The Amoy dialect or Xiamen dialect (Chinese:廈門話; Pe̍h-ōe-jī:Ē-mn̂g-ōe; pinyin:Xiàménhuà), also known as Amoyese, Amoynese, Amoy Hokkien, Xiamenese or Xiamen Hokkien, is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the city of Xiamen (historically known as "Amoy") and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the southern part of Fujian province. Currently, it is one of the most widely researched and studied varieties of Southern Min. It has historically come to be one of the more standardized varieties.
Amoyese and Taiwanese are both historically mixtures of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects. As such, they are very closely aligned phonologically. There are some differences between the two, especially lexical, as a result of physical separation and the differing histories of mainland China and Taiwan during the 20th century. Amoyese and Taiwanese are mutually intelligible. Intelligibility with other Hokkien, especially inland, is more difficult. By that standard, Amoyese and Taiwanese may be considered dialects of a single language. Ethnolinguistically, however, Amoyese is part of mainland Hokkien.
History
In 1842, as a result of the signing of the Treaty of Nanking, Amoy was designated as a trading port in Fujian. Amoy and Kulangsu rapidly developed, which resulted in a large influx of people from neighboring areas such as Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. The mixture of these various accents formed the basis for the Amoy dialect.
Over the last several centuries, a large number of Southern Fujianese people from these same areas migrated to Taiwan during Dutch and Qing rule. The "Amoy dialect" was considered the vernacular of Taiwan. Eventually, the mixture of accents spoken in Taiwan became popularly known as Taiwanese (Chinese:臺語; pinyin:Táiyǔ; Pe̍h-ōe-jī:Tâi-gí; Japanese: 台湾語; Hepburn: Taiwango) during Imperial Japanese rule. As in American and British English, there are subtle lexical and phonological differences between modern Taiwanese and Amoy Hokkien; however, these differences do not generally pose any barriers to communication.
For further information, read the article: Swadesh list
The spoken Amoy dialect preserves many of the sounds and words from Old Chinese. However, the vocabulary of Amoy was also influenced in its early stages by the Minyue languages spoken by the ancient Minyue peoples.
Like other languages of Southern Min, Amoy has complex rules for literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters. For example, the character for big/great, 大, has a vernacular reading of tōa ([tua˧]), but a literary reading of tāi ([tai˧]). Because of the loose nature of the rules governing when to use a given pronunciation, a learner of Amoy must often simply memorize the appropriate reading for a word on a case-by-case basis. For single-syllable words, it is more common to use the vernacular pronunciation.
The vernacular readings are generally thought to predate the literary readings, as is the case with the Min Chinese varieties; the literary readings appear to have evolved from Middle Chinese. The following chart illustrates some of the more commonly seen sound shifts:
Word-initial alveolar consonants /ts,tsʰ,dz/ when occurring before /i/ are pronounced as alveo-palatal sounds [tɕ,tɕʰ,dʑ].
/l/ can fluctuate freely in initial position as either a flap [ɾ] or voiced alveolar plosive stop [d].
[ʔ] can occur in both word initial and final position.
/mŋ/ when occurring before /m̩ŋ̍/ can be pronounced as voiceless sounds [m̥], [ŋ̊].
Unlike Mandarin, the Amoy dialect distinguishes between voiced and voiceless unaspirated initialconsonants (Mandarin has no voicing of initial consonants). Unlike English, it differentiates between unaspirated and aspirated voiceless initial consonants (as Mandarin does too). In less technical terms, native Amoy speakers have little difficulty in hearing the difference between the following syllables:
However, these fully voiced consonants did not descend from the Early Middle Chinese voiced obstruents, unlike in Wu Chinese. Rather they are derived from the fortition and denasalization of nasal initials.
As with other forms of Southern Min, Amoy makes substantial use of nasalization.
