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The Wu languages (; Wu romanization and
IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners A ...
: ''wu6 gniu6'' [] (
Shanghainese The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the central districts of the City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan langua ...
), ''ng2 gniu6'' [] (Suzhounese), Mandarin pinyin and IPA: ''Wúyǔ'' []) is a major group of Sinitic languages spoken primarily in
Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...
, Zhejiang, Zhejiang Province, and the part of Jiangsu, Jiangsu Province south of the
Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...
, which makes up the cultural region of Wu. 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 ...
was the
prestige dialect Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.) Prestige may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films * ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnet ...
of Wu as of the 19th century, and formed the basis of Wu's koiné dialect,
Shanghainese The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the central districts of the City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan langua ...
, at the turn of the 20th century. Speakers of various Wu languages sometimes inaccurately labelled their mother tongue as "Shanghainese" when introduced to foreigners. The languages of Northern Wu are
mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...
with each other, while those of Southern Wu are not.
Historical linguists Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...
view Wu of great significance because it distinguished itself from other
varieties of Chinese Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of mai ...
by preserving the voiced initials of the ancient
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
and by preserving the
checked tone A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a sy ...
as a
glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
. The phonological divergence between Wu and other Chinese is significant, for instance, the phrase "Shanghainese language" () is pronounced as /nowiki>/nowiki> in Wu and in Beijing Mandarin. Wu and the Suzhou dialect in particular is perceived as soft in the ears of Mandarin speakers; hence there is the idiom "the tender speech of Wu" (). The decline of Wu began from around 1986, when students were banned from speaking "uncivilized dialects" during class, a term used by the State Language Commission to refer to all Chinese languages other than
Standard Chinese Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standa ...
. In 1992, students in Shanghai were banned from speaking Wu at all times on campuses. Since the late 2000s, Wu mostly survived in kitchens and theatres, as a "kitchen language" among the elderly housewives and as a theatrical language in folk Yue opera, Shanghai opera and Pingtan. As of now, Wu has no official status, no legal protection and there is no officially sanctioned
romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...
.阙政 (19 November 2012), 第三种语言从娃娃抓起, ''新民周刊'' '' /nowiki>Xinmin_Weekly.html" ;"title="Xinmin_Weekly.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Xinmin Weekly">/nowiki>Xinmin Weekly">Xinmin_Weekly.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Xinmin Weekly">/nowiki>Xinmin Weekly/nowiki>'', , . Reprinted alongside other articles in the same issue as:


Names

Speakers of Wu varieties are mostly unaware of this term for their speech, since the term "Wu" is a relatively recent classificatory imposition on what are less clearly defined and highly heterogeneous natural forms. Saying someone "speaks Wu" is therefore akin to saying someone "speaks a Romance language"; it is not a particularly defined entity like Standard Mandarin or Standard German, Hochdeutsch. Most speakers are only vaguely aware of their local variety's affinities with other similarly classified varieties, and will generally only refer to their local Wu variety rather than to the dialect family as a whole. This is typically done by affixing "" ("speech") to a location's endonym. For example, () is used for
Wenzhounese Wenzhounese (), also known as Oujiang (), Tong Au () or Au Nyü (), is the language spoken in Wenzhou, the southern prefecture of Zhejiang, China. Nicknamed the "Devil's Language" () for its complexity and difficulty, it is the most divergent div ...
. Affixing "" is also common, and more typical of the Taihu division, as in (''ka-shin ghae-o'') for the
Jiaxing dialect Jiaxing (), alternately romanized as Kashing, is a prefecture-level city in northern Zhejiang province, China. Lying on the Grand Canal of China, Jiaxing borders Hangzhou to the southwest, Huzhou to the west, Shanghai to the northeast, and the p ...
. * Wu (,
Shanghainese The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the central districts of the City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan langua ...
: ;
Suzhounese 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 ...
: ; Wuxinese: , 'Wu language'): the formal name and standard reference in
dialectology Dialectology (from Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , '' -logia'') is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their ass ...
literature. * Wuyue language (; "the language of Wu-Yue"): a poetic and historical name in the modern sense, highlighting the roots of the language to the ancient states and hence the culture of Wu and Yue during the
Warring States period The Warring States period () was an era in History of China#Ancient China, ancient Chinese history characterized by warfare, as well as bureaucratic and military reforms and consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded ...
. :* Goetian, derived from the Japanese spelling of ''Wuyue'' (, ''Gō-etsu''), is among the alternative names listed by ''
Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensi ...
''. * The Wu
topolect Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of mai ...
(), a derogatory and self-deprecating yet common name that belittles the status of Wu languages as a "dialect" of "the neChinese language", usually used by academics in state-administered universities. * Jiang–Zhe speech (): a non-standard name meaning "the speech of
Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with it ...
and
Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Ji ...
", occasionally used to highlight the fact that the language is spoken in two provinces. * Jiangnan speech (): a non-standard and uncommon name that links the language to the cultural region of
Jiangnan Jiangnan or Jiang Nan (; formerly romanized Kiang-nan, literally "South of the River" meaning "South of the Yangtze") is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, incl ...
("south of the
Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...
"). This is not to be confused with the Jiangnan Industrial Groups Koine, spoken in
Xiangtan Xiangtan () is a prefecture-level city in east-central Hunan province, south-central China. The hometowns of several founding leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, including Chairman Mao Zedong, President Liu Shaoqi, and Marshal Peng Dehuai, a ...
, which is classified as Mandarin.


History

Wu Chinese is the most ancient of the six major southern Chinese varieties, tracing its origin to more than 3,000 years ago, when the Zhou princes
Taibo Taibo () (circa 1150 BCE), or Wu Taibo, was the eldest son of King Tai of Zhou and the legendary founder of the State of Wu. His exact birth and death dates are unknown. Biography According to Sima Qian, Taibo was the founder of the State of Wu. ...
and Zhongyong migrated from the
Guanzhong Guanzhong (, formerly romanised as Kwanchung) region, also known as the Guanzhong Basin, Wei River Basin, or uncommonly as the Shaanzhong region, is a historical region of China corresponding to the crescentic graben basin within present-day ce ...
region in modern
Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see § Name) is a landlocked province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), N ...
to the
Wuxi Wuxi (, ) is a city in southern Jiangsu province, eastern China, by car to the northwest of downtown Shanghai, between Changzhou and Suzhou. In 2017 it had a population of 3,542,319, with 6,553,000 living in the entire prefecture-level city a ...
Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trad ...
area of the
Jiangnan Jiangnan or Jiang Nan (; formerly romanized Kiang-nan, literally "South of the River" meaning "South of the Yangtze") is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, incl ...
region, where they established the state of Wu. The northern language they brought formed the foundation of Wu Chinese. By the
Six Dynasties Six Dynasties (; 220–589 or 222–589) is a collective term for six Han-ruled Chinese dynasties that existed from the early 3rd century AD to the late 6th century AD. The Six Dynasties period overlapped with the era of the Sixteen Kingdoms ...
era, Wu had already been developing for a millennium and differed considerably from the northern speech. When large numbers of northern Chinese migrated to Jiangnan following the fall of the
Western Jin Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US * Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that i ...
dynasty, they discovered great discrepancies between the two varieties of Chinese. This is recorded in contemporary texts such as the '' Shi Shuo Xin Yu''. The Japanese readings of Chinese characters (obtained from the
Eastern Wu Wu (Chinese: 吳; pinyin: ''Wú''; Middle Chinese *''ŋuo'' < : ''*ŋuɑ''), known in hi ...
during the
Three Kingdoms The Three Kingdoms () from 220 to 280 AD was the tripartite division of China among the dynastic states of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu. The Three Kingdoms period was preceded by the Eastern Han dynasty and was followed by the West ...
period) are from the ancient Wu Chinese of this period. However, as Wu Chinese has been under strong influence from the north throughout history, many of its ancient features have been lost. The language of today is largely descendant from the Middle Chinese of the Sui
Tang Tang or TANG most often refers to: * Tang dynasty * Tang (drink mix) Tang or TANG may also refer to: Chinese states and dynasties * Jin (Chinese state) (11th century – 376 BC), a state during the Spring and Autumn period, called Tang (唐) ...
era (6–8th centuries), as is true of most contemporary Chinese languages, with
Min Chinese Min (; BUC: ''Mìng-ngṳ̄'') is a broad group of Sinitic languages spoken by about 30 million people in Fujian province as well as by the descendants of Min speaking colonists on Leizhou peninsula and Hainan, or assimilated natives of Chaosh ...
languages being notable exceptions. However, many of the ancient Wu features have been preserved in Min, as the latter began its life as the Old Wu spoken by migrants to
Fujian Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its ...
during the century that marked the transition from the late
Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...
to the
Three Kingdoms The Three Kingdoms () from 220 to 280 AD was the tripartite division of China among the dynastic states of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu. The Three Kingdoms period was preceded by the Eastern Han dynasty and was followed by the West ...
and the
Western Jin Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US * Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that i ...
.


