In this talk, I present an acoustically-determined description of the tone system of Penang Hokkien, a contact variety of Southern Min. Southern Min originates from the south-eastern coast of Fujien Province, China, but contact varieties are found in various parts of Southeast Asia. Penang Hokkien is the lingua franca for the Chinese population on the island state of Pulau Pinang (Penang), in northern Malaysia.
Despite having been developed in a contact environment that included amongst others, a number of non-Southern Min Chinese dialects, Malay and English, it is demonstrated that the essential features of Southern Min tone systems, are found in Penang Hokkien, namely, every syllable has a lexically-determined pair of tones - a citation(final) tone and a sandhi (non-final) tone. The rule that triggers the use of sandhi variants also remains characteristically Southern Min. There are, however, some distinct tonal features that may have developed as a result of Penang Hokkien's contact history and location, and these are pointed out.