Shanghainese

Shanghainese, also known as the Shanghai language, Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a language 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 language family. Shanghainese, like the rest of the Wu language group, is mutually unintelligible with other varieties of Chinese, such as Mandarin.^[1]

Shanghainese belongs to the Taihu Wu subgroup and contains vocabulary and expressions from the entire Taihu Wu area of southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang. With nearly 14 million speakers, Shanghainese is also the largest single form of Wu Chinese. It serves as the lingua franca of the entire Yangtze River Delta region.

Shanghainese is rich in vowels [i y ɪ ʏ e ø ɛ ə ɐ a ɑ ɔ ɤ o ʊ u] (twelve of which are phonemic) and in consonants. Like other Taihu Wu dialects, Shanghainese has voiced initials [b d ɡ ɦ z v dʑ ʑ]: neither Cantonese nor Mandarin has voiced initial stops or affricates. The Shanghainese tonal system is also significantly different from other Chinese varieties, sharing more similarities with the Japanese pitch accent, with two level tonal contrasts (high and low), whereas Cantonese and Mandarin are typical of contour tonal languages.

History[]

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Shanghai did not become a regional center of commerce until it was opened to foreign investment during the late Qing dynasty. Consequently, languages and dialects spoken around Shanghai had long been subordinate to those spoken around Jiaxing and later Suzhou. In fact "speakers of other Wu dialects traditionally treat the Shanghai vernacular somewhat contemptuously as a mixture of Suzhou and Ningbo dialects."^[2] In the late 19th century, most vocabulary of the Shanghai area had been a hybrid between Southern Jiangsu and Ningbonese.^[3] Since the 1850s, owing to the growth of Shanghai's economy, Shanghainese has become one of the fastest-developing languages of the Wu Chinese subgroup, undergoing rapid changes and quickly replacing Suzhounese as the prestige dialect of the Yangtze River Delta region. It underwent sustained growth that reached a hiatus in the 1930s during the Republican era, when migrants arrived in Shanghai and immersed themselves in the local tongue.

After 1949, the new People's Republic of China government imposed Mandarin (Putonghua) as the official language of the whole nation of China. The dominance and influence of Shanghainese began to wane slightly. Since Chinese economic reform began in 1978, especially, Shanghai became home to a great number of migrants from all over the country. Due to the national prominence of Mandarin, learning Shanghainese was no longer necessary for migrants, because those educated after the 1950s could generally communicate in Mandarin. However, Shanghainese remained a vital part of the city's culture and retained its prestige status within the local population. In the 1990s, it was still common for local radio and television broadcasts to be in Shanghainese. In 1995, the TV series Sinful Debt featured extensive Shanghainese dialogue; when it was broadcast outside Shanghai (mainly in adjacent Wu-speaking provinces) Mandarin subtitles were added. The Shanghainese TV series Lao Niang Jiu (Old Uncle) was broadcast from 1995 to 2007^[4] and was popular among Shanghainese residents. Shanghainese programming has since slowly declined amid regionalist/localist accusations.

From 1992 onward, Shanghainese use was discouraged in schools, and many children native to Shanghai can no longer speak Shanghainese.^[5] In addition, Shanghai's emergence as a cosmopolitan global city consolidated the status of Mandarin as the standard language of business and services, at the expense of the local language.^[3]

Since 2005, new movements have emerged to protect Shanghainese from fading away. At municipal legislative discussions in 2005, former Shanghai opera actress Ma Lili moved to "protect" the language, stating that she was one of the few remaining Shanghai opera actresses who still retained authentic classic Shanghainese pronunciation in their performances. Shanghai's former party boss Chen Liangyu, a native Shanghainese himself, reportedly supported her proposal.^[3] There have been talks of re-integrating Shanghainese into pre-kindergarten education, because many children are unable to speak any Shanghainese. A citywide program was introduced by the city government's language committee in 2006 to record native speakers of different Shanghainese varieties for archival purposes and, by 2010, many Shanghainese-language programs were running.^[6]

The Shanghai government has begun to reverse its course and seek fluent speakers of authentic Shanghainese, but only two out of thirteen recruitment stations have found traditional Shanghainese speakers; the rest of the 14 million people of Shanghai speak modern Shanghainese,^{[clarification needed]} and it has been predicted that local variants will be wiped out. Professor Qian Nairong is working on efforts to save the language.^[7][8] In response to criticism, Qian reminds people that Shanghainese was once fashionable, saying, "the popularization of Mandarin doesn't equal the ban of dialects. It doesn't make Mandarin a more civilized language either. Promoting dialects is not a narrow-minded localism, as it has been labeled by some netizens".^[9] The singer and composer sings many of his songs in Shanghainese instead of Mandarin to preserve the language.^[10]

Since 2006, the Modern Baby Kindergarten in Shanghai has prohibited all of its students from speaking anything but Shanghainese on Fridays to preserve the language amongst younger speakers.^[11] In 2011, Professor Qian said that the sole remaining speakers of real Shanghainese are a group of Shanghainese peoples over the age of 60 and native citizens who have little outside contact, and he strongly urges that Shanghainese be taught in the regular school system from kindergarten all the way to elementary, saying it is the only way to save Shanghainese, and that attempts to introduce it in university courses and operas are not enough.

