The distinguishing feature of the coastal speech is the use of the vowel in place of . The northern speech is distinguished by the absence of the 8th tone, and some vowel exchanges (for example, and , and ). The central speech has an additional vowel or between and , which may be represented as . There are also a number of other pronunciation and lexical differences between the Taiwanese variants; the online Ministry of Education dictionary specifies these to a resolution of eight regions on Taiwan proper, in addition to Kinmen and Penghu.