologise or face a defamation lawsuit. Chee apologised a day later, but later retracted his apology.

Legal charges in 2002[link]

In 2002, Chee was fined S$3,000 for making a public speech at Singapore's Speakers' Corner on 15 February that year without registering with the police before he did so.^[12]

On 1 May 2002, Chee staged a rally in front of the Istana (the official residence and office of the President of Singapore), even though his application to the police for a licence to hold the assembly had been denied.^[13] Chee was later charged for trespassing and for attempting to hold a rally without a police permit, for which he was sentenced to five weeks in jail.^[14]

Defamation suit and bankruptcy[link]

After the 2001 general election, Chee was sued for defamation by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew for remarks he had made during the campaign about an alleged loan to Indonesian President Suharto. Chee lost the lawsuits and was ordered to pay damages of S$300,000 to Goh and S$200,000 to Lee.

On 10 February 2006, Chee was declared a bankrupt by the High Court after failing to pay the damages owed to Goh and Lee.

As an undischarged bankrupt, Chee became ineligible to stand in general elections and was required to seek the Official Assignee's permission before making any trips abroad.^[15]

On 24 February 2006, Singapore's Attorney-General filed contempt of court charges against Chee for refusing to answer the court's questions and scandalising the Singapore judiciary during the bankruptcy petition hearing on 10 February.^[16] As a result, Chee was sentenced to one day in jail and a fine of S$6,000, but he failed to pay the fine and was thus jailed for an additional seven days.^{[17] [18]} He was released on 24 March 2006.^[19]

In April 2006, Chee was stopped at the airport as he was preparing to board a flight to Istanbul because, as an undischarged bankrupt, he could not leave Singapore without official approval of the Official Assignee, which he had not obtained.^[20]

Another defamation lawsuit was brought against Chee following an article published in the SDP's party newspaper, The New Democrat, which questioned the role of the Singapore government in the 2005 National Kidney Foundation scandal. Chee was ordered to pay damages to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew as a result of this.

2006 general election[link]

Chee was unable to stand in the 2006 general election. The SDP did enter candidates in some constituencies, but none were elected.

Despite a rule in Singapore that bans podcasting during elections,^[21] Chee released a political podcast on 23 April 2006. However, on the order of the Elections Department, it was taken down by 25 April 2006.^[22]

Protests at the IMF and World Bank meetings in Singapore in 2006[link]

On 22 August 2006, Chee announced that he was planning to hold protests in Singapore during 61st Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group in September 2006 (as part of Singapore 2006), to protest against the rising income gap and raise awareness of the hardships of working-class people in Singapore.^[23][24][25] The application for a police permit for the protest was rejected on 30 August 2006.^[26] Nonetheless Chee used the SDP website to continue to urge people to participate in the protest.^[27][28]

On 9 September, Chee was distributing leaflets for an upcoming "Empower Singaporeans Rally and March", when he was stopped by the police for doing so. The police reminded the public that anyone participating in Chee's planned rally and march would be committing an offence.^[29][30]

On 13 September, Chee invited both World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and IMF Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato y Figaredo to his planned rally. At a press conference the next day, Chee announced that his application to be a civil society representative to Singapore 2006 as a representative of the Open Singapore Centre was rejected by the IMF and World Bank. His sister Chee Siok Chin's application to represent the Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia was approved by the IMF and World Bank but was rejected by the Singapore government.^[31][32] On 15 September, Chee released a podcast that warned Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that the Singapore 2006 event was a "public relations disaster" for Singapore.^[33]

On September 16, Chee started off the "Empower Singaporeans Rally and March" at 11.00 am at Speakers' Corner in Hong Lim Park, but was stopped by the police who formed a human barricade around him.^[34][35] He then announced that there would be a rally the following day in front of Parliament House.^[36] But the police refused to let him leave the park until he called off the protest, so he remained in the park with his supporters.^[37]

On 17 September, Chee announced his plan to continue his protest by remaining in Hong Lim Park until the start of the IMF and World Bank meetings which were two days away. On 18 September, after hours of negotiations with police, Chee went to Raffles City to hand out pamphlets to the public and then returned to the park.^[38] He stopped the protest at noon on 19 September, and proclaimed that the protest had achieved its purpose.^[39] He further announced that the 72-hour protest was just a start, and that over the next few months he intended to recruit and train more activists for a campaign to bring pressure on the Singapore Government to reform.^[40]