Checked rimes
-/p/
-/t/
-/k/
-/ʔ/ with oral vowel
-/ʔ/ with nasal vowel
-/ʔ/ with syllabic nasal
/ap/ 十
/at/ 克
/ak/ 六
/ɔk/ 樂
/aʔ/ 鴨
/ɔʔ/ 索
/oʔ/ 學
/eʔ/ 欲
/auʔ/ 落
/ãʔ/ 趿
/ɔ̃ʔ/ 乎
/ẽʔ/ 夾
/ãiʔ/ 唉
/ãuʔ/ 澩
/m̩ʔ/ 摁
/ŋ̍ʔ/ 嗆
/ip/ 急
/iap/ 葉
/it/ 必
/iɛt/ 閲
/ik/~/ek/ 色
/iak/ 煏
/iɔk/ 祝
/iʔ/ 捏
/iaʔ/ 食
/ioʔ/ 尺
/iauʔ/ 藃
/iuʔ/ 搐
/ĩʔ/ 物
/iãʔ/ 嚇
/iãuʔ/ 蟯
/ut/ 骨
/uat/ 越
/uʔ/ 嗍
/uaʔ/ 活
/ueʔ/ 喂
Final consonants are pronounced as unreleased [p̚t̚k̚].
Tones
Amoy is similar to other Southern Min variants in that it largely preserves the Middle Chinese tone system of six distinct tones in syllables which do not end in a stop consonant and two tones in syllables which do end in a stop consonant (the checked tones). The tones are traditionally numbered from 1 through 8, with 4 and 8 being the checked tones; however, the distinction between traditional tones 2 and 6 (yin rising and yang rising respectively) was lost by the last quarter of the 19th century. Additionally, a large proportion of what would have been tone 6 (yang rising) shifted to tone 7 (yang departing), specifically those with historical voiced obstruent initials, and those with sonorant initials in their vernacular readings. Thus, Amoy exhibits five phonemic tones in syllables not ending in such stop consonants, and two checked tones.
陽上 / 上聲; iông-sióng / sióng-siaⁿ Yang rising / Rising
˥˧
53
7
陽去; iông-khì/khù Yang falling
˧
33
8
陽入; iông-li̍p Yang entering
˥ʔ
5ʔ
Tone sandhi
Amoy has extremely extensive tone sandhi (tone-changing) rules: in an utterance, only the last syllable pronounced is not affected by the rules. What an 'utterance' is, in the context of this language, is an ongoing topic for linguistic research. For the purpose of this article, an utterance may be considered a word, a phrase, or a short sentence. The diagram illustrates the rules that govern the pronunciation of a tone on each of the syllables affected (that is, all but the last in an utterance):
Grammar
Amoy grammar shares a similar structure to other Chinese dialects, although it is slightly more complex than Mandarin. Moreover, equivalent Amoy and Mandarin particles are usually not cognates.
Complement constructions
Amoy complement constructions are roughly parallel to Mandarin ones, although there are variations in the choice of lexical term. The following are examples of constructions that Amoy employs.
In the case of adverbs:
伊
i
he
走
cháu
runs
會
ē
obtains
緊
kín
quick
伊 走 會 緊
i cháu ē kín
he runs obtains quick
He runs quickly.
Mandarin: tā pǎo de kuài (他跑得快)
In the case of the adverb "very":
伊
i
He
走
cháu
runs
真
chin
obtains
緊
kín
quick
伊 走 真 緊
i cháu chin kín
He runs obtains quick
He runs very quickly.
Mandarin: tā pǎo de hěn kuài (他跑得很快)
伊
i
He
走
cháu
runs
袂
bōe
not
緊
kín
quick
伊 走 袂 緊
i cháu bōe kín
He runs not quick
He does not run quickly.
Mandarin: tā pǎo bù kuài (他跑不快)
伊
i
He
看
khòaⁿ
see
會
ē
obtains
著
tio̍h
already achieved
伊 看 會 著
i khòaⁿ ē tio̍h
He see obtains {already achieved}
He can see.
Mandarin: tā kàn de dào (他看得到)
For the negative,
伊
i
He
看
khòaⁿ
sees
袂
bōe
not
著
tio̍h
already achieved
伊 看 袂 著
i khòaⁿ bōe tio̍h
He sees not {already achieved}
He cannot see.