Substrate influences

Wu is considered the most ancient southern Chinese variety, since the
Jiangnan Jiangnan or Jiang Nan (; formerly romanized Kiang-nan, literally "South of the River" meaning "South of the Yangtze") is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, incl ...
region was the first area settled that was non-contiguous with the northern Chinese states. Proto-Min or Old Wu–Min is also the language from which the Min dialects evolved as the populace migrated farther south, so some knowledge of this language would not only offer insight into the development of these dialects and Sino-Tibetan but also into the indigenous languages of the region, knowledge of which would also be invaluable towards establishing the phylogeny of related Asian languages and towards reconstructing them. According to traditional history,
Taibo of Wu Taibo () (circa 1150 BCE), or Wu Taibo, was the eldest son of King Tai of Zhou and the legendary founder of the State of Wu. His exact birth and death dates are unknown. Biography According to Sima Qian, Taibo was the founder of the State of ...
settled in the area during the
Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty a ...
, bringing along a large section of the population and Chinese administrative practices to form the state of Wu. The state of Wu might have been ruled by a Chinese minority along with sinified
Yue peoples The Baiyue (, ), Hundred Yue, or simply Yue (; ), were various ethnic groups who inhabited the regions of East China, South China and Northern Vietnam during the 1st millennium BC and 1st millennium AD. They were known for their short hair, b ...
, and the bulk of the population would have remained Yue until later migrations and absorption into the greater Chinese populace (though many likely fled south as well). Many have wondered about what effect the Yue people's language may have had on the dialect spoken there, since, for example, names and other social practices in the state of Yue are markedly different from the rest of Chinese civilization.
Bernhard Karlgren Klas Bernhard Johannes Karlgren (; 15 October 1889 – 20 October 1978) was a Swedish sinologist and linguist who pioneered the study of Chinese historical phonology using modern comparative methods. In the early 20th century, Karlgren conducte ...
, on the other hand, noted that the Tang ''koiné'' was adopted by most speakers in China (except for those in Fujian) with only slight remnants of " vulgar" speech from pre-Tang times, which he believed were preserved among the lower classes, albeit this makes many presumptions about Tang China's class structure and sociolinguistic situation. Most linguists today refer to these remnants as dialectal strata or substrata. In many ways, the koiné can be considered the language from which Wu varieties evolved, with the earlier language leaving behind a pre-Tang dialectal stratum which itself may have included a substratum from the Yue language(s). Western dialectologists have found a small handful of words that appear to be part of an
Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...
substratum in many Wu and Min languages. Mandarin Chinese also possesses some words of Austroasiatic origin, such as the original name of the Yangtze River, "" (''jiāng''; Old Chinese *''krung'', compared to Old Vietnamese ''*krong''), which has evolved into the general word for "river". Min languages, which were less affected by the koiné, definitely appear to possess an Austroasiatic substratum, such as a Min word for ''shaman'' or ''spirit healer'' such as in Jian'ou Min ''toŋ³'' which appears to be cognate with Vietnamese ''ʔdoŋ²'', Written Mon ''doŋ'', and Santali ''dōŋ'', which all have meanings similar to the Min word. However, Laurent Sagart points out that the resemblance between the Min word for ''shaman'' or ''spirit healer'' and the Vietnamese term with the same meaning is likely coincidental. The most notable examples are the word for "person" in some Wu varieties as *''nong'', usually written as in Chinese, and the word for ''wet'' in many Wu and Min dialects, with a /t/ initial which is clearly in no way related to the Chinese word but cognate with Vietnamese . Min languages notably retain the bilabial nasal coda for this word. However, Sagart shows that the Min words for ''wet'', ''duckweed'', and ''(small) salted fish'', which seem to be cognates with Vietnamese , , , are either East Asian areal words if not Chinese words in disguise ("duckweed", "wet"), and long shots ("salted fish"). Li Hui identifies 126 Tai-Kadai cognates in
Maqiao ''A Dictionary of Maqiao'' () is a novel written by Chinese writer Han Shaogong. It was first published in 1996 and was translated into English by Julia Lovell in 2003. ''Yazhou Zhoukan'' selected it as one of the top 100 greatest Chinese novels i ...
Wu dialect spoken in the suburbs of
Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...
out of more than a thousand lexical items surveyed. According to the author, these cognates are likely traces of "
old Yue language The Old Yue language ( zh, c=古越語, p=''Gu Yueyu'') is an unknown unclassified language (or many different languages). It can refer to Yue, which was spoken in the realm of Yue during the Spring and Autumn period. It can also refer to the v ...
" (). Analysis of the ''
Song of the Yue Boatman The Song of the Yue Boatman () is a short song in an unknown language of southern China said to have been recorded around 528 BC. A transcription using Chinese characters, together with a Chinese version, is preserved in the ''Garden of Stories ...
'', a song in the Yue language transcribed by a Chinese official in Chinese characters, clearly points to a Tai language rather than an Austroasiatic one. Chinese discussion of Wenzhounese often mentions the strong Tai affinities the dialect possesses. The
Zhuang languages The Zhuang languages (; autonym: , pre-1982: , Sawndip: 話僮, from ''vah'', 'language' and ''Cuengh'', 'Zhuang'; ) are any of more than a dozen Tai languages spoken by the Zhuang people of Southern China in the province of Guangxi and adj ...
in Guangxi and western Guangdong, for example, are also Tai, so it would appear that Tai populated southern China before the Chinese expansion. The term Yue was clearly applied indiscriminately to any non-Chinese in the area that the Chinese encountered. The impact of these languages still appears to be fairly minimal overall. Though Sino-Tibetan, Tai–Kadai, Austronesian and Austroasiatic are mostly considered to be unrelated to each other,
Laurent Sagart Laurent Sagart (; born 1951) is a senior researcher at the Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale (CRLAO – UMR 8563) unit of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). Biography Born in Paris in 1951, he earned hi ...
has proposed some possible phylogenetic affinities. Specifically, Tai–Kadai and Sino-Tibetan could possibly both belong to the Sino-Austronesian language family (not to be confused with Austroasiatic) due to a scattering of cognates between their ancestral forms, and there is also some, albeit much more tenuous, evidence to suggest that Austroasiatic should also be included, however his views are but one among competing hypotheses about the phylogeny of these languages, see the
Sino-Austronesian languages Sino-Austronesian or Sino-Tibetan-Austronesian is a proposed language family suggested by Laurent Sagart in 1990. Using reconstructions of Old Chinese, Sagart argued that the Austronesian languages are related to the Sinitic languages phonologic ...
article for some further detail. During the 8th and 9th centuries, ethnic Koreans from
Silla Silla or Shilla (57 BCE – 935 CE) ( , Old Korean: Syera, Old Japanese: Siraki2) was a Korean kingdom located on the southern and central parts of the Korean Peninsula. Silla, along with Baekje and Goguryeo, formed the Three Kingdoms o ...
made overseas communities in the Wu speaking region. It does appear that Wu varieties have had non-Sinitic influences, and many contain words cognate with those of other languages in various strata. These words however are few and far between, and Wu on the whole is most strongly influenced by Tang Chinese rather than any other linguistic influence.