Fourteen native Shanghainese speakers had audio recordings made of their Shanghainese on May 31, 2011. They were selected based on accent purity, way of pronunciation and other factors.^[12]

By June 2012, a new television program airing in Shanghainese was created.^[13]

Chinese policy toward Shanghainese[]

Han Chinese, who make up 90% of the Chinese population, speak seven topolects that each have many subdialects and are not interchangeable. The remaining 10% of people, who belong to minor ethnic groups, speak more than 300 dialects. Before the establishment of the People's Republic of China, there were already attempts to establish a common language system. Therefore, the language issue has always been an important part of the Chinese Communist Party policy. Other than the government language-management efforts, the rate of rural-to-urban migration in China has also accelerated the shift to Putonghua and the disappearance of dialect in the urban areas.^[14]

As more people moved into Shanghai, the economic center of China, Shanghainese has been threatened despite it originally being a strong dialect of the Wu topolect. According to Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau, the population of Shanghai was estimated to be 24.28 million in 2019, of whom 14.5 million are permanent residents and 9.77 million are migrant residents.^[15] To have better communication with foreign residents and develop a top-level financial center among the world, the promotion of the official language, mandarin, became very important. Therefore, the Shanghai Municipal Government banned the use of Shanghainese in public places, schools, and work.^[14]

A survey of students from the primary school in 2010 indicated that 52.3% of students believed Mandarin is easier than the Shanghai dialect for communication, and 47.6% of the students choose to speak Mandarin because it is a mandatory language at school. Furthermore, 68.3% of the students are more willing to study Mandarin, but only 10.2% of the students are more willing to study the Shanghai dialect.^[16]

Many youth can no longer speak the Shanghai dialect fluently because they had no chance to practice it at school. Also, they were unwilling to communicate with their parents in the Shanghai dialect, which accelerated the disappearance of the Shanghai dialect.^[17] The survey in 2010 indicated that 62.6% of primary school students use Mandarin as the first language at home, but only 17.3% of them use the Shanghai dialect to communicate with their parents.^[16]

Immigrants' opinions toward Shanghainese[]

The Shanghai dialect is sometimes labeled as a tool to discriminate against immigrants.^[18] Migrants who move from other Chinese cities to Shanghai have little ability to speak the Shanghai dialect. Among the migrant people, some believe Shanghai dialect represents the superiority of native Shanghainese. Some also believe that native Shanghainese intentionally speak Shanghai dialect in some places to discriminate against the immigrant population to transfer their anger to migrant workers, who take over their homeland and take advantage of housing, education, medical, and job resources.^[19]

Intelligibility and variations[]

Map of dialects of Wu: Shanghainese is in dark red, in the top-right

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Shanghainese is part of the larger Wu Chinese of Chinese languages. It is not mutually intelligible with any dialects of Mandarin Chinese, or Cantonese, Southern Min (such as Hokkien-Taiwanese), and any other Chinese languages outside Wu. Modern Shanghainese, however, has been heavily influenced by standard Chinese. That makes the Shanghainese spoken by young people in the city different, sometimes significantly, from that spoken by the older population. Also, the practice of inserting Mandarin or both into Shanghainese conversations is very common, at least for young people.^{[citation needed]} Like most subdivisions of Chinese, it is easier for a local speaker to understand Mandarin than it is for a Mandarin speaker to understand the local language.

Shanghainese is somewhat similar to the speech of neighboring cities of Changshu, Jiaxing and Suzhou, categorized into Su-Hu-Jia dialect subgroup (苏沪嘉小片) of Wu Chinese by linguists. People mingling between those areas do not need to code-switch to Mandarin when they speak to each other. However, there are noticeable tonal and phonological changes, which do not impede intelligibility. As the dialect continuum of Wu continues to further distances, however, significant changes occur in phonology and lexicon to the point that it is no longer possible to converse intelligibly. Most Shanghainese speakers find that by Wuxi, differences become significant and that the Wuxi dialect would take weeks to months for a Shanghainese-speaker to learn fully. Similarly, Hangzhou dialect is understood by most Shanghainese-speakers, but it is considered "rougher" and does not have as much glide and flow in comparison. The language evolved in and around Taizhou, Zhejiang, where it becomes difficult for a Shanghainese speaker to comprehend. Wenzhounese, spoken in the southernmost part of Zhejiang province, is considered part of the Wu group but mutually unintelligible with Shanghainese.

Phonology[]

Following conventions of Chinese syllable structure, Shanghainese syllables can be divided into initials and finals. The initial occupies the first part of the syllable. The final occupies the second part of the syllable and can be divided further into an optional medial and an obligatory rime (sometimes spelled rhyme). Tone is also a feature of the syllable in Shanghainese.^{[20]: 6–16} Syllabic tone, which is typical to the other Sinitic languages, has largely become verbal tone in Shanghainese.^{[citation needed]}

Initials[]

Shanghainese has a set of tenuis, voiceless aspirated and voiced plosives and affricates, as well as a set of voiceless and voiced fricatives. Alveolo-palatal initials are also present in Shanghainese.

