Romanized Shaowu

Romanized Shaowu (邵武腔羅馬字 Shiau⁶-u² kʻiong¹ lo⁵-ma² tsʻe⁶) is a romanization system for the Shaowu dialect of the Shao–Jiang Min language.

History


"Romanized Shaowu" was created in the 1880s by Joseph Elkanah Walker and Ada Walker (née Claghorn), who were American missionaries living in Shaowu since 1872 through the 1930s. In 1891, they have translated the Epistle of James into Shaowu using this romanization (as 《使徒雅各書》 Se³-tʻu⁵ Nga²-ko⁴ shṳ¹).

Rimes
There is some variation in the representation of the finals in works by J.E.Walker. E.g., the letter ṳ may be written with the dots above it (as ü).

In modern Shaowu, the palatal sibilants ch /tɕ/, chʻ /tɕʰ/, sh /ɕ/ are only used before /-i-/ and /-y-/. Romanized Shaowu marks the /-i-/ medial somewhat inconsistenly, e.g. 上 /ɕioŋ³⁵/ is written as shong⁶ in the Walker's syllabary, but as shiong⁶ in his translation of the Epistle of James. The word 邵 is written shiau⁶ in the syllabary itself, but as shau on its title.

Tones
Tones in Romanized Shaowu are marked with superscript numbers after the syllable.

Correspondence to modern Shaowu
The original Walker's romanization lacks modern Shaowu finals /ou/ and /iou/, but contains finals iu, uoi, éu, which are absent in modern Shaowu (but may still be preserved in other dialects of Shao-Jiang Min).

The finals eu /əu/, éu /ɛu/, éi /ɛi/ are rearranged in modern Shaowu, with eu /əu/ becoming ou /ou/ (or iou /iou/ after palatal sibilants), éu /ɛu/ becoming eu /əu/, and éi /ɛi/ becoming ei /əi/.

The final iu /iu/ merges with /iou/ in modern Shaowu.

Finals uoi /uoi/, uei /uei/, uon /uon/ lose their medial /-u-/ after labial and dental initials to become /-oi, -ɛi, -on/.

The final r in the Walker's romanization is analyzed as /ɯ/ (or /ɿ/ after sibilants) in modern Shaowu, but it may merge with other finals in some specific contexts. Most of the tsʻ /tsʰ/ initials have merged with tʻ /tʰ/ in modern Shaowu, only occasionally being preserved in literary readings.