Mandarin: tā kàn bù dào (他看不到)
For the adverb "so," Amoy uses kah (甲) instead of Mandarin de (得):
伊
i
He
驚
kiaⁿ
startled
甲
kah
to the point of
話
ōe
words
著
tio̍h
also
講
kóng
say
袂
bōe
not
出來
chhut-lâi
come out
伊 驚 甲 話 著 講 袂 出來
i kiaⁿ kah ōe tio̍h kóng bōe chhut-lâi
He startled {to the point of} words also say not {come out}
He was so startled, that he could not speak.
Mandarin: tā xià de huà dōu shuō bù chūlái (他嚇得話都說不出來)
Negative particles
Negative particle syntax is parallel to Mandarin about 70% of the time, although lexical terms used differ from those in Mandarin. For many lexical particles, there is no single standard Hanji character to represent these terms (e.g. m̄, a negative particle, can be variously represented by 毋, 呣, and 唔), but the most commonly used ones are presented below in examples. The following are commonly used negative particles:
m̄ (毋/伓) - is not + noun (Mandarin 不, bù)
i m̄-sī gún lāu-bú. (伊毋是阮老母) "She is not my mother."
m̄ (毋/伓) - does not/will not + verb (Mandarin 不, bù)
i m̄ lâi. (伊毋來) "He will not come."
verb + bōe (袂/𣍐 (⿰勿會)) + particle - is not able to (Mandarin 不, bù)
góa khòaⁿ-bōe-tio̍h. (我看袂著) "I am not able to see it."
bōe (袂/𣍐 (⿰勿會)) + helping verb - cannot (opposite of ē 會, "is able to") (Mandarin 不, bù)
i bōe-hiáu kóng Eng-gú. (伊袂曉講英語) "He can't speak English."
helping verbs that go with bōe (袂)
bōe-sái (袂使) - is not permitted to (Mandarin 不可以 bù kěyǐ)
bōe-hiáu (袂曉) - does not know how to (Mandarin 不會, búhuì)
bōe-tàng (袂當) - not able to (Mandarin 不能, bùnéng)
mài (莫/勿愛) - do not (imperative) (Mandarin 別, bié)
mài kóng! (莫講) "Don't speak!"
bô (無) - do not + helping verb (Mandarin 不, bù)
i bô beh lâi. (伊無欲來) "He is not going to come."
helping verbs that go with bô (無):
beh (欲) - want to + verb; will + verb
ài (愛) - must + verb
èng-kai (應該) - should + verb
kah-ì (合意) - like to + verb
bô (無) - does not have (Mandarin 沒有, méiyǒu)
i bô chîⁿ. (伊無錢) "He does not have any money."
bô (無) - did not (Mandarin 沒有, méiyǒu)
i bô lâi. (伊無來) "He did not come."
bô (無) - is not + adjective (Mandarin 不, bù)
i bô súi. (伊無媠/水) "She is not beautiful."
hó (好) ("good") is an exception, as it can use both m̄ and bô.
A number of Romanization schemes have been devised for Amoy. Pe̍h-ōe-jī is one of the oldest and best established. However, the Taiwanese Language Phonetic Alphabet has become the romanization of choice for many of the recent textbooks and dictionaries from Taiwan.
Note: The bopomofo extended characters in the zhuyin row require a UTF-8 font capable of displaying Unicode values 31A0–31B7 (ex. Code2000 true type font).
↑Mei, Tsu-lin (1970), "Tones and prosody in Middle Chinese and the origin of the rising tone", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 30: 86–110, doi:10.2307/2718766, JSTOR2718766
↑Heylen, Ann (2001). "Missionary Linguistics on Taiwan. Romanizing Taiwanese: Codification and Standardization of Dictionaries in Southern Min (1837–1923)". In Ku, Wei-ying; De Ridder, Koen (eds.). Authentic Chinese Christianity: Preludes to Its Development (Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries). Leuven: Leuven University Press. p.151. ISBN9789058671028.
↑何大安 He Da'an (1994). "「濁上歸去」與現代方言". 聲韻論叢 Bulletin of Chinese Phonology (in Chinese). 2 (5): 267–292. Retrieved 4 August 2026.
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