Voiced stops are phonetically voiceless with slack voice phonation in stressed, word initial position.^[21] This phonation (often referred to as murmur) also occurs in zero onset syllables, syllables beginning with fricatives, and syllables beginning with sonorants. These consonants are true voiced in intervocalic position.^[22]

Finals[]

The table below lists the vowel nuclei of Shanghainese^[23]

The following chart lists all possible finals (medial + nucleus + coda) in Shanghainese represented in IPA.^{[23][24][20]: 11}

Syllabic continuants: [z̩] [m̩] [ŋ̩] [l̩]

The transcriptions used above are broad and the following points are of note when pertaining to actual pronunciation:^[23]

• /u, o/ are similar in pronunciation, differing slightly in lip rounding ([ɯ̽ᵝ, ʊ] respectively). /i, jɛ/ are also similar in pronunciation, differing slightly in vowel height ([i, i̝] respectively). These two pairs are each merged^[specify] in younger generations.
• Many in younger generations diphthongize /e, ɤ/ to [ei, ɤɯ].
• /j/ is pronounced [ɥ] before rounded vowels.

The Middle Chinese [-ŋ] rimes are retained, while [-n] and [-m] are either retained or have disappeared in Shanghainese. Middle Chinese [-p -t -k] rimes have become glottal stops, [-ʔ].^[25]

Tones[]

Shanghainese has five phonetically distinguishable tones for single syllables said in isolation. These tones are illustrated below in Chao tone names. In terms of Middle Chinese tone designations, the yin tone category has three tones (yinshang and yinqu tones have merged into one tone), while the yang category has two tones (the yangping, yangshang, and yangqu have merged into one tone).^{[26][20]: 17}

The conditioning factors which led to the yin–yang split still exist in Shanghainese, as they do in other Wu dialects: yang tones are only found with voiced initials [b d ɡ z v dʑ ʑ m n ɲ ŋ l ɦ], while the yin tones are only found with voiceless initials.^{[citation needed]}

The ru tones are abrupt, and describe those rimes which end in a glottal stop /ʔ/. That is, both the yin–yang distinction and the ru tones are allophonic (dependent on syllabic structure). Shanghainese has only a two-way phonemic tone contrast,^[27] falling vs rising, and then only in open syllables with voiceless initials.

Tone sandhi[]

Tone sandhi is a process whereby adjacent tones undergo dramatic alteration in connected speech. Similar to other Northern Wu dialects, Shanghainese is characterized by two forms of tone sandhi: a word tone sandhi and a phrasal tone sandhi.

Word tone sandhi in Shanghainese can be described as left-prominent and is characterized by a dominance of the first syllable over the contour of the entire tone domain. As a result, the underlying tones of syllables other than the leftmost syllable, have no effect on the tone contour of the domain. The pattern is generally described as tone spreading (T1-4) or tone shifting (T5, except for 4- and 5-syllable compounds, which can undergo spreading or shifting). The table below illustrates possible tone combinations.

As an example, in isolation, the two syllables of the word for China are pronounced with T1 and T4: /tsʊŋ˥˨/ and /kwəʔ˦/. However, when pronounced in combination, T1 from /tsʊŋ/ spreads over the compound resulting in the following pattern /tsʊŋ˥kwəʔ˨/. Similarly, the syllables in a common expression for foolish have the following underlying phonemic and tonal representations: /zəʔ˨˦/ (T5), /sɛ˥˨/ (T1), and /ti˧˦/ (T2). However, the syllables in combination exhibit the T5 shifting pattern where the first-syllable T5 shifts to the last syllable in the domain: /zəʔ˩sɛ˩ti˨˦/.^{[20]: 38–46}

Phrasal tone sandhi in Shanghainese can be described as right-prominent and is characterized by a right syllable retaining its underlying tone and a left syllable receiving a mid-level tone based on the underlying tone's register. The table below indicates possible left syllable tones in right-prominent compounds.^{[20]: 46–47}

For instance, when combined, /ma˩˦/ ("buy") and /tɕjɤ˧˦/ ("wine") become /ma˧tɕjɤ˧˦/ ("buy wine").

Sometimes meaning can change based on whether left-prominent or right-prominent sandhi is used. For example, /tsʰɔ˧˦/ ("fry") and /mi˩˦/ ("noodle") when pronounced /tsʰɔ˧mi˦/ (i.e., with left-prominent sandhi) means "fried noodles". When pronounced /tsʰɔ˦mi˩˦/ (i.e., with right-prominent sandhi), it means "to fry noodles".^[20]: 35

Common words and phrases[]

Note: Chinese characters for Shanghainese are not standardized and are provided for reference only. IPA transcription is for the Middle Period of modern Shanghainese (中派上海话), pronunciation of those between 20 and 60 years old.