Introduction

In the correct sense, the term 'Minnan' called by Taiwanese or 'Hokkien' called by overseas Chinese should be called Quan-Zhang language.

The history of Quan-Zhang language started with proto-Quanzhou. The historical development of this language can be summarised in the chart below.

Quan-Zhang (泉漳) is a combination of two major dialects which exist in southern Fujian starting from the Tang dynasty. They are Quanzhou (泉州) and Zhangzhou (漳州) with its linguistic centers along the lower Jin and Jiulong River basin respectively (see map below).

Proto-Quanzhou

The first mass migration of Han Chinese from Henan province occurred during the ‘Invasion from the Five barbarians’ (五胡亂華) in 304-316 AD (Western Jin dynasty) which was an invasion of northern China by non-Han Chinese tribes.

The Jin River (晉江) in Quanzhou prefecture got its commemorative name from this mass migration event in the Jin dynasty (晉朝). Another shorter river was also named Luoyang River (洛陽江) to commemorate that they came from Luoyang in Henan province.

As the population grew, Nan-An (南安) commandery was formed around 502-519 AD. This was the third earliest major Han Chinese settlement in modern day Fujian province after Jian-An and Jin-An commanderies.

The three commanderies of Fujian

The earliest Han Chinese settlement in southern Fujian was along the Jin River basin which became the earliest linguistic and cultural center for Southern Min people.

These migrants brought along the Luoyang (洛陽) dialect of Old Chinese language spoken during the Jin dynasty which then formed proto-Quanzhou.

Southern Min people are also called He-Luo/Ho-Lok (河洛) people. 'He' and 'Luo' are the short-forms for 'Yellow River' and 'Luoyang' respectively.

Zhangzhou dialect

The second mass migration of Han Chinese to southern Fujian began when Chen Zheng (陳政) and his son Chen Yuan Guang (陳元光) led a huge army down from Guangzhou (光州) in Henan province to southern Zhangzhou to quell a rebellion by the She (畬), a Hmong-Mien tribe, in 669 AD (Tang dynasty).

Statue of Chen Yuan Guang in Zhangzhou

They first settled in Zhangpu (漳浦) county along Zhang River (漳江) basin and brought along the Old Chinese dialect spoken in Henan province during the early Tang dynasty before the spread of Middle Chinese to parts of Henan.

Longqi (龍溪) county which lies in the lower Jiulong River (九龍江) basin was transferred from Quanzhou prefecture to Zhangzhou prefecture in 741 AD. Longqi county was where Zhangzhou dialect formed through the intermixing of proto-Zhangzhou with proto-Quanzhou.

By the end of Tang dynasty, Zhangzhou dialect developed into two sub-dialects Longqi and Zhangpu. Longqi became the prestige sub-dialect because Longqi county (around modern-day Zhangzhou city) was the administrative center for this prefecture.

Quanzhou dialect

Quanzhou city was a very important Chinese port along the Maritime Silk Road during the Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties. The English word 'tea' originated from the Quanzhou word 'tay' (茶) when European traders visited this port.

Quanzhou on Maritime Silk Road

During early Tang dynasty, Quanzhou prefecture included modern day Putian, Quanzhou, Xiamen and Zhangzhou prefectures.

After Zhangzhou split from Quanzhou prefecture, there were two main settlements in Quanzhou prefecture which were along the Jin River (晉江) basin and Mulan (木蘭) River basin.

Quanzhou prefecture during Tang dynasty

The southern Min people in these two basins spoke two sub-dialects of Quanzhou dialect which were Nan-an (南安) and Putian (莆田) respectively.

This ancient Nan-An county (around modern-day Quanzhou city) was the cultural and linguistic center for Quanzhou dialect.

Xiamen dialect

When the Manchu invaded Fujian during the Southern Ming dynasty (1644-1662 AD), the Ming general Zheng Cheng Gong (鄭成功) established his military base

in Xiamen (思明洲) in 1650 AD.

Statue of Zheng Cheng Gong in Xiamen

Xiamen attracted a lot of migrant workers from both Quanzhou and Zhangzhou due to its central location between the two regions and also to its international port status replacing Quanzhou port during Qing dynasty.

This intermixing of people created a new dialect which is a mixture of both Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects. Xiamen and its sister dialect i.e. Taiwanese Minnan is now the defacto standard Quan-Zhang dialect.

Differences between Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and literary sounds

China was reunited again during the Sui and Tang dynasty after centuries of fragmentation. The literary layer of Quanzhou language originated from 7th century Tang dynasty court language spoken in its capital Chang-An which became the national language during that time.

However, the common folks retained the Jin dynasty language which their ancestors spoke and this became the colloquial layer of the language.

There are many differences in vowels between the two dialects of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. The most striking differences are the various sets below.

Set 1	English	Chinese	Quanzhou	Zhangzhou	Literary
əng/ui	Yellow	黃	Ng	Ui (Ooi)	Hong
	Go back	轉	Təng	Tui	Juan
	Egg	卵	Nəng	Nui	Luan

Set 2	English	Chinese	Quanzhou	Zhangzhou	Literary
əng/ɔ	Two	兩	Nəng	Nɔ	Liong
əng/ɔ	Hair	毛	Məng	Mɔ	Mɔ

Set 3	English	Chinese	Quanzhou	Zhangzhou	Literary
ə/uei	Fire	火	Hə	Huei	Hɔ
ə/uei	Pass	過	Kə	Kuei	Kɔ

Xiamen and Taiwanese Minnan takes set 1 and 2 from Quanzhou whereas it takes a variant of set 3 from Zhangzhou.

Southern Min language subfamily

Southern Min is erroneously described as a single language instead of a family of languages in all Chinese literature. However, Ethnologue describes a language as having 85% mutual intelligibility and above with another language.

Quanzhou (泉州) city was the traditional political, economical and cultural center of Southern Min.

The proto-Quanzhou language spawned many partially intelligible Southern Min languages as shown in blue border.

Quan-Zhang (泉漳) is the representative Southern Min language and is mainly spoken in Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, Xiamen prefectures and Taiwan. Its prestige dialect is Xiamen which is very similar to Taiwanese Minnan.

The other prominent Southern Min languages are

Teochew-Swatow aka Chao-Shan (潮汕).
Hing-Hua aka Puxian (莆仙).
Hainanese aka Qiongwen (瓊).
Leizhou (雷).

Note: The inclusion of Hing-Hua will be explained in the article on 'Origin of Teochew language' in the link below.

Conclusion

Quanzhou dialect was the form of Old Chinese spoken during the Western Jin dynasty whereas Zhangzhou dialect was the Henan dialect spoken during the early Tang dynasty because the latter migrated much later (around 360 years apart) to southern Fujian.

Xiamen dialect narrowed the linguistic differences between Quanzhou and Zhangzhou making them different dialects instead of different languages due to increased mutual intelligibility.

The literary layer of Quanzhou language originated from Tang dynasty court language.

East Asian origin, history, language, culture

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Origin of Hokkien language

Introduction

Proto-Quanzhou

Zhangzhou dialect

Quanzhou dialect

Xiamen dialect

Differences between Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and literary sounds

Southern Min language subfamily

Conclusion

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