Further legal charges and imprisonment, 2006-7[link]

On 20 June 2006, Chee was charged in court for eight counts of speaking in public without a licence between 13 November 2005 and 22 April 2006 in violation of the Public Entertainments and Meeting Act. Two other SDP members were also charged.^[41]

Chee was fined $5,000. On 23 November 2006, he was jailed for five weeks for failing to pay the fine. Two other SDP members, Gandhi Ambalam and Yap Keng Ho, were also imprisoned.^[42]

While in prison in November 2006, Chee reportedly became ill, leading to speculation from the SDP that he had been poisoned. A statement released by the SDP^[43] noted that Chee was feeling nauseous and dizzy, and was unable to sleep. Four days later, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) asserted that Chee was treated the "same as other prisoners", and that the SDP's claims were "baseless, malicious and seek to undermine the reputation of the Singapore Prison Service".^[44] On 3 December 2006, after the doctor at the Queenstown Remand Prison had found traces of blood in Chee's urine, he was admitted under guard to Changi General Hospital.^[45] On 10 December, about a dozen of Chee's supporters, including members of his family, held a protest march starting at the Speakers' Corner and ending at Queenstown Remand Prison, where Chee was incarcerated.^[46] Several foreign non-government organisations released statements expressing concerns about Chee's health and treatment in prison.^[47]

Chee was released on 16 December, two weeks short of his full sentence as a result of good behavior in jail.^[43] Two days later, he published a statement on what happened during his stint in prison. He claimed that his food tray was marked, and that the light in his cell had remained on during the night, causing sleep deprivation.^[48] Two days later, the MHA replied to this, claiming "Chee's insinuations about being the victim of a food conspiracy are ridiculous and a product of his own mischief...", and that "Chee's purported 'ailment' in prison served only to provide an expedient story for his associates and foreign supporters to faithfully distort and exploit for political mileage".^[47] Chee immediately released another statement rebutting this, claiming "the MHA's statement is riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions and outright lies".^[49]

On 8 January 2007, a hearing began for charges that Chee had attempted to leave the country without a permit despite being a bankrupt.^[50] As a result of this, he was jailed for three weeks.

[edit] Tak Boleh Tahan arrests and trial

On March 15, 2008, the SDP decided to stage the "Tak Boleh Tahan" ("Can't take it anymore") protests.^[51] On 15 March 2008, Chee and 17 others were arrested at a demonstration held outside Parliament and later charged with unlawful assembly. The trial began on 23 October 2008.

International activities[link]

Chee is the Chairman of the Asian Alliance for Reforms and Democracy, and has been engaged by the National Endowment for Democracy.

Chee's party has been granted observer status to Liberal International, a world federation of liberal political parties. "SDP has signed an agreement with the Commonwealth countries, where Singapore is a party, to include respect for fundamental human rights and civil liberties," said Chee, who had also hired Amsterdam & Peroff to take up his case against the government, [1] whose members have filed lawsuits against news publications that have run Chee's critical comments. "We are trying to pursue this and some of the international community would hopefully pay more attention and encourage Singapore to be part of the civilized world."^[52]

Personal life[link]

Chee is married to Huang Chih Mei. The couple have three children.^[53]

Documentary[link]

In 2004, Martyn See directed a documentary on Chee called Singapore Rebel. It was supposed to be screened at the Singapore International Film Festival, but was withdrawn from the festival and later banned by the Singapore government because of its political content. Singapore's Film Act forbids the production and distribution of "party political" films, which are defined as films "made by any person and directed towards any political ends in Singapore".

Works[link]

Chee has written the following books:

• Dare to Change: An Alternative Vision for Singapore (Singapore Democratic Party: 1994)
• Singapore, My Home Too (1995)
• To Be Free: Stories from Asia's Struggle Against Oppression (Monash Asia Institute: 1998)
• Your Future, My Faith, Our Freedom: A Democratic Blueprint for Singapore (Singapore Open Centre: 2001)
• The Power of Courage: Effecting Political Change in Singapore Through Nonviolence (2005)
• A Nation Cheated (2008)

References[link]