Wikipedia

Taihu Wu

(Redirected from Taihu Wu dialects)

Taihu Wu (吳語太湖片) or Northern Wu (北部吳語) is a Wu Chinese language spoken in much of the southern part of the province of Jiangsu, including Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, the southern part of Nantong, Jingjiang and Danyang; the municipality of Shanghai; and the northern part of Zhejiang province, including Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Ningbo, Huzhou, and Jiaxing. A notable exception is the dialect of the town of Jinxiang, which is a linguistic exclave of Taihu Wu in Zhenan Min-speaking Cangnan county of Wenzhou prefecture in Zhejiang province. Speakers in regions around Taihu Lake and Hangzhou Bay, are the largest population among all Wu speakers. Taihu Wu dialects such as Shanghainese, Shaoxing Wu, and Ningbo Wu are mutually intelligible even for L2 Taihu speakers.

Taihu Wu
Northern Wu
吳語太湖片
Native toPeople's Republic of China
RegionPrimarily in southern Jiangsu, northern Zhejiang, southeastern Anhui, and Shanghai
Speakers47.26 million (2012)[1]
Chinese characters
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
ISO 639-6taiu
tupn
Glottologtaih1244
Linguasphere79-AAA-db

History

edit

Linguistic affinity has also been used as a tool for regional identity and politics in the Jiangbei and Jiangnan regions. While the city of Yangzhou was the center of trade, flourishing and prosperous, it was considered part of Jiangnan, which was known to be wealthy, even though Yangzhou was north of the Yangzi River. Once Yangzhou's wealth and prosperity were gone, it was then considered to be part of Jiangbei, the "backwater".

After Yangzhou was removed from Jiangnan, many of its residents switched from Jianghuai Mandarin, the dialect of Yangzhou, to Taihu Wu dialects. As such, in Jiangnan itself, multiple subdialects of Wu competed for the position of prestige dialect.[2]

In 1984, around 85 million speakers are mutually intelligible with Shanghainese.[3]

Phonology

edit

Taihu Wu varieties tend to preserve historical voiced initials.[4] The number of phonemic vowels can reach numbers higher than that of some Germanic languages.[5] Taihu Wu varieties typically have phonemic 7-8 tones,[6] though some can go as high as 12 or as low as 5,[7][8] and they all have highly complex tone sandhi.[9]

List of Taihu Wu dialects

edit
  • Su–Jia–Hu (Suzhou–Jiaxing–Huzhou, 蘇嘉湖小片)
    • Su–Hu–Jia (Suzhou–Shanghai–Jiaxing, 蘇滬嘉小片) – 23 million speakers in 1987[10][11]
    • Tiaoxi (苕溪小片) – 3 million speakers in 1987[10][11]
      • Huzhou dialect (Zhejiang)
      • Deqing dialect (Zhejiang)
      • Tongxiang dialect (Zhejiang)
      • Southeast Guangde dialect (Anhui)
  • Northwestern Wu[11]
  • Northern Zhejiang[11]
    • Lin–Shao (臨紹小片) – 7.8 million speakers in 1987[10]
    • Yongjiang (甬江小片) or Mingzhou (明州小片) – 4 million speakers in 1987[10]
    • Jinxiang dialect (金鄉話, Zhejiang)

References

edit
  1. ↑ Li (2012), p. 104.
  2. ↑ Ko, Dorothy (1994). Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth-Century China (illustrated, annotated ed.). Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 21. ISBN 0-8047-2359-1. jianghuai mandarin.
  3. ↑ DeFrancis, John (1984). The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
  4. ↑ VanNess Simmons, Richard (1999), Chinese Dialect Classification: A comparative approach to Harngjou, Old Jintarn and Common Northern Wu, John Benjamins Publishing Co., p. 3-7, ISBN 90-272-3694-1
  5. ↑ Li, Hui; Hong, Yulong (2012), 偒傣話：世界上元音最多的語言 [Dondac: The language with the most vowels in the world], Fudan University Press, p. 12, ISBN 978-7-309-09153-3
  6. ↑ Chappell, Hilary; Lan, Li (2017), "Mandarin and other Sinitic languages", Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese language, Oxford: Taylor & Francis, p. 605-628
  7. ↑ Xu, Zhen (2009), 吴江方言声调研究 [A Study on the Tones of the lect of Wujiang] (thesis), Shanghai Normal University, p. 9
  8. ↑ Qian, Nairong; Xu, Baohua; Tang, Zhenzhu (2007), 上海话大词典 [The Great Dictionary of Shanghainese] (1 ed.), Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House, p. 386, ISBN 978-7-5326-2248-1
  9. ↑ Rose, Phil; Toda, Takako (1994), "A Typology of Tone Sandhi Rules in Northern Wu", Current Issues in Sino-Tibetan Linguistics, Ōsaka: 267–273
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Sinolect.org. "Untitled" (Pie Chart) (in Chinese). Archived from the original (GIF) on 2013-05-13.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (2025). "Glottolog 5.2 - Taihu". Glottolog. Retrieved 2026-02-17.

Works cited

edit

Further reading

edit
[Lili Wu is near the confluence of Suzhou, Jiaxing and Shanghai dialects]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taihu_Wu&oldid=1358653545"