The Old Guangde dialect is a

Northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ra ...

Wu dialect spoken in southeastern

Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...

province in southeastern Guangde county,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. It is now losing ground to the New Guangde dialect, a

Jianghuai Mandarin Lower Yangtze Mandarin () is one of the most divergent and least mutually-intelligible of the Mandarin languages, as it neighbours the Wu, Hui, and Gan groups of Sinitic languages. It is also known as Jiang–Huai Mandarin (), named after the ...

dialect. It is closely related to

Shanghainese The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the Districts of Shanghai, central districts of the Shanghai, City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as ...

and the

Suzhou dialect Suzhounese (; Suzhounese: ''sou1 tseu1 ghe2 gho6'' [] ), also known as the Suzhou dialect, is the Varieties of Chinese, variety of Chinese traditionally spoken in the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu, Jiangsu Province, China. Suzhounese is a varie ...

, but its closest relative is the

Huzhou dialect Huzhou (, ; Huzhounese: Romanization of Wu Chinese, ''ghou² cieu¹'') is a prefecture-level city in northern Zhejiang province (Hangzhou–Jiaxing–Huzhou Plain, China). Lying south of the Lake Tai, it borders Jiaxing to the east, Hangzhou to ...

. It is a Northern Wu dialect exclave surrounded by speakers of Jianghuai Mandarin and Xuanzhou Wu.

Phonology

Initials

Finals

Tones

{, class="wikitable" width="200" , - ! Traditional description , , Tone , , Examples , - , 陰平 Yin Ping , , 34(33) , , 高天三開 , - , 陽平 Yang Ping , , 14 , , 陳盤窮田 , - , 陰上 Yin Shang , , 54(55) , , 古姐麻娘 , - , 陽上 Yang Shang , , 21 , , 老女近父 , - , 去聲 Qu Sheng , , 324 , , 蓋放岸用
共大樹飯 , - , 陰入 Yin Ru , , 5 , , 急尺藥合 , - , 陰上 Yin Shang , , 12 , , 食讀服實 Wu Chinese