Wu Chinese - Dialects

Dialects

Dialectologists traditionally establish linguistic boundaries based on several overlapping isoglosses 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 dialect from another, and many dialects' isogloss clusters line up perfectly with the county boundaries established in imperial times, albeit some counties contain more than one dialect and others may span several counties. Another factor which influences movement and transportation as well as the establishment of administrative boundaries is geography. Northernmost Zhejiang and Jiangsu are incredibly 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 dialects, like Mandarin in the flat northern plains, is relatively more homogeneous than Southern Wu which has a significantly greater diversity of linguistic forms, and this is likely a direct result of their geography. Coastal dialects also share more featural affinities, likely because the East China Sea provides a means of transportation. The same phenomenon can be seen with Min dialects as well.

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 dialects than Northern Wu, making it typologically much different from the rest of Wu. The following are the traditional classifications of Wu, but one of China's foremost dialectologists Cao Zhiyun (Chinese: 曹志耘; pinyin: Cáo Zhìyún) has rearranged some of the divisions based on the greater corpus of data available now compared to when these divisions were made.

According to Yan (2006), Wu is divided into six dialect areas:

• Taihu (i.e., Lake Tai region): Spoken over much of southern part of Jiangsu province, 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. This group makes up the largest population among all Wu speakers. The subdialects of this region are, in a large degree, mutually intelligible among each other.
  • Shanghainese
  • Suzhou dialect
  • Hangzhou dialect
  • Ningbo dialect
  • Wuxi dialect
  • Changzhou dialect
  • Jiangyin dialect
  • Qihai dialect
  • Jinxiang dialect
• Taizhou (台州): Spoken in and around Taizhou, Zhejiang province. Taizhou Wu is among the southern dialects the closest to Taihu Wu, also known as North Wu, and can communicate with speakers of Taihu Wu.
  • Taizhou dialect
• Oujiang (甌江/瓯江)/Dong'ou (東甌片/东瓯片): Spoken in and around Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. This dialect is the most distinctive and mutually unintelligible among all the Wu dialects. Some dialectologists even treat it as a dialect separate from the rest of Wu and call it "Ou Language" or 瓯语 Ōuyǔ.
  • Wenzhounese
• Wuzhou (婺州): Spoken in and around Jinhua, Zhejiang province. Like Taizhou Wu dialect, it is mutually intelligible with Taihu Wu dialect at least to some degree.
• Chuqu (處衢/处衢): Spoken in and around Lishui and Quzhou in Zhejiang as well as in Shangrao County and Yushan County in Jiangxi province.
  • Quzhou dialect
  • Jiangshan dialect
  • Qingtian dialect
• Xuanzhou (宣州): Spoken in and around Xuancheng, Anhui province. This part of Wu is becoming less spoken since the campaign started by Taiping Rebellion and is being slowly replaced by the immigrants' mandarin dialect from the north of Yangtse river.

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).

• The Jinqu Division (Chinese: 金衢片; pinyin: Jīnqú piàn) which contains twelve locations.
  • Jinhua Prefecture: Jinhua, Tangxi (汤溪 Tāngxī, now part of Jinhua county/金华县 Jīnhuá xiàn), Lanxi, Pujiang, Yiwu, Dongyang, Pan'an, Yongkang, and Wuyi
  • Quzhou Prefecture: Quzhou and Longyou
  • Lishui Prefecture: Jinyun
• The Shangli Division (simplified Chinese: 上丽片; traditional Chinese: 上麗片; pinyin: Shànglí piàn), which contains seventeen locations and has two subdivisions the Shangshan Subdivision and the Lishui Subdivision.
  • The Shangshan Subdivision (Chinese: 上山小片; pinyin: Shàngshān xiǎopiàn) contains six locations.
    • Shangrao prefecture, Jiangxi province: Shangrao, Guangfeng, Yushan
    • Quzhou prefecture: Kaihua, Changshan, Jiangshan
  • The Lishui Subdivision (simplified Chinese: 丽水小片; traditional Chinese: 麗水小片; pinyin: Líshuǐ xiǎopiàn) contains 11 locations
    • Lishui Prefecture: Lishui, Suichang, Songyang, Xuanping (宣平 Xuānpíng, former Lishui county now belonging to Wuyi), Qingtian, Yunhe, Jingning She Autonomous County, Longquan, and Qingyuan
    • Wenzhou Prefecture: Taishun county
    • Nanping Prefecture in Fujian: Pucheng

• The Oujiang Division or Ou River Division (simplified Chinese: 瓯江片; traditional Chinese: 甌江片; pinyin: Ōujiāng piàn) which contains eight locations.
  • Wenzhou prefecture: Wenzhou, Yongjia, Yueqing, Rui'an, Dongtou, Pingyang, Cangnan, and Wencheng (this obviously precludes the Min speaking regions of Pingyang and Cangnan).