Wu (linguistics)
The Wu (吳方言 pinyin wú fāng yán; 吳語 pinyin wú yǔ) spoken variations of the Chinese language are spoken in the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang; and the municipality of Shanghai. Wu includes Shanghainese, Suzhou, Wenzhou, Hangzhou, Yongkang and Shaoxing dialects. As of 1991, there are 87 million speakers of Wu Chinese, making it the second largest form of Chinese after Mandarin Chinese (which has 800 million speakers).Among speakers of other Chinese varieties, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is even a special term used to describe the quality of Wu speech: 吳儂軟語/吴侬软语 wúnóngruǎnyǔ. The actual source of this impression is harder to place. It is likely a combination of many factors; in any case, descriptions of Wu (or its geographical predecessor) as being "soft and light" date from as far back as the Eastern Jin Dynasty, even though the Chinese dialects of that time must all have been markedly different from those of today.
Like all other varieties of Chinese, there is plenty of dispute as to whether Wu is a language or a dialect. Please see here for the issues surrounding this dispute.
| Wu (吴语) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | China |
| Region: | Shanghai; Most of Zhejiang province; southern Jiangsu province; Xuanzhou prefecture of Anhui province |
| Total speakers: | 77.175 million |
| Ranking: | 10 [1] |
| Genetic classification: | Sino-Tibetan Chinese Wu |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | - |
| Regulated by: | - |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | zh |
| RFC 3066 | zh-wuu |
| ISO 639-2(B) | chi |
| ISO 639-2(T) | zho |
| SIL | WUU |
| Table of contents |
|
2 Dialects 3 Sounds 4 Grammar 5 Vocabulary 6 References 7 External Links |
The Japanese Go-on (呉音) pronunciation of Chinese characters (obtained from the Wu Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms period) is from the same region of China where Wu is spoken today.
Jerry Norman general introduction to the Chinese language and dialects, Chinese (ISBN 0521228093), states that northern Wu dialects are much influenced in their phonology and vocabulary from the Mandarin dialects to the north. After the Japanese occupation of northern China during the Second World War, Japanese vocabulary entered Chinese which filtered down into Wu speaking areas.
Wu is divided into six dialect areas:
Wu dialects are notable among Chinese languages in having kept voicedd consonants, such as /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, /v/, etc. (These may in fact be better described as voiceless consonants that create a voiced breathy element across the syllable: i.e. /p\\/, /t\\/, etc). Neither Mandarin nor Cantonese have voiced consonants.
See Suzhou dialect and Shanghai dialect for examples of Wu phonology.
Wu dialects have a relatively higher amount of Subject-Object-Verb sentence structure than Mandarin or Cantonese. There is huge array of personal and demonstrative pronouns used within the Wu dialects. Sandhi is also 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.
History
of the Chinese dialects starting from 1500 BC, and Wu's position relative to them.
Dialects
Sounds
Grammar
Vocabulary
References
External Links
Chinese: spoken varieties
Subdivisions:
Mandarin | Jin | Wu | Hui | Xiang | Gan | Hakka | Cantonese | Pinghua | Min
Dungan | Danzhouhua | Shaozhou Tuhua | Xianghua
Subdivisions of Min:
Min Dong | Min Bei | Min Zhong | Pu Xian | Min Nan | Qiong Wen | Shao Jiang
Note: The above is only one classification scheme among many.
Official spoken varieties:
Putonghua | Guoyu | Cantonese (Hong Kong) | Taiwanese (proposed)
Historical Chinese phonology:
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Proto-Min | Proto-Mandarin | Haner
Chinese: written varieties
Official written varieties:
Classical Chinese (past) | Vernacular Chinese (present)