Teochew (潮州话 [Diê⁵ziu¹ uê])

Teochew is a dialect of Southern Min, a Sinitic language. It originated in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong province in China, and is also spoken in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

Teochew preserves a three-way distinction between unvoiced unaspirated, unvoiced aspirated and voiced unaspirated plosives that is absent in Mandarin Chinese. Oral and nasalised vowels form contrasting minimal pairs in Teochew.

Teochew pronunciation

Note on consonants

Syllables can only end in the following sounds: [p], [k], [m], [ŋ] and [ʔ].
The glottal stop never appears in the word-initial position. It can be viewed as a weakened form of the velar stop [k] in the final position. Some speakers pronounce the glottal stop where others pronounce the velar stop.
Unlike Hokkien, another closely related Southern Min dialect, Teochiu words do not end in [t] or [n].
Teochew has two syllabic nasals: [m] and [ŋ].

Note on vowels

Vowel sounds can either be oral or nasal.
There is a great variation in vowel sounds among Teochew speakers. Some speakers pronounce [ɛ] as [e], [ɨ] as [ɜ] or [i], [iɔ] as [iɛ], and [iəu] as [iou] or [iɑu].

Download an alphabet chart for Teochew (Excel)

Some of the information on this page was provided by Wenkai Tay.

Videos in Teochew

Information about Teochew | Phrases

Links

Information about Teochew
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teochew_dialect
http://gaginang.org

Diojiu Bhung Gak: A Site Teochiu Language
http://teochiu.tripod.com

Chaozhou Mogher - includes information about Chaozhou idioms and phonology and a dictionary
http://www.mogher.com

Chinese Ink in SE Asia: Dialects
http://www.post1.com/home/zhuangfu/dialects.htm

Singapore Teochew Association (in Chinese)
http://www.teochew.org.sg

Sinitic (Chinese) languages

Dungan, Cantonese, Fuzhounese, Gan, Hakka, Jian'ou, Mandarin, Puxian, Shanghainese, Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hakka, Teochew, Weitou, Wenzhounese, Xiang

Chinese pages

Written Chinese: Oracle Bone Script, Simplified characters, Bopomofo, Types of characters, Structure of written Chinese, Evolution of characters, How the Chinese script works, Xiao'erjing, General Chinese

Spoken Chinese: Mandarin, Dungan, Wu, Shanghainese, Wenzhounese, Yue, Cantonese, Weitou, Min, Jian'ou, Taiwanese, Teochew, Fuzhounese, Puxian, Hakka, Xiang, Gan, How many people speak Chinese?

Semanto-phonetic writing systems

Akkadian Cuneiform, Ancient Egyptian (Demotic), Ancient Egyptian (Hieratic), Ancient Egyptian (Hieroglyphs), Chinese, Chữ-nôm, Cuneiform, Japanese, Jurchen, Khitan, Linear B, Luwian, Mayan, Naxi, Sawndip (Old Zhuang), Sui, Sumerian Cuneiform, Tangut (Hsihsia)

Other writing systems

Page last modified: 15.03.23

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