Migrations

As early as the time of
Guo Pu Guo Pu (; AD 276–324), courtesy name Jingchun () was a Chinese historian, poet, and writer during the Eastern Jin period, and is best known as one of China's foremost commentators on ancient texts. Guo was a Taoist mystic, geomancer, collector ...
(276–324), speakers easily perceived differences between dialects in different parts of China including the area where Wu varieties are spoken today. According to records of the
Eastern Jin Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...
, the earliest known dialect of Nanjing was an ancient Wu dialect. After the
Wu Hu uprising The Upheaval of the Five Barbarians also translated as the Rebellion, the Revolt, or the Invasion of the Five Barbarians () is a Chinese expression which refers to a series of rebellions and invasions between 304 and 316 by non- Han peoples, comm ...
and the Disaster of Yongjia in 311, the Jin Emperor and many northern Chinese fled south, establishing the new capital
Jiankang Jiankang (), or Jianye (), as it was originally called, was capital city of the Eastern Wu (229–265 and 266–280 CE), the Jin dynasty (317–420 CE) and the Southern Dynasties (420–552), including the Chen dynasty (557–589 CE). Its wal ...
in what is modern-day Nanjing. The lower Yangtze region became heavily inundated by settlers from Northern China, mostly coming from what is now northern Jiangsu province and Shandong province, with smaller numbers of settlers coming from the Central Plains. From the 4th to the 5th century, Northern people moved into Wu areas, adding characteristics to the lexicon of Northern Wu, traces of which can still be found in Northern Wu varieties today. One prominent historical speaker of the Wu dialect was Emperor Yangdi of the
Sui dynasty The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and la ...
and his Empress Xiao. Emperor Xuan of Western Liang, a member of
Emperor Wu of Liang Emperor Wu of Liang () (464 – 12 June 549), personal name Xiao Yan (蕭衍), courtesy name Shuda (叔達), childhood name Lian'er (練兒), was the founding emperor of the Chinese Liang dynasty, during the Northern and Southern dynasties peri ...
's court, was Empress Xiao's grandfather and he most likely learned the Wu dialect at
Jiankang Jiankang (), or Jianye (), as it was originally called, was capital city of the Eastern Wu (229–265 and 266–280 CE), the Jin dynasty (317–420 CE) and the Southern Dynasties (420–552), including the Chen dynasty (557–589 CE). Its wal ...
. After the
Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It last ...
at the end of the
Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
, in which the Wu-speaking region was devastated by war, Shanghai was inundated with migrants from other parts of the Wu-speaking area. This greatly affected the variety of Shanghai, bringing, for example, influence from the
Ningbo dialect The Ningbo dialect () is a dialect of Wu Chinese, one subdivision of Chinese language. Ningbo dialect is spoken throughout Ningbo and Zhoushan prefectures, in Zhejiang province. Intelligibility Ningbo dialect native speakers generally understan ...
to a dialect which, at least within the walled city of Shanghai, was almost identical to 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 ...
. As a result of the population boom, in the first half of the 20th century, Shanghainese became almost a lingua franca within the region, eclipsing the status of the Suzhou variety. However, due to its pastiche of features from different languages, it is rarely used to infer historical information about the Wu group and is less representative of Wu than the Suzhou variety.


Written sources

There are few written sources of study for Wu, and research is generally concentrated on modern speech forms rather than texts. Written Chinese has always been in the classical form, so Wu speakers would have written in this classical form and read it in a literary form of their dialect based on the phonetic distinctions outlined in rhyme dictionaries. Therefore, no text in classical Chinese from the region would give a clear notion about the actual speech of the writer, although there may have been cleverly disguised puns based on local pronunciations that are lost on modern readers or other dialect speakers.
Yue opera Yue opera, also known as Shaoxing opera, is the Chinese opera genre. Only Peking opera is more popular nationwide. Originating in Shengzhou, Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province in 1906, Yue opera features actresses in male roles as well as femininity ...
, for example, is performed in the
Shaoxing dialect The Shaoxing dialect () is a Wu dialect spoken in the city of Shaoxing more specifically in the city center of Yuecheng and its surrounding areas. It is a representative Wu dialect with a tripartite distinction on voiced stop initials and a textbo ...
, however the register is more literary than oral. There are still a number of primary documents available, but they do not always give a clear sense of the dialects' historical pronunciation. They do often offer insight into lexical differences. Most of the sources for diachronic Wu study lie in the folk literature of the region. Since the average person was illiterate and the literate were often traditionalists who possibly perceived their local form of Chinese as a degenerated version of a classical ideal, very little was recorded, although local vocabulary often sneaks into written records. A "ballad–narrative" () known as "The Story of Xue Rengui Crossing the Sea and Pacifying Liao" (), which is about the
Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
hero
Xue Rengui Xue Rengui (; 614 – 24 March 683), formal name Xue Li (薛礼) but went by the courtesy name of Rengui, was a Chinese military general during the early Tang Dynasty. He is one of the most well-known military generals of his time due to his hum ...
, is believed to have been written in 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 ...
of Wu. The main sources of study are from the Ming and Qing period, since the dialectal differences were not as obvious until Ming times, and lie in historical folk songs, ''
tanci Tanci is a narrative form of song in China that alternates between verse and prose.Wang, Lingzhen, p53 The literal name "plucking rhymes" refers to the singing of verse portions to a ''pipa''.Hu, Siao-chen, p539 A ''tanci'' is usually seven words ...
'' (a kind of ballad or lyric poem), local records, legendary stories, baihua novels, educational material produced for the region, notes which have survived among individuals' effects, the linguistic descriptions made by foreigners (primarily by missionaries), and the
Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...
s translated into Wu dialects. These all give glimpses into the past, but except for the bibles, are not so useful for phonological studies. They are, however, of tremendous importance for diachronic studies of vocabulary and to a lesser extent grammar and syntax. The diachronic study of written Ming and Qing Wu, the time when the dialects began to take on wholly unique features, can be placed into three stages: the Early Period, the Middle Period, and the Late Period. The "Early Period" begins at the end of the Ming dynasty to the beginning of the Qing in the 17th century, when the first documents showing distinctly Wu characteristics appear. The representative work from this period is the collection of folk songs gathered by Feng Menglong entitled "Shan Ge" . The majority of early period documents record the Wu varieties of southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang, so any discussion in this section is primarily relevant to Northern Wu or the Taihu division. Along with some other legends and works, the following list contains many of the documents that are either written in Wu or contain parts where dialects are used. * ''San Yan'' , a trilogy of collected stories compiled by Feng Menglong * ''Er Pai'' , two short story collections by Ling Mengchu * ''Xing Shi Yan'' , a novella recorded by Lu Renlong * ''Huan Sha Ji'' , an opera by Liang Chenyu * ''Mo Hanzhai dingben chuanqi'' , Feng Menglong * ''Qing zhong pu'' * ''Doupeng xianhua'' , early Qing baihua novel * ''Guzhang jue chen'' , late Ming novel collection * ''Bo zhong lian'' These works contain a small handful of unique grammatical features, some of which are not found in contemporary Mandarin, classical Chinese, or in contemporary Wu varieties. They do contain many of the unique features present in contemporary Wu such as pronouns, but clearly indicate that not all of the earlier unique features of these Wu dialects were carried into the present. These works also possess a number of characters uniquely formed to express features not found in the classical language and used some common characters as phonetic loans (see
Chinese character classification All Chinese characters are logograms, but several different types can be identified, based on the manner in which they are formed or derived. There are a handful which derive from pictographs () and a number which are ideographic () in origin, i ...
) to express other uniquely Wu vocabulary. During the Ming dynasty, Wu speakers moved into
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 th ...
speaking regions, influencing the Tairu and Tongtai dialects of Jianghuai. During the time between the
Ming Dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
and early Republican era, the main characteristics of modern Wu were formed. 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 ...
became the most influential, and many dialectologists use it in citing examples of Wu. The Middle Period () took place in the middle of the Qing dynasty in the 18th century. Representative works from this section include the operas (especially kunqu operas) by Qian Decang () in the collection , and the legends written by or what are known as "", as well as huge numbers of tanci () ballads. Many of the common phenomena found in the Shan Ge are not present in works from this period, but we see the production of many new words and new means of using words. The Late Period () is the period from late Qing to Republican China, in the 19th and 20th centuries. The representative works from this period are Wu vernacular novels ( or ) such as '' The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai'' and ''
The Nine-tailed Turtle ''The Nine-tailed Turtle'' (, also translated as ''Nine-tailed Turtles'', ''Nine-headed Turtle'', or ''Nine-times Cuckold'') is a novel by (?-1935), an author from Piling (near modern-day Changzhou). The novel centres around the life of a scholar ...
''. Other works include: * ''Haitian Hongxue Ji'' * ''The Nine-tailed Fox'' * ''
Officialdom Unmasked ''Officialdom Unmasked'' (), is a late-Qing Chinese novel by Li Baojia (Li Boyuan). The theme of the work is the disintegration of the late Qing dynasty civil service bureaucracy as it is deteriorating.Holoch, p. 77. The novel was translated to ...
'' * ''Wuge Jiaji'' * ''He Dian'' Wu-speaking writers who wrote in vernacular Mandarin often left traces of their native varieties in their works, as can be found in ''Guanchang Xianxing Ji'' and ''Fubao Zatan'' (). Another source from this period is from the work of the missionary Joseph Edkins, who gathered large amounts of data and published several educational works on Shanghainese as well as a Bible in Shanghainese and a few other major Wu varieties. Works in this period also saw an explosion of new vocabulary in Wu dialects to describe their changing world. This clearly reflects the great social changes which were occurring during the time. There are currently three works available on the topic: * (Ming and Qing Wu and Modern Dialect Research) by Shi Rujie () * (Studies of Wu words found in Ming and Qing literature) by Chu Bannong () * (Dictionary of Ming and Qing Wu) edited by Shi Rujie ()


