Ningbo dialect

Ningbo dialect
Yong-Jiang
寧波閒話
Pronunciation ȵʲɪ̀ŋ.pɜ́ʊ.ɛ́.ó~ȵʲɪ̀ŋ.póʔ.ɛ́.ó
Native to People's Republic of China
Region Ningbo & Zhoushan, Zhejiang province
Ethnicity Ningbo people (Han Chinese)
Native speakers
5-6 million (date missing)
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog yong1273[1]
Bible in Ningpo Romanised (Genesis), published by the British and Foreign Bible Society.

The Ningbo dialect or Ningbonese (Chinese: 宁波话/寧波話,宁波闲话/寧波閒話) is a dialect of Wu, one of the subdivisions of Chinese varieties. It is spoken in the city of Ningbo and Zhoushan and surrounding areas in Zhejiang province.

Area

The Ningbo dialect is spoken throughout Ningbo and Zhoushan prefectures.

Intelligibility

Its native speakers generally understand Shanghainese, but not vice versa. It is not at all mutually intelligible with Mandarin, China's official language. Ningbo dialect is considered a Yongjiang dialect or Mingzhou dialect (as both terms are synonymous), and is closely related to the Taihu Wu dialects of Zhoushan. In terms of inter-intelligibility between dialects within the Yong-Jiang subgroup, they can be more accurately described as 'accents' (腔) as these dialects are relatively uniform and almost identical to each other aside from pronunciation differences and some minor lexical differences.

Phonology

Initials

  Labial Dental/Alveolar Alveolo-Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ  
Plosive tenuis p t k
aspirated  
voiced b d ɡ  
Affricate tenuis ts
aspirated tsʰ tɕʰ  
voiced dz  
Fricative voiceless f s ɕ   h
voiced v z ʑ   f
Lateral l

Finals

Finals of Ningbo dialect[2]
Open Nasal coda Glottal stop coda
Medial jw jw jw
Nucleus u u          
ə     əŋ      
o ojo  joŋ     
ɔ ɔ   ɔ̃jɔ̃wɔ̃ ɔʔ  
ɔy ɔy          
au au          
a ajawa ã  waʔ
ai ai wai        
ɛ ɛ         
e e        jeʔ 
ø ø        jøʔ 
i i         
ʏ ʏ          
y y          
Syllabic continuants: [z̩] [z̩ʷ] [m̩] [n̩] [ŋ̩] [l̩]

Tones

Tone classificationTone symbolTone number
T1(陰平) ˥˧ 53
T2(陽平) ˨˦ 24
T3(陰上) ˧˥ 35
T5(陰去) ˦˦ 44
T46(陽上去) ˨˩˧ 213
T7(陰入) ʔ˥ 5
T8(陽入) ʔ˩˨ 12

Examples

唱月亮

月亮菩薩彎彎上,彎到小姑進后堂。
后堂空,拜相公,
相公念經,打一天井,
天井隔笆,打一稻花,
稻花耘田,打一團箕。

火瑩頭

火瑩頭,夜夜紅,
阿公挑擔賣碗蔥,
新婦織麻糊燈籠,
阿婆箝牌捉牙虫,
兒子看鴨撩屙虫。

References

  1. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Yong-Jiang". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  2. Hu, Fang (2005). A phonetic study of the vowels in Ningbo Chinese (Thesis). City University of Hong Kong. Note that /j/ becomes [ɥ] before rounded vowels and that certain finals, such as [ɔy], [ɔʔ] and [jøʔ] are transcribed differently here as the pronunciations in the thesis are different from the transcriptions.
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