Chang–Du Gan

Phonology

The Nanchang dialect has 19 syllable onsets or initials (including the zero initial), 65 finals and 7 tones.

Initials

In each cell below, the first line indicates IPA transcription, the second indicates pinyin.

Finals

The finals of the Nanchang dialect are:

Consonantal codas

• The codas in italic are at present only reserved in several Gan dialects.

Tone

Like other Chinese varieties, tones in Gan make phonemic distinctions. There are five phonemic tones in Gan, which are reduced to two 'entering tones' before stop consonants. In the traditional classification, these are considered separately:

The 6th and 7th tones are the same as the 4th and 5th tones, except that the syllable ends in a stop consonant, or .

Example

A poem of Meng Haoran (“Men Hau-len” in Gan):