Post-1949

After the founding of the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, the strong promotion of Mandarin in the Wu-speaking region yet again influenced the development of Wu Chinese. Wu was gradually excluded from most modern media and schools. Public organizations were required to use Mandarin. With the influx of a migrant non-Wu-speaking population, the near total conversion of public media and organizations to the exclusive use of Mandarin as well as radical Mandarin promotion measures, the modernization and standardization of or literacy in Wu languages became improbable and left them more prone to Mandarinization. The promotion measures, which at present mostly consist of signs like the one pictured, are primarily aimed at limiting the usage of local dialects in conducting public or administrative affairs, although it, like the smoking ban, is commonly violated and it is not so uncommon to hear people speaking local dialects in a government office or a bank. The usage of local dialects in all other spheres is officially tolerated. Standardization of dialects, however, may be perceived as a precursor to possible regionalism, so this, too, would most likely be deterred. On the other hand, few speakers consider their dialect important enough to be written or standardized. To most speakers, dialects are in essence a wholly oral phenomenon. It is not uncommon to encounter children who grew up with a regional variant of Mandarin as their parent tongue with little or no fluency in a Wu variety at all. However, this is primarily when parents are speakers of different languages and communicate in Mandarin and more rarely due to the parents' attitudes towards using language or dialect, which most associate with the warmth of home and family life. Many people have noticed this trend and thus call for the preservation and documentation of not only Wu but all Chinese varieties. The first major attempt was the '' Linguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects'', which surveyed 2,791 locations across the nation, including 121 Wu locations (a step up from the two locations in PKU's earlier surveys), and led to the formation of an elaborate database including digital recordings of all locations; however, this database is not available to the general public. The atlas's editor, Cao Zhiyun, considers many of these languages "endangered" and has introduced the term (languages in danger) or "endangered dialects" into the Chinese language to raise people's attention to the issue, while others try to draw attention to how the dialects fall under the scope of UNESCO's
intangible cultural heritage An intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is a practice, representation, expression, knowledge, or skill considered by UNESCO to be part of a place's cultural heritage. Buildings, historic places, monuments, and artifacts are cultural property. I ...
and as such deserve to be preserved and respected. More TV programs are appearing in Wu varieties and nearly every city/town has at least one show in their native variety. However, they are no longer permitted to air during primetime. They are generally more playful than serious and the majority of these shows, such as Hangzhou's "Old Liutou tells you the news", provide local or regional news in the dialect, but most are limited to fifteen minutes of airtime. Popular video sites such as
Youku Youku Tudou Inc. (formerly Youku Inc.), doing business as Youku (), is a video hosting service based in Beijing, China. It operates as a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding Limited. Youku has its headquarters in the Sinosteel Plaza in Haid ...
and
Tudou Tudou, Inc. () is a Chinese video-sharing website headquartered in Shanghai, China, where users can upload, view and share video clips. Tudou went live on April 15, 2005 and by September 2007 served over 55 million videos each day.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 th ...
has replaced Wu as the language of multiple counties in Jiangsu. An example of this is Zaicheng Town in Lishui County; both Jianghuai and Wu languages were spoken in several towns in Lishui, with Wu being spoken by more people in more towns than Jianghuai. The Wu dialect is called "old Zaicheng Speech", while the Jianghuai dialect is called "new Zaicheng speech", with Wu languages being driven rapidly to extinction. Only use it to talk to relatives. The Jianghuai dialect has been present there for about a century, even though all of the surrounding are Wu speaking. Jianghuai was always confined inside the town itself until the 1960s; at present, it is overtaking Wu.


Number of speakers

Wu Chinese was once historically dominant north of the Yangtze River and most of what is now Anhui province during the Sui dynasty. Its strength in areas north of the Yangtze vastly declined from the late Tang dynasty until the late Ming dynasty, when the first characteristics of Early Modern Wu were formed. During the early Qing period, Wu speakers represented about 20% of the whole Chinese population. This percentage drastically declined after the
Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It last ...
devastated the Wu-speaking region, and it was reduced to about 8% by 1984, when the total number of speakers was estimated to be 80 million.


Classification

Wu's place within the greater scope of Sinitic varieties is less easily typified than prototypically northern Chinese such as Mandarin or prototypically southern Chinese such as Cantonese. Its original classification, along with the other Sinitic varieties, was established in 1937 by
Li Fang-Kuei Li Fang-Kuei ( Chinese: 李方桂, Cantonese: Lei5 Fong1 Gwai3 ej˩˨ fɔŋ˦ gʷaj˧, Mandarin: Lǐ Fāngguì i˨ faŋ˦ gʷej˥˩ 20 August 190221 August 1987) was a Chinese linguist known for his studies of the varieties of Chinese, his r ...
, whose boundaries more or less have remained the same and were adopted by
Yuan Jiahua Yuan Jiahua (, ; January 19034 September 1980) was a Chinese linguist and dialectologist from Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu province. He graduated from the English Department of Peking University in 1932, worked as an editor in the North Shanghai New Boo ...
in his influential 1961 dialect primer. The sole basis of Li's classification was the evolution of
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
voiced stops. In the original sense, a Wu variety was by definition one which retained voiced initials. This definition is problematic considering the devoicing process which has begun in many southern Wu varieties that are surrounded by dialects which retain the ancestral voicing. The loss of voicing in a dialect does not entail that its other features will suddenly become dramatically different from the dialects it has had long historic ties with. It furthermore would place
Old Xiang Old Xiang, also known as Lou-Shao (娄邵片 / 婁邵片), is a conservative Xiang Chinese language. It is spoken in the central areas of Hunan where it has been to some extent isolated from the neighboring Chinese languages, Southwestern Manda ...
in this category. Therefore, more elaborate systems have developed, but they still mostly delineate the same regions. Regardless of the justification, the Wu region has been clearly outlined, and Li's boundary in some ways has remained the de facto standard. In Jerry Norman's usage, Wu dialects can be considered "central dialects" or dialects that are clearly in a transition zone containing features that typify both northern and southern Chinese. .


