Soeinam Language

Soeinam language (or Soeinam Chinese, Soeinam, Mandarin: 綏南話, Soeinam: 綏南語, IPA: [sœi˥ nam˨ ŋiɔ˨]) is a tonal language derived from Middle Chinese.

Classification and Dialects
Soeinam mainly obtains in South China and is often considered to be close to Cantonese. To be precise, there are more dialects of Soeinam. Any of these dialects is either wester (Soeinam: 西方言 sei1-poeng1-ngian5) or eastern (Soeinam: 東方言 tung1-poeng1-ngian5): Among all dialects, the Wanle dialect (Soeinam: 萬樂口 moen7-lak8-khu2) is often refered to as the standard Soeinam. This article is also based on the Wanle dialect.
 * Western dialects
 * Angyuan dialect (安遠話)
 * Baizhe dialect (白渚話)
 * Qiutian dialect (丘田話)
 * Eastern dialects
 * Wanle dialect (萬樂話)(Regarded as standard Soeinam)
 * Xinzhai dialect (新宅話)

Initials
Initials are consonants in the front of a syllable of a character of Soeinam. There is no consonnt cluster in such language. Soeinam inherited most sounds of Middle Chinese including retroflex and some voiced sounds. Below is the table of consonants of reconstructed Middle Chinese. Undergoing some inevitable sound changes, such as retroflex stops merge with retroflex sibiliants and some other changes: In fact, palatal sibilants can be regarded as palatalized dental ones since they never appear in syllables whose finals contain medial /j/.
 * /ɳ/ merged with /ɲ/.
 * Voiced stops become implosive.
 * Retroflex stops merge with sibilants.
 * /xu/ or */xw/ becomes /ɸ/.

Finals
A final of Soeinam contains medial, nucleus, and coda: 
 * Medial: the glide before the coda. It can be /j/, /w/, or even zero medial.
 * Nucleus: the body of the final, most significant part of it. There are 6 nuclei available in Soeinam: /ɐ/, /ɛ/, /i/, /u/, /ɔ/, and /œ/. (a, e, i, u, o, oe respectively)
 * Coda: the ending of a final. It could be an approximant, a nasal, or a stop. Finals containing medials shall receive no approximant coda.

Codae
Unlike Taiwanese and other Min laguages thought to be derived from Proto-Min prior to Middle Chinese but silimar to Cantonese closer to MC, Soeinam has final stops as well but lacks laryngeal one /ʔ/. The coda /ʔ/ in Min corresponds to /k̚/ in Soeinam. For instance:

Tone System


There are at total 8 tones in Soeinam. There is no such a clear rule that one could know the contour of the tone by its name. The tone contour has changed since Soeinam was isolated from (Late) Middle Chinese. Here are the comparison of tones, beware that except for level tones there is no distinction between "dark" and "light" in rising and departing tones in Mandarin, and Cantonese has two kinds of dark entering: Soeinam has the voicing distinction like Taiwanese and Contonese do. All "dark" tones (whose initials are voiceless) in Soeinam receive high-starting tones (high, high rising, high falling, high), whereas those "light" tones receive low-starting tones (low falling, low, low rising, mid). Mandarin, which has the "simplified" version of tone system, has no such feature.

Tonal Sandhi
Tonal sandhi is common among Chinese languages including Taiwanese, Cantonese, and Mandarin as well. However, the degree of sandhi differs. Among all 3 languges mentioned, Taiwanese changes its tone most. Cantonese does not often change the tone of a word and is more unpredictable. In Mandarin, only a word of rising tone would alter its tone when its preceding another one also of rising tone.

Soeinam, nonetheless, do also alter some of its tones under certain circumstances, but not as often as Taiwanese does. Some rules are still explicit:
 * 1) Within a word, light level tone (21) would become dark rising tone (35) (In western dialects, it would become dark departing tone (51) instead).
 * 2) Within a word, light rising tone (22) would become light level tone (21).
 * 3) Within a word, characters with -p, -t, and -k finals would change their "color". That is, dark entering tone would become light one, vice versa.

Some comparisons
我曰綏南語

nga6 giat8 soei1-nam5-ngoe5 [ŋa˨ ɣi̯at̚˧ sœi̯˧˥ nam˨ ŋœ˨˩] (I speak Soeinam.)

故人具雞黍，邀我至田家.

ku3-njin5 koe7 ki1-sjoe2 joe1 nga6 chi3 din5-ka1 [ku˥ ɲin˨˩ kœ˩˧ ki˧˥ ɕœ˧˥ jœ˥ ŋa˨ tɕi˥˩ ɗin˨ ka˥] (My old friend has prepared meals and invites me to his house among fields.)

綠樹村邊合，青山郭外斜.

liak8-choe7 tshon1-pin1 gap8 tsheng1-sran1 kuak4-nguai7 zia5 [li̯a˩˧ tɕʰœ˩˧ tsʰɔn˧˥ pin˥ ɣap̚˧ tsʰɛŋ˧˥ ʂan˥ ku̯a˥˩ ŋu̯ai̯˩˧ zi̯a˨˩] (The green trees surround the village while the cyan mountain lies outside the city wall.)