Minnan phrasebook consonants · Consonants in Minnan phrasebook
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Consonants in Minnan phrasebook
Consonants in Minnan phrasebook
Minnan has many different consonants, even more so than standard Mandarin or Cantonese, and pronouncing them all correctly is a challenge for English speakers. While Mandarin only distinguishes between aspirated and unaspirated (unvoiced) consonants, and English only distinguishes between voiced and unvoiced consonants meaning-wise, Minnan makes a distinction in both cases. This means that aspirated unvoiced (pʰ, tʰ, kʰ), unaspirated unvoiced (p, t, k), and unaspirated voiced (b, d, g) are all separate phonemic consonants in Minnan.
To highlight the distinction, the words for "open" (開) and "close" (關), in some pronuncations (khui and kui respectively) sound almost identical to a native English speaker, only difference being that "open" uses an aspirated initial k while "close" uses an unaspirated initial k! The j sound in English is also used along with the j sound in Mandarin hanyu pinyin. Labial initials such as the m sound are also present. However, unlike in Mandarin, there is no "tongue rolling" (pinyin r) initial consonant.
Initial consonanats of POJ
| Letter |
IPA |
English example |
Notes
|
|---|
| b |
b |
ban |
voiced pinyin 'b'
|
| p |
p |
span |
pinyin 'b'
|
| ph |
pʰ |
pan |
pinyin 'p'
|
| j |
dz/ʑ |
fads |
voiced pinyin 'z'
|
| ch |
ts/tɕ |
cats |
pinyin 'z' or 'j'
|
| chh |
tsʰ/tɕʰ |
- |
pinyin 'c' or 'q'
|
| s |
s/ɕ |
sun |
pinyin 's' or 'x'
|
| g |
g |
get |
goiced pinyin 'g'
|
| k |
k |
skin |
pinyin 'g'
|
| kh |
kʰ |
kin |
pinyin 'k'
|
| t |
t |
Stan |
pinyin 'd'
|
| th |
tʰ |
tan |
pinyin 't'
|
| h |
h |
hat |
English 'h'
|
Like Cantonese but unlike Mandarin, Minnan retains all the final consonants (m, n, ŋ, p, t, and k) of Middle Chinese. In POJ, the nasal consonants m, n and ng are pronounced the same as English, but the others are different.
The stop consonants p, t and k are unreleased. This means that the mouth moves into the position of making the consonant, but no burst of air is released.
Furthermore, an h at the end of a syllable in POJ represents a glottal stop (ʔ); this is the sound in the middle of the English word 'uh-oh'.
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