Possible Kra–Dai substratum

Li Hui (2001) finds possible 126 Kra-Dai cognates in the
Maqiao ''A Dictionary of Maqiao'' () is a novel written by Chinese writer Han Shaogong. It was first published in 1996 and was translated into English by Julia Lovell in 2003. ''Yazhou Zhoukan'' selected it as one of the top 100 greatest Chinese novels i ...
Wu dialect spoken in the suburbs of
Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...
, out of more than 1,000 lexical items surveyed. According to the author, these cognates are likely traces of the "
old Yue language The Old Yue language ( zh, c=古越語, p=''Gu Yueyu'') is an unknown unclassified language (or many different languages). It can refer to Yue, which was spoken in the realm of Yue during the Spring and Autumn period. It can also refer to the v ...
" (''gu Yueyu'', ). The two tables below show lexical comparisons between the Maqiao Wu dialect and Kra-Dai languages as quoted from Li Hui (2001). He notes that, in Wu Chinese, final consonants such as -m, -ɯ, -i, ụ, etc do not exist, and therefore, -m in the Maqiao dialect tends to become -ŋ, -n, or zero. In some cases, -m even becomes a final glottal stop.


Languages and dialects

Wu languages are spoken in most of
Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Ji ...
province, the whole municipality of
Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...
, southern
Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with it ...
province, as well as smaller parts of
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 Riv ...
and
Jiangxi Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...
provinces. Many are located in the lower
Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...
valley. Dialectologists traditionally establish linguistic boundaries based on several overlapping
isogloss An isogloss, also called a heterogloss (see Etymology below), is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Major ...
es of linguistic features. One of the critical historical factors for these boundaries lies in the movement of the population of speakers. This is often determined by the administrative boundaries established during imperial times. As such, imperial boundaries are essential for delineating one variety from another, and many varieties' isogloss clusters line up perfectly with the county boundaries established in imperial times, although some counties contain more than one variety and others may span several counties. Another factor that influences movement and transportation as well as the establishment of administrative boundaries is geography. Northernmost Zhejiang and Jiangsu are very flat, in the middle of a river delta, and as such are more uniform than the more mountainous regions farther south towards Fujian. The Taihu varieties, like Mandarin in the flat northern plains, are more homogeneous than Southern Wu, which has a significantly greater diversity of linguistic forms, and this is likely a direct result of geography. Coastal varieties also share more featural affinities, likely because the East China Sea provides a means of transportation. The same phenomenon can be seen with Min varieties.


Major groupings

Wu is divided into two major groups: Northern Wu () and Southern Wu (), which are only partially mutually intelligible. Individual words spoken in isolation may be comprehensible among these speakers, but the flowing discourse of everyday life mostly is not. There is another lesser group, Western Wu, synonymous with the Xuanzhou division, which has a larger influence from the surrounding Mandarin varieties than Northern Wu, making it typologically much different from the rest of Wu. Southern Wu is well known among
linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingui ...
and
sinologists Sinology, or Chinese studies, is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of China primarily through Chinese philosophy, language, literature, culture and history and often refers to Western scholarship. Its origin "may be traced to the ex ...
as being one of the most internally diverse among the Sinitic groups, with very little mutual intelligibility between varieties across subgroups. On the other hand, some Wu varieties like
Wenzhounese Wenzhounese (), also known as Oujiang (), Tong Au () or Au Nyü (), is the language spoken in Wenzhou, the southern prefecture of Zhejiang, China. Nicknamed the "Devil's Language" () for its complexity and difficulty, it is the most divergent div ...
have gained notoriety for their high incomprehensibility to both Wu and non-Wu speakers alike, so much so that Wenzhounese was used during the Second World War to avoid Japanese interception. In the '' Language Atlas of China'' (1987), Wu was divided into six subgroups: *
Taihu Taihu (), also known as Lake Tai or Lake Taihu, is a lake in the Yangtze Delta and one of the largest freshwater lakes in China. The lake is in Jiangsu province and a significant part of its southern shore forms its border with Zhejiang. Wi ...
(i.e.,
Lake Tai Taihu (), also known as Lake Tai or Lake Taihu, is a lake in the Yangtze Delta and one of the largest freshwater lakes in China. The lake is in Jiangsu province and a significant part of its southern shore forms its border with Zhejiang. ...
region): Spoken over much of southern
Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with it ...
province, including
Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trad ...
,
Wuxi Wuxi (, ) is a city in southern Jiangsu province, eastern China, by car to the northwest of downtown Shanghai, between Changzhou and Suzhou. In 2017 it had a population of 3,542,319, with 6,553,000 living in the entire prefecture-level city a ...
,
Changzhou Changzhou ( Changzhounese: ''Zaon Tsei'', ) is a prefecture-level city in southern Jiangsu province, China. It was previously known as Yanling, Lanling and Jinling. Located on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, Changzhou borders the provin ...
, the southern part of
Nantong Nantong (; alternate names: Nan-t'ung, Nantung, Tongzhou, or Tungchow; Qihai dialect: ) is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Jiangsu province, China. Located on the northern bank of the Yangtze River, near the river mouth. Nantong is a vit ...
,
Jingjiang Jingjiang () is a county-level city under the administration of Taizhou, Jiangsu province, China. It is located on the northern (left) bank of the Yangtze River, and is the southernmost part of Taizhou City, bordering Nantong to the northeast, Suz ...
, and Danyang; the city of
Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...
; and the northern part of
Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Ji ...
province, including
Ningbo Ningbo (; Ningbonese: ''gnin² poq⁷'' , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly romanized as Ningpo, is a major sub-provincial city in northeast Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It comprises 6 urban districts, 2 sate ...
,
Hangzhou Hangzhou ( or , ; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), also Chinese postal romanization, romanized as Hangchow, is the capital and most populous city of Zhejiang, China. It is located in the northwestern part of the prov ...
,
Huzhou Huzhou (, ; Huzhounese: ''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 the south, and the provin ...
,
Shaoxing Shaoxing (; ) is a prefecture-level city on the southern shore of Hangzhou Bay in northeastern Zhejiang province, China. It was formerly known as Kuaiji and Shanyin and abbreviated in Chinese as (''Yuè'') from the area's former inhabitant ...
and Jiaxing. This group makes up the largest population among all Wu speakers. The local varieties of this region are mostly mutually intelligible among each other. **
Shanghainese The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the central districts of the City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan langua ...
**
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 ...
**
Ningbo dialect The Ningbo dialect () is a dialect of Wu Chinese, one subdivision of Chinese language. Ningbo dialect is spoken throughout Ningbo and Zhoushan prefectures, in Zhejiang province. Intelligibility Ningbo dialect native speakers generally understan ...
** Hangzhou dialect **Huzhou dialect **
Wuxi dialect The Wuxi dialect ( Simplified Chinese: 无锡话; Traditional Chinese: 無錫話; Pinyin: Wúxīhuà, Wu : mu1 sik1 wo3 , Wuxi dialect : u˨˨˧ siɪʔ˦ ɦu˨ is a dialect of Wu. It is spoken in the city of Wuxi in Jiangsu province, China. ...
**
Changzhou dialect The Changzhou dialect ( Simplified Chinese: 常州话; Traditional Chinese: 常州話; IPA: ̥ɑŋ.tsei.ɦu(pronunciation in the Changzhou dialect)), sometimes called ''Changzhounese'', is a dialect of Wu, a Sino-Tibetan language family, and be ...
**
Jiangyin dialect The Jiangyin dialect ( zh, s=江阴话, p=Jiāngyīnhuà) is a Northern Wu Chinese dialect spoken in the city of Jiangyin in Jiangsu province. The Jiangyin dialect is a member of the Wu Chinese Taihu Wu family of dialects, which means the inha ...
** Qi–Hai dialect **
Jinxiang dialect The Jinxiang dialect ( zh, s=金鄉話, p=Jīnxiānghuà) is a Taihu Wu dialect, or a Northern Wu dialect, spoken in the county of Cangnan of the prefecture-level city Wenzhou. It is considered to be a Taihu Wu linguistic exclave within the mos ...
* Taizhou (): Spoken in and around Taizhou,
Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Ji ...
province. Taizhou Wu is among the southern varieties that are the closest to Taihu Wu, also known as North Wu, and speakers can communicate with speakers of Taihu Wu. **
Taizhou dialect The Taizhou dialect (Taizhou dialect: T'e-tsiu wa; ) is a dialect of Wu Chinese. It is spoken in the city of Taizhou in Zhejiang province, China. It is only partially intelligible with Shanghainese The Shanghainese language, also known a ...
* Oujiang/Dong'ou (/): Spoken in and around the city of
Wenzhou Wenzhou (pronounced ; Wenzhounese: Yuziou �y33–11 tɕiɤu33–32 ), historically known as Wenchow is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Zhejiang province in the People's Republic of China. Wenzhou is located at the extreme south east o ...
,
Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Ji ...
province. This variety is the most distinctive and mutually unintelligible amongst all the Wu varieties. Some dialectologists even treat it as a variety separate from the rest of Wu and call it "Ou language" or . **
Wenzhounese Wenzhounese (), also known as Oujiang (), Tong Au () or Au Nyü (), is the language spoken in Wenzhou, the southern prefecture of Zhejiang, China. Nicknamed the "Devil's Language" () for its complexity and difficulty, it is the most divergent div ...
** Yueqing dialect *
Wuzhou Wuzhou (, postal: Wuchow; za, Ngouzcouh / Ŋouƨcouƅ), formerly Ngchow, is a prefecture-level city in the east of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China. Geography and climate Wuzhou is located in eastern Guangxi borde ...
(): Spoken in and around
Jinhua , alternately romanized as Kinhwa, is a prefecture-level city in central Zhejiang province in eastern China. It borders the provincial capital of Hangzhou to the northwest, Quzhou to the southwest, Lishui to the south, Taizhou to the east ...
,
Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Ji ...
province. Like Taizhou Wu, it is somewhat mutually intelligible with Taihu Wu. * Chu–Qu (): Spoken in and around
Lishui Lishui (; Lishuinese: ''li⁶ syu³'' ) is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It borders Quzhou, Jinhua and Taizhou to the north, Wenzhou to the southeast, and the province of Fujian to ...
and
Quzhou Quzhou is a prefecture-level city in western Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. Sitting on the upper course of the Qiantang River, it borders Hangzhou to the north, Jinhua to the east, Lishui to the southeast, and the provinces of ...
in
Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Ji ...
as well as in Shangrao County and
Yushan County Yushan () is a county in the northeast of Jiangxi province, China. The county is Jiangxi's gateway to bordering Zhejiang province. It covers and the population now reaches 560,000. The climate is temperate there with abundant rainfall in the m ...
in
Jiangxi Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...
province. ** Quzhou dialect ** Jiangshan dialect ** Qingtian dialect * Xuanzhou (): Spoken in and around
Xuancheng Xuancheng () is a city in the southeast of Anhui province. Archeological digs suggest that the city has been settled for over 4,000 years, and has been under formal administration since the Qin dynasty. Located in the lower Yangtze River drainage ...
,
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 Riv ...
province. This part of Wu is becoming less spoken since the campaign started by the
Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It last ...
, and it is being slowly replaced by the immigrant Mandarin from north of the Yangtse river.


Southern Wu

Chinese dialectologist
Cao Zhiyun Cao Zhiyun (), born in Jinhua, Zhejiang in 1961 is a Chinese linguist and dialectologist who is a professor at Beijing Language and Culture University. Career He is best known for his work as the primary editor of the groundbreaking 2008 ''Lingui ...
has rearranged some of the divisions based on a larger corpus of data. According to Cao, Southern Wu can be divided into three broad divisions (note that he is using the pre-republican boundaries for the cited locations): * Jin–Qu (), which contains twelve locations. **Jinhua Prefecture:
Jinhua , alternately romanized as Kinhwa, is a prefecture-level city in central Zhejiang province in eastern China. It borders the provincial capital of Hangzhou to the northwest, Quzhou to the southwest, Lishui to the south, Taizhou to the east ...
, Tangxi, Lanxi, Pujiang,
Yiwu Yiwu () is a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Jinhua in Central Zhejiang Province, East China. As of the 2020 census, the city had 1,859,390 inhabitants and its built-up (or metro) area, joined with that of the neighboring Dongy ...
,
Dongyang () is a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Jinhua in Central Zhejiang Province, China. It covers an area of and administers eleven towns, one township, and six subdistricts. It is part of the Yangtze River Delta Economic Region. A ...
,
Pan'an Pan'an County () is a county of central Zhejiang province, China. It is under the administration of the Jinhua city. Administrative divisions Towns: * Anwen (安文镇), Shanghu (尚湖镇), Fangqian (方前镇), Xinwo (新渥镇), Jiansh ...
, Yongkang, and Wuyi **Quzhou Prefecture:
Quzhou Quzhou is a prefecture-level city in western Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. Sitting on the upper course of the Qiantang River, it borders Hangzhou to the north, Jinhua to the east, Lishui to the southeast, and the provinces of ...
and Longyou **Lishui Prefecture:
Jinyun Jinyun County () is a county of south-central Zhejiang province, China. It is under the administration of the Lishui City. Administrative divisions Towns: * Wuyun (五云镇), Huzhen (壶镇镇), Xinjian (新建镇), Shuhong (舒洪镇), Dayu ...
* Shang–Li (), which contains seventeen locations and has two subdivisions: **''Shang–Shan'' (), which contains six locations. ***
Shangrao Shangrao () is a medium-sized prefecture-level city located in the northeast of Jiangxi province, People's Republic of China. The city borders the province of Anhui to the north, the province of Zhejiang to the east, and the province of Fujian t ...
prefecture, Jiangxi province:
Shangrao Shangrao () is a medium-sized prefecture-level city located in the northeast of Jiangxi province, People's Republic of China. The city borders the province of Anhui to the north, the province of Zhejiang to the east, and the province of Fujian t ...
, Guangfeng, Yushan ***
Quzhou Quzhou is a prefecture-level city in western Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. Sitting on the upper course of the Qiantang River, it borders Hangzhou to the north, Jinhua to the east, Lishui to the southeast, and the provinces of ...
prefecture: Kaihua,
Changshan (; ), also known as (), and (), is a form of , Chinese robe, which was derived from the Qing dynasty , the traditional dress of the Manchu people, which were worn by Manchu men. The was actually developed by the Han Chinese through the modi ...
, Jiangshan **''Lishui'' (), which contains eleven locations. ***
Lishui Lishui (; Lishuinese: ''li⁶ syu³'' ) is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It borders Quzhou, Jinhua and Taizhou to the north, Wenzhou to the southeast, and the province of Fujian to ...
Prefecture:
Lishui Lishui (; Lishuinese: ''li⁶ syu³'' ) is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. It borders Quzhou, Jinhua and Taizhou to the north, Wenzhou to the southeast, and the province of Fujian to ...
, Suichang,
Songyang Songyang County () is a county in the southwest of Zhejiang province, China. It is under the administration of the Lishui city. Administrative divisions Towns: * Xiping (西屏镇), Gushi (古市镇), Yuyan (玉岩镇), Xiangxi (象溪镇), D ...
, (former county of Lishui, now belonging to Wuyi), Qingtian, Yunhe,
Jingning She Autonomous County Jingning She Autonomous County () is an autonomous county for the She people, under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city of Lishui in the south of Zhejiang Province, China. The county covers an area of and in 1999 had a population of 175 ...
,
Longquan Longquan () is a county-level city and former county under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Lishui in southwestern Zhejiang Province, China, located on the upper reaches of the Ou River and bordering Fujian province to the sout ...
, and
Qingyuan Qingyuan, formerly romanized as Tsingyun, is a prefecture-level city in northern Guangdong province, China, on the banks of the Bei or North River. During the 2020 census, its total population was 3,969,473, out of whom 1,738,424 lived in the ...
***
Wenzhou Wenzhou (pronounced ; Wenzhounese: Yuziou �y33–11 tɕiɤu33–32 ), historically known as Wenchow is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Zhejiang province in the People's Republic of China. Wenzhou is located at the extreme south east o ...
Prefecture: Taishun county ***
Nanping Nanping (), historically known as Yanping (), is a third-tier prefecture-level city in northwestern Fujian Province, People's Republic of China. It borders Ningde to the east, Sanming to the south, and the provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangxi to ...
Prefecture in Fujian: Pucheng * Oujiang or Ou River, which contains eight locations. **Wenzhou prefecture:
Wenzhou Wenzhou (pronounced ; Wenzhounese: Yuziou �y33–11 tɕiɤu33–32 ), historically known as Wenchow is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Zhejiang province in the People's Republic of China. Wenzhou is located at the extreme south east o ...
, Yongjia,
Yueqing Yueqing () is a county-level city under the administration of Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, in eastern China. It lies on the coast of the East China Sea, by the Yueqing Bay. Much of the Yandang Mountains lie in Yueqing. History China's ancient ( ...
,
Rui'an Rui'an (, Wenzhounese: ''zy iu'') is a county-level city along the southern coast of Zhejiang province, China, and is under the administration of Wenzhou City. It has a population of 1,125,000 people and covers a land area of , when including wa ...
, Dongtou, Pingyang,
Cangnan Cangnan County ( ) is a county in the prefecture-level city of Wenzhou in southern Zhejiang. The county government is in Lingxi. Cangnan has 20 towns, 14 townships, and two nationality townships. The predominant Chinese dialect spoken in Cangnan ...
, and Wencheng (excluding the Min speaking regions of Pingyang and Cangnan).


