Wenzhounese (), also known as Oujiang (), Tong Au () or Au Nyü (), is the language spoken in
Wenzhou
Wenzhou (pronounced ; Wenzhounese: Yuziou �y33–11 tɕiɤu33–32 ), historically known as Wenchow is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Zhejiang province in the People's Republic of China. Wenzhou is located at the extreme south east o ...
, the southern prefecture of
Zhejiang
Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Ji ...
, China. Nicknamed the "Devil's Language" () for its complexity and difficulty, it is the most divergent division of
Wu Chinese
The Wu languages (; Wu romanization and IPA: ''wu6 gniu6'' [] ( Shanghainese), ''ng2 gniu6'' [] (Suzhounese), Mandarin pinyin and IPA: ''Wúyǔ'' []) is a major group of Sinitic languages spoken primarily in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Zhejiang Provin ...
, with little to no
mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as ...
with other Wu dialects or any other
variety of Chinese
Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of m ...
. It features noticeable elements in common with
Min Chinese
Min (; BUC: ''Mìng-ngṳ̄'') is a broad group of Sinitic languages spoken by about 30 million people in Fujian province as well as by the descendants of Min speaking colonists on Leizhou peninsula and Hainan, or assimilated natives of Chaosh ...
, which is spoken to the south in
Fujian
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its ...
. ''Oujiang'' is sometimes used as the broader term, and ''Wenzhou'' for Wenzhounese proper in a narrow sense.
Given its long history and the isolation of the region in which it is spoken, Wenzhounese is so unusual in its
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
that it has the reputation of being the least comprehensible dialect for an average
Mandarin speaker. It preserves a large amount of vocabulary of
classical Chinese
Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning
"literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning
"literar ...
lost elsewhere, earning itself the nickname "the
living fossil
A living fossil is an extant taxon that cosmetically resembles related species known only from the fossil record. To be considered a living fossil, the fossil species must be old relative to the time of origin of the extant clade. Living foss ...
", and has distinct grammatical differences from Mandarin.
Wenzhounese is one of five
varieties of Chinese
Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of mai ...
other than Standard Mandarin used for broadcasting by
China Radio International, alongside
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding a ...
,
Hokkien
The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages ...
,
Teochew, and
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
.
Classification
Wenzhounese is part of the
Wu group of Chinese dialects, sharing many linguistic features with them. These are spoken over the Zhejiang and south
Jiangsu
Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with it ...
provinces. Wenzhounese is seen as a typical representative of southern Wu.
Geographic distribution
Wenzhounese is spoken primarily in Wenzhou and the surrounding southern portion of
Zhejiang
Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Ji ...
, China. To a lesser extent, it is also spoken in scattered pockets of
Fujian
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its ...
in southeastern China. Overseas, it is spoken in increasingly larger communities in the
Flushing Chinatown
There are multiple Chinatowns in the borough of Queens in New York City. The original Queens Chinatown emerged in Flushing, initially as a satellite of the original Manhattan Chinatown, before evolving its own identity, surpassing in scale the ...
and the
Chinatowns in Brooklyn in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in the United States. Wenzhounese is also spoken by some
Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese.
Terminology
() or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, ref ...
communities in Europe, in particular Italy, France, and Spain. It is used more widely among the
Chinese people in Italy than Mandarin, which is home to about half of the Wenzhounese diaspora in Europe. Over 80% of the Chinese diaspora that are resident in the city of
Prato
Prato ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Italy, the capital of the Province of Prato. The city lies in the north east of Tuscany, at the foot of Monte Retaia, elevation , the last peak in the Calvana chain. With more than 200,000 ...
, Tuscany, were born in Zhejiang Province.
Dialects
Wenzhounese can be generally divided into the following three dialects:
* Northern Dialect, including dialects spoken in Wenzhou, Ouhai, Yongqiong, Yongjia, and some towns in Yueqing like Liushi and Baixiang.
* Southern Dialect, including
Rui'an dialect,
Wencheng dialect, Longgang dialect, Pingyang dialect, etc.
* Northeastern Dialect, which is spoken in the city of Yueqing.
The most important difference between eastern Wenzhounese dialects such as Wencheng and Wenzhou proper are tonal differences (Wencheng has no falling tones) and the retention of before :
The tones of all other Oujiang dialects are similar to Wenzhounese. (Wenzhounese ''puu'' transcribes the lengthened
entering tone
A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a syl ...
.)
Phonology
Consonants
// is lateral, and // is
palatal.
Vowels
The only
coda
Coda or CODA may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* Movie coda, a post-credits scene
* ''Coda'' (1987 film), an Australian horror film about a serial killer, made for television
*''Coda'', a 2017 American experimental film from Na ...
is the
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
, in and
syllabic .
Tone
Citation tones
Wenzhou has three phonemic tones. While it has eight phonetic tones, most of these are predictable: The ''yīn–yáng'' tone split dating from Middle Chinese still corresponds to the voicing of the initial consonant in Wenzhou, and the ''shǎng'' tones are abrupt and end in
glottal stop
The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
(this has been used as evidence for a
similar situation independently posited for
Old Chinese
Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 12 ...
). The ''rù'' tones, however, are unusual in being distinct despite having lost their final stops; in addition, the
vowel has lengthened, and the tone has become more complex than the other tones (though some speakers may simplify them to low falling or rising tones).
The ''shǎng'' and ''rù'' tones are barely distinguishable apart from the voicing of the initial consonant, and so are phonetically closer to two tones than four. Chen (2000) summarizes the tones as M & ML (''ping''), MH (''shǎng''), HM & L (''qu''), and dipping (MLM, ''rù''); not only are the ''píng'' and ''qù'' pairs obviously distinct phonetically, but they behave as four different tones in the ways they undergo
tone sandhi.
As in
Shanghainese
The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a 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 langua ...
, in Wenzhounese only some of the syllables of a phonological word carry tone. In Wenzhounese there may be three such syllables, with the tone of any subsequent (post-tonic) syllables determined by the last of these. In addition, there may be pre-tonic syllables (
clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...
s), which take a low tone. However, in Wenzhounese only one tonic word may exist in a
prosodic unit
In linguistics, a prosodic unit, often called an intonation unit or intonational phrase, is a segment of speech that occurs with a single prosodic contour ( pitch and rhythm contour). The abbreviation IU is used and therefore the full form is o ...
; all other words are reduced to low tone.
Tone sandhi
Up to three tonic syllables may occur together, but the number of resulting tones is reduced by
tone sandhi. Of the six phonetic tones, there are only fourteen lexical patterns created by two tonic syllables. With one exception, the ''shǎng'' and ''qù'' tones reduce to HM (''yīn qù'') before any other tone, and again with one exception, the ''rù'' tone does not interact with a following tone. The ''shǎng'' and ''rù'' tones change a preceding non-''rù'' tone to HM, and are themselves never affected.
(Sandhi that are exceptions to the generalizations above are in bold.)
With a compound word of three syllables, the patterns above apply to the last two. The antepenultimate tonic syllable takes only two possible tones, by
dissimilation
In phonology, particularly within historical linguistics, dissimilation is a phenomenon whereby similar consonants or vowels in a word become less similar. In English, dissimilation is particularly common with liquid consonants such as /r ...
: low if the following syllable (in sandhi form) starts high (HM), high otherwise. So, for example, the unusually long compound noun "daily necessities" (lit., 'firewood-rice-oil-salt-sauce-vinegar-tea') has the underlying tones
:, ML.MH.ML.ML.HM.HM.ML,
Per sandhi, the last two syllables become L.L. The antepenult then dissimilates to H, and all pre-tonic syllables become L, for:
:/L.L.L.L.H.L.L/
At a phrasal level, these tones may separate, with a HM tone, for example, shifting to the beginning of a phrase. In the lexicalized phrase "radio receiver" ('wireless telephone tube'), the underlying tones are
:, ML.HM.L.L.ML,
Per sandhi, the last two become HM.ML. There is no dissimilation, explained by this being grammatically a lexicalized phrase rather than a compound. The HM shifts forward, with intermediate syllables becoming M (the tone the HM leaves off at):
:/HM.M.M.M.ML/
Although checked (MLