Chinese Chinese linguistics and dialect

Wu (linguistics) Wikipedia

Wu (吳方言 pinyin w? fāng y?n; 吳語 pinyin w? yǔ) is one of the major Chinese spoken language|divisions of the Chinese language. It is spoken in most of Zhejiang province, the municipality of Shanghai, southern Jiangsu province, as well as smaller parts of Anhui, Jiangxi, and Fujian provinces. Major Wu dialects include those of Shanghai dialect|Shanghai, Suzhou dialect|Suzhou, Wenzhou dialect|Wenzhou, Hangzhou dialect|Hangzhou, Yongkang dialect|Yongkang and Shaoxing dialect|Shaoxing. 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 w?n?ngruǎnyǔ. The actual source of this impression is harder to place. It is likely a combination of many factors.

Like all other varieties of Chinese language|Chinese, there is plenty of dispute as to whether Wu is a language or a dialect. Please see Chinese_language#Is_Chinese_a_Language_or_a_Family_of_Languages?|here for the issues surrounding this dispute.

language|name=Wu|nativename=吴语
|familycolor=tomato
|states=China
|region=Shanghai; Most of Zhejiang province; southern Jiangsu province; Xuancheng prefecture-level city of Anhui province; Singapore; North Point, Hong Kong
|speakers=77,175 million|rank=10 http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/help/top-100-languages-by-population.html
|family=Sino-Tibetan

 Chinese language|Chinese

  Wu

|nation= -
|agency= -
|iso1=zh|iso2=chi (B) / zho (T)|sil=WUU

Last Modified:   2005-04-13