Phonology

The Wu dialects are notable among Chinese varieties in having kept the "muddy" (
voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...
d; whispery voiced word-initially)
plosive In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...
s and
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...
s of
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
, such as ''etc.'', thus maintaining the three-way contrast of Middle Chinese
stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), li ...
s and
affricates An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pa ...
, , , ''etc.'' (For example, 「凍 痛 洞」 , where other varieties have only .) Because Wu dialects never lost these voiced obstruents, the tone split of Middle Chinese may still be allophonic, and most dialects have three syllabic tones (though counted as eight in traditional descriptions). In Shanghai, these are reduced to two
word tone Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey empha ...
s. Wu varieties and
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...
have the largest
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...
quality inventories in the world. The
Jinhui dialect The Jinhui dialect (), also known as Dônđäc (), is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the town of , China in Shanghai's suburban Fengxian District. It has about 100,000 native speakers. Jinhui is located near the border of the ancient states of ...
spoken in Shanghai's
Fengxian District Fengxian District, is a suburban district in the south of Shanghai with a land area of , a registered population (as of 2010) of 1,083,400, and 1.5 to 2 times more migrants. It is known for its relative rusticity, as well as its beaches and oc ...
has 20 vowel qualities. Because of these different changes within Wu, which gives it its unique quality, it has also sometimes been called the "
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
of China". For more details, see , , and .


Grammar

The
pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not ...
systems of many Wu dialects are complex when it comes to personal and demonstrative pronouns. For example, Wu exhibits
clusivity In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the addressee ...
(having different forms of the first-person plural pronoun depending on whether or not the addressee is included). Wu employs six demonstratives, three of which are used to refer to close objects, and three of which are used for farther objects. In terms of
word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
, Wu uses SVO (like Mandarin), but unlike Mandarin, it also has a high occurrence of SOV and in some cases OSV. In terms of phonology, tone
sandhi Sandhi ( sa, सन्धि ' , "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of sound changes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on near ...
is extremely complex, and helps parse multisyllabic words and idiomatic phrases. In some cases, indirect objects are distinguished from direct objects by a voiced/voiceless distinction. In most cases, classifiers take the place of genitive particles and articles – a quality shared with
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding a ...
– as shown by the following examples:


Plural pronouns

Wu dialects vary in the way they pluralize pronouns. In 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 ...
, second- and third-person pronouns are suffixed with , while the first-person plural is a separate root, , from the singular. In
Shanghainese The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the central districts of the City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan langua ...
, the first-person pronoun is suffixed with , and third-person with (underlying ), but the second-person plural is a separate root, . In the Haiyan dialect, first- and third-person pronouns are pluralized with , but the second-person plural is a separate root .


Classifiers

All nouns could have just one classifier in Shanghainese.


Examples


Shanghainese


Suzhounese


Romanization

There are three major schools of
romanization of Wu Chinese Wu Chinese has three major schools of romanization. The most popular school, Common Wu Pinyin (), was developed by amateur language clubs and local learners. There are two competing schemes; both adhere to the International Phonetic Alphabet ( ...
.


Vocabulary

Like other varieties of Southern Chinese, Wu Chinese retains some archaic vocabulary from
Classical Chinese Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning "literar ...
,
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
, and
Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 12 ...
. For instance, for "to speak" or "speaking", Wu dialects, with the exception of Hangzhou dialect, use ''góng'' (
Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions ...
: ;
Traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays ...
: ), whereas Mandarin uses ''shuō'' (
Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions ...
: ;
Traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays ...
: ). Furthermore, in Guangfeng and Yushan counties of
Jiangxi Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...
province, ( or ''yuē'') is generally preferred over its Mandarin counterpart. In
Shangrao Shangrao () is a medium-sized prefecture-level city located in the northeast of Jiangxi province, People's Republic of China. The city borders the province of Anhui to the north, the province of Zhejiang to the east, and the province of Fujian t ...
county of
Jiangxi Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...
province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions out ...
,
Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions ...
:
Traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays ...
:
pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
: ''huà''/ is preferred over the spoken Mandarin version of the word for "to speak" or "speaking". For Wu dialects closer to Fuzhou such as Ningbonese, Jinhuanese, and
Wenzhounese Wenzhounese (), also known as Oujiang (), Tong Au () or Au Nyü (), is the language spoken in Wenzhou, the southern prefecture of Zhejiang, China. Nicknamed the "Devil's Language" () for its complexity and difficulty, it is the most divergent div ...
the word ''nóng'' (
Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions ...
: ;
Traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays ...
: ) is used for "person" instead of ''rén'' , similar to
Min Min or MIN may refer to: Places * Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China ** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian * Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China * Min River (Fujian) * Min River (Sichuan) * Mineola (Amtr ...
.


Pronouns


Examples

In Wu dialects, the morphology of the words are similar, but the characters are switched around. Not all Wu Chinese words exhibit this phenomenon, only some words in some dialects.


Colloquialisms

In Wu Chinese, there are colloquialisms that are traced back to ancestral Chinese varieties, such as Middle or Old Chinese. Many of those colloquialisms are cognates of other words found in other modern southern Chinese dialects, such as Gan, Xiang, or
Min Min or MIN may refer to: Places * Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China ** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian * Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China * Min River (Fujian) * Min River (Sichuan) * Mineola (Amtr ...
. Mandarin equivalents and their pronunciation on Wu Chinese are in parentheses. All IPA transcriptions and examples listed below are from
Shanghainese The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the central districts of the City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan langua ...
. *「鑊子」 (鍋子) wok, cooking pot. The Mandarin equivalent term is also used, but both of them are synonyms and are thus interchangeable. *「衣裳」 (衣服) clothing. Found in other Chinese dialects. It is a reference to traditional
Han Chinese clothing ''Hanfu'' () is the traditional styles of clothing worn by the Han Chinese. There are several representative styles of ''hanfu'', such as the (an upper-body garment with a long outer skirt), the (an upper-body garment with a long underskirt ...
, where it consists of the upper garments 「衣」 and the lower garments 「裳」.


