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Lan-nang Lân-lâng-oé
Spoken in:	Philippines
Region:	Metro Manila, Angeles, Cebu, Bacolod, Vigan, Naga, Ilagan, and in various communities in the Philippines where Chinese people live.
Total speakers:	592,200 (98.7% of all Chinese in the Philippines)
Language family:	Sino-Tibetan  Chinese   Min    Min Nan     Lan-nang
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	zh
ISO 639-2:	chi (B)	zho (T)
ISO 639-3:	nan
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Lan-nang, or more properly known as 'Lan-nang-oé' (咱人話, also 咱儂話), is the Philippine variant of Min Nan, also known as Southern Fujianese or Hokkien. The name lan-nang-oé means 'our (lán) people's (lâng) language (oé)'. Its mother dialect is the Amoy dialect of Xiamen, China. Lan-nang is spoken among the Chinese residing in the Philippines. It is characterized by borrowings from Tagalog, Spanish, and Cantonese languages. It is also characterized by the heavy usage of words which are considered as colloquial forms in both China and Taiwan. About 592,200 people, or 98.7% of all Chinese in the Philippines speak it as their mother language. ^[1] Although Lan-nang is not recognized in the linguistic academe, in this article, however, it is treated as a variant of the Amoy dialect, and not as a dialect, per se.

Sino-Tibetan ⊃ Chinese ⊃ Min ⊃ Southern Min ⊃ Amoy ⊃ Lan-nang-oé (Philippine Hokkien)

Contents 1 Phonetics 2 Sample phrases 3 Geographic Spread 4 Uniqueness 5 See also 6 Notes

In some situations, Lan-nang is written in the Latin alphabet. But because there seems to be no standard form for romanisation for the Philippine variant, many groups have come up with different spellings (often to the confusion of outsiders).

To an average English speaker, it could look something like this simplified system:

• a ------ animal
• b ------ boy
• c ------ cheese, never hard as in country or crown (sometimes spelt as ch)
• d ------ dog
• e ------ fun
• eh ---- elephant
• g ------ good
• h ------ why (like hw)
• i ------- see
• k ------ bucket
• kh ---- curl
• l ------- lemon
• m ----- Melt (can stand as a word on its own)
• n ------ never
• o ------ born
• p ------ pepper
• ph ---- page
• s ------ sizzle
• t ------ butter
• th ---- teeth
• u ----- loose
• w ---- (added to u to form a “oo” sound, e.g. wu)
• y ----- (added to i to form a “ee” sound, e.g. yi)
• z ----- mints, never like zebra (sometimes spelt as ts)

Diphthongs

• ai -------- eye
• ei -------- Like in “say”
• ua ------- wand (Like Taiwanese goá)
• ueh ----- sweat
• oe ------- (like ueh)
• ui -------- sweet
• ia -------- yeah
• io -------- Roughly equal to yawn
• ie -------- “ee” + “u” in “urn”
• yu ------- pure

Extras

• abc' ----- Glottal stop
• abcⁿ ---- Nasal sound

Hello!

Dí hō, dí hō? (lit. "[Are] you well, you well?)

I don't know.

Guá m̄ zai yaⁿ.

Do you know how to speak Lan-nang?

Dí eh-hiao kong Lan-nang-oé bâ?

Where is the soap?

Hï-gé sá-bun tí-to-lò'?

Note: 'sá-bun', though sounds similar to the Tagalog sabon, is not borrowed from that language. In Taiwanese, which is a variation of Minnan that is not influenced by Tagalog, it is pronounced as sap-bûn. Etymologically speaking, perhaps both Taiwanese and Tagalog ultimately derive sap-bûn/sabon from the Romance languages that had brought the concept of soap to them (Portuguese sabão and Spanish jabón respectively).

Can you get me a glass?

Dí e choé-dit ká-oá tuè bá-su?

Note: 'bá-su' is borrowed from Tagalog baso, and ultimately from Spanish vaso.

Do you eat noodles?

Dí e ziá' pan-sit bâ?

Note: 'pan-sit' is borrowed from Tagalog pansit, which in turn derives from the Hokkien "pian-sit" (便事), or something convenient to do (in this case, cook).

Do you eat sweet potatoes?

Dí e ziá' ka-mú-ti bâ?

Note: 'ka-mú-ti' is borrowed from Tagalog kamote, and ultimately from Spanish camote.

When are you going to China?

Dí ti-si beh'-khï Tňg-soa?

Note: 'Tňg-soa', meaning China, is the colloquial term for 'Tiong-kok'. In the Lan-nang variant of the Amoy dialect, the former is more used.

His friend is in the hospital

Yi e siong-hó ti pi-chù.

Note: 'siong-hó' (相好), meaning "friend", is the colloquial term for 'pêng-iú' (朋友), while 'pi-chù' (病厝), meaning "hospital" or "house for the sick", is the colloquial term for 'yi-î'.

Where are you going?

Dí beh'-khí to-lò'?

Lan-nang-oé is spoken throughout the Philippines where there are significant numbers of Min Nan Chinese. Cities in the Philippines that have a significant number of Chinese include Metro Manila, Angeles City, Davao City, Vigan, Ilocos Sur, San Fernando City, Pampanga, Ilagan, Isabela, Cauayan City, Isabela , Cabatuan, Isabela , Naga City, Cebu City, Iloilo City, Bacolod City, Cagayan de Oro City, and Zamboanga.

Although Lan-nang-oé is generally mutually comprehensible with both Min Nan and Taiwanese, certain words in Lan-nang-oé are only used in the Philippines. Often, this results in confusion in Lan-nang-oé speakers, especially in China. Other aspects of Lan-nang-oé's uniqueness is its massive use of Min Nan colloquial words (see Sample Phrases above). Because there is an absence of a central agency governing Lan-nang-oé, various subvarieties have developed. In Cebu, for example, instead of Tagalog, Cebuano words are also incorporated. The vast majority of the Chinese who came to the Philippines had their ancestral roots in China, so Lan-nang-oé is closer to the Min Nan dialects spoken in China.

• Filipino Chinese
• Min Nan
• Taiwanese language
• Teochew dialect of Min Nan
• Penang Hokkien
• Medan Hokkien

1. ^ Ethnologue.com Chinese, Min Nan (statistics as of 1982)