Proto-Min
Proto-Min is a comparative reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Min group of varieties of Chinese. Min varieties developed in the relative isolation of the Chinese province of Fujian and eastern Guangdong, and have since spread to Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world. They contain reflexes of distinctions not found in Middle Chinese or most other modern varieties, and thus provide additional data for the reconstruction of Old Chinese.
Proto-Min
Fujian
c. 4th century AD
原始閩語
原始闽语
Yuánshǐ Mǐnyǔ
Yuánshǐ Mǐnyǔ
Goân-sí Bân-gí
Nguòng-sṳ̄ Mìng-ngṳ̄
Ngé̤ng-sî Máng-gṳ̂
Ngûing-sǐ Mâing-ngṳ̌
Jerry Norman reconstructed the sound system of Proto-Min from popular vocabulary in a range of Min varieties, including new data on varieties from inland Fujian. The system has a six-way manner contrast in stops and affricates, compared with the three-way contrast in Middle Chinese and modern Wu varieties and the two-way contrast in most modern Chinese varieties. A two-way contrast in sonorants is also reconstructed, compared with the single series of Middle Chinese and all modern varieties. Evidence from early loans into other languages suggests that the additional contrasts may reflect consonant clusters or minor syllables.
Proto-Min had four tone classes, corresponding to the four tones of Middle Chinese: syllables with vocalic or nasal endings belonged to class *A, *B or *C, whereas class *D consisted of the syllables ending in a stop (/p/, /t/ or /k/).[74] As with Middle Chinese and other languages of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, each of these classes split into upper and lower registers, depending on whether the original initial was voiceless or voiced.[75] When voicing was lost,[b] the register distinction became phonemic, yielding tone classes conventionally numbered 1 to 8, with tones 1 and 2 naming the upper and lower registers of Proto-Min class A*, and so on.[74] All 8 classes are retained by the Chaozhou dialect, but some have merged in other varieties. Some northern varieties, including the Jianyang dialect, have an additional tone class (tone 9), reflecting a partial merger of tone classes that cannot be predicted from Middle Chinese forms.[77]
Stop and affricate initials at other points of articulation produce the same tonal reflexes as the dental examples in the above table. Voiceless fricatives have the same tonal reflexes as voiceless aspirated and unaspirated stops. Voiced fricatives are more varied:[82]
The zero initial has the same tonal development as plain sonorants.[83]
Norman reconstructs Proto-Min finals as consisting of:
The possible combinations were:
The close vowels *i, *u, *y, *e and *ə were short, with stronger following consonants, whereas the open vowels *o, *a and *ɑ were longer, with weaker following consonants.[97][98]
Proto-Min also had a single word with a syllabic nasal, the usual negator *mC (cognate with Middle Chinese mjɨjH 未 'not have').[99][100]
Most inland varieties have reduced the nasal codas to a single category.[42]
Coastal varieties went through a series of changes that each affected part of the area, and interacted with nasal initials:
In most inland varieties stop codas have disappeared, but are marked with separate tonal categories.[42]
In coastal varieties, stop codas underwent changes corresponding to those affecting nasal codas:
Most Min vocabulary corresponds directly to cognates in other Chinese varieties, but a significant number of distinctively Min words can be reconstructed in proto-Min.
In some cases a semantic shift has occurred in Min or the rest of Chinese:
Norman and Mei Tsu-lin have suggested an Austroasiatic origin for some Min words:
In other cases, the origin of the Min word is obscure. Such words include *khauA 骹 'foot',[123] *-tsiɑmB 䭕 'insipid'[99] and *dzyŋC 𧚔 'to wear'.[118]