Literature

The genres of ''
kunqu Kunqu (), also known as Kunju (), K'un-ch'ü, Kun opera or Kunqu Opera, is one of the oldest extant forms of Chinese opera. Kunqu is one of the oldest traditional operas of the Han nationality, and is also a treasure of Chinese traditional cult ...
'' opera and ''
tanci Tanci is a narrative form of song in China that alternates between verse and prose.Wang, Lingzhen, p53 The literal name "plucking rhymes" refers to the singing of verse portions to a ''pipa''.Hu, Siao-chen, p539 A ''tanci'' is usually seven words ...
'' song, appearing in the
Ming Dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
, were the first instances of the use of Wu dialect in literature. By the turn of the 20th century it was used in several novels that had prostitution as a subject.Snow, p
33
In many of these novels, Wu is mainly used as dialogue of prostitute characters. In one work, '' Shanghai Flowers'' by Han Bangqing, all of the dialogue is in Wu.Snow, p
34
Wu originally developed in genres related to oral performance. It was used in manners related to oral performance when it proliferated in written literature and it was widely used in fiction about prostitutes, a particular genre, and not in other genres. Donald B. Snow, author of ''Cantonese as Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular'', compared the development of Wu in this manner to the patterns of Baihua and Japanese vernacular writing. According to Jean Duval, author of "The Nine-Tailed Turtle: Pornography or 'fiction of exposure," at the time ''
The Nine-tailed Turtle ''The Nine-tailed Turtle'' (, also translated as ''Nine-tailed Turtles'', ''Nine-headed Turtle'', or ''Nine-times Cuckold'') is a novel by (?-1935), an author from Piling (near modern-day Changzhou). The novel centres around the life of a scholar ...
'' by () was published, it was one of the most popular novels written in the Wu dialect.Snow, p
261
'' Magnificent Dreams in Shanghai'' () by Sun Jiazhen () was another example of a prostitute novel with Wu dialogue from the turn of the 20th century.Snow, p
34
Snow wrote that Wu literature "achieved a certain degree of prominence" by 1910. After 1910 there had been no novels which were as popular as ''The Nine-tailed Turtle'' or the critical acclaim garnered by ''Shanghai Flowers''. In the popular fiction of the early 20th century the usage of Wu remained in use in prostitute dialogue but, as asserted by Snow, "apparently" did not extend beyond that. In 1926
Hu Shih Hu Shih (; 17 December 1891 – 24 February 1962), also known as Hu Suh in early references, was a Chinese diplomat, essayist, literary scholar, philosopher, and politician. Hu is widely recognized today as a key contributor to Chinese libera ...
stated that of all of the Chinese dialects, within literature, Wu had the brightest future. Snow concluded that instead Wu dialect writing became "a transient phenomenon that died out not long after its growth gathered steam." Snow argued that the primary reason was the increase of prestige and importance in Baihua, and that one other contributing reason was changing market factors since Shanghai's publishing industry, which grew, served all of China and not just Shanghai. Duval argued that many Chinese critics had a low opinion of Wu works, mainly originating from the eroticism within them, and that contributed to the decline in Wu literature.


See also

*
Romanization of Wu Chinese Wu Chinese has three major schools of romanization. The most popular school, Common Wu Pinyin (), was developed by amateur language clubs and local learners. There are two competing schemes; both adhere to the International Phonetic Alphabet ( ...
*
Huizhou Chinese Huizhou Chinese (), or the Hui dialect (), is a group of closely related Sinitic languages spoken over a small area in and around the historical region of Huizhou (for which it is named), in about ten or so mountainous counties in southern A ...
* * '' Wo Bau-Sae'' *
Jiangnan Jiangnan or Jiang Nan (; formerly romanized Kiang-nan, literally "South of the River" meaning "South of the Yangtze") is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, incl ...
*
List of varieties of Chinese The following is a list of Sinitic languages and their dialects. For a traditional dialectological overview, see also varieties of Chinese. Classification 'Chinese' is a blanket term covering the many different varieties spoken across China. ...
*
Wu (region) Wu () refers to a region in China centered on Lake Tai in Jiangnan (the region south of the Yangtze River).非常2+1亲子游中国--迷失烟雨江浙 The Wu region was historically part of the ancient Yang Province in southeastern China. The n ...
* Speakers of Wu Chinese *
Wuyue Wuyue (; ), 907–978, was an independent coastal kingdom founded during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907–960) of Chinese history. It was ruled by the Haiyan Qian clan (海盐钱氏), whose family name remains widespread in th ...
* Wuyue culture


Notes


References


Sources

* * * * * * * Snow, Donald B. ''Cantonese as Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular''.
Hong Kong University Press Hong Kong University Press is the university press of the University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially t ...
, 2004. . . * * * * * * * *


External links


Resources on Wu dialects


Wugniu.com
*
Wu Dictionary
�� Wu dictionary available in 8 dialects. *
Wu Character Pronunciation
Shows how character(s) are pronounced in Wu, data available for many dialects. *
Wu Pronunciation Map
How a character is pronounced in Wu depending on the region.
glossika.com
*
Shanghainese Wu Dictionary
�� Search in Mandarin,
IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners A ...
, or *
Classification of Wu Dialects
– By James Campbell *

– Compiled by James Campbell * A BBS set up in 2004, in which topics such as phonology, grammar, orthography and romanization of Wu Chinese are widely talked about. The cultural and linguistic diversity within China is also a significant concerning of this forum. * A website aimed at modernization of Wu Chinese, including basics of Wu, Wu romanization scheme, pronunciation dictionaries of different dialects, Wu input method development, Wu research literatures, written Wu experiment, Wu orthography, a discussion forum etc. * Excellent references on Wu Chinese, including tones of the sub-dialects.
Tatoeba Project Tatoeba.org
- Examples sentences in Shanghainese dialect, and in Suzhouan dialect. * Wu wordlist available through
Kaipuleohone Kaipuleohone is a digital ethnographic archive that houses audio and visual files, photographs, as well as hundreds of textual material such as notes, dictionaries, and transcriptions relating to small and endangered languages. The archive is stored ...

Pronunciation dictionary
- with audio from various Chinese cities.


Articles



– A comprehensive article, written by Wu Mei and Guo Zhenzhi of World Association for Christian Communication, related to the struggle for national cultural unity by current Chinese Communist national government while desperately fighting for preservation on Chinese regional cultures that have been the precious roots of all Han Chinese people (including Hangzhou Wu dialect). Excellent for anyone doing research on Chinese language linguistic, anthropology on Chinese culture, international business, foreign languages, global studies, and translation/interpretation.
Modernisation a Threat to Dialects in China
– An excellent article originally from Straits Times Interactive through YTL Community website, it provides an insight of Chinese dialects, both major and minor, losing their speakers to Standard Mandarin due to greater mobility and interaction. Excellent for anyone doing research on Chinese language linguistic, anthropology on Chinese culture, international business, foreign languages, global studies, and translation/interpretation.
Middlebury Expands Study Abroad Horizons
– An excellent article including a section on future exchange programs in learning Chinese language in Hangzhou (plus colorful, positive impression on the Hangzhou dialect, too). Requires registration of online account before viewing.
Mind your language (from The Standard, Hong Kong)
– This newspaper article provides a deep insight on the danger of decline in the usage of dialects, including Wu dialects, other than the rising star of Standard Mandarin. It also mentions an exception where some grassroots' organizations and, sometimes, larger institutions, are the force behind the preservation of their dialects. Another excellent article for research on Chinese language linguistics, anthropology on Chinese culture, international business, foreign languages, global studies, and translation/interpretation.
China: Dialect use on TV worries Beijing (originally from Straits Times Interactive, Singapore and posted on AsiaMedia Media News Daily from UCLA)
– Article on the use of dialects other than standard Mandarin in China where strict media censorship is high.
Standard or Local Chinese – TV Programs in Dialect (from Radio86.co.uk)
– Another article on the use of dialects other than standard Mandarin in China. {{Portal bar, Language, China Languages of China Subject–verb–object languages Varieties of Chinese