They tended to merge velar finals such as -ng and -k into -n and -t.
I never heard of them totally merging the velar endings into alveolar. But it's done in majority of Hakka under the condition that just before the final consonant there is -i- or -e-.
Also, their intials are undergoing palatalisation (ng- to ny-, h- to x- and k- to q- etc.). Hakka dialects bordering Cantonese dialects have preserved much more Middle Chinese features. Huiyang Hakka which is spoken near Shenzhen preserves final consonants as strictly as Cantonese.
I never heard of Moiyen Hakka changing velar to alveolo-palatal except ng-.
Its palatalization is rather for alveolar fricative series (ts/ts'/s) to alveolo-palatal.
Ng- and ny- are confused if the vowel is i. And ny- changes to ngi- instead of the other way around in some dialects.
They also distinguish clearly between palatal and non-palatal initials such as ny- and ng-.
ny- and ng- should be distinguished in some Hakka if the vowel is not i.
Not necessary means there are no unique features there that are not found in other chinese languages. Eg.
Mandarin - R consonant and other strange consonants.
Sichuanese does not contain the r, zh, ch, sh. So, now it's more like preserving which
dialects instead of which languages.
Taishanese has the 'ls' that is not too common in Chinese, though we can still hear it in Putian.
Minnan - k, t, p, m endings, B, P, P', G, K, K' consonants.
B/P/P'/G/K/K' is common in Wu.
Cantonese - 8 middle chinese tones
There were only 4 middle Chinese tones. That's evident when you see 反切. 陰／陽 categories of 平 and 入 were the same tone.
陽上 and 陰上 were the same tone, except when 陽上 and 陽去 are confused.
(gained one Mid entering).
Whether the Yin-ru will split into Mid or High entering is very predictable if you compare to the vowels of other Chinese.
Hong kong cantonese has lost the Yang falling but gwangzhou cantonese still retains it.
Not Yang falling, but high falling Yin-ping. It's merged with the high flat Yin-ping.
I suspect "high flat Yin-ping" were originally just a tone change.
In Guangzhou Cantonese, most if not all of it are nouns (tone change is usually just for nouns: e.g. 魚錢拍玉 can be read with changed tone of rising contour; 尾 can be read with high flat tone).
So you are saying that middle chinese has ny and ng consonants ? And that only ny is present in hakka but not in other chinese languages ? That's interesting.
ny exists in Shanghainese as a variant of n- under the influence of i-
I can't distinguish ny and ng ????
Come on, they are distinguished in Malay.
such as characters with Mandarin h usually changing to f
Hakka change h to f is under the condition that the rhyme starts with "u-" in Mandarin.
Well, Wikipedia says that the Yulin 玉林 Cantonese dialect is the best representative language according to some linguists. But I cannot verify this, and keep in mind it is Wikipedia.
There's not even a single example there to support it.
Edited by qrasy, 07 June 2007 - 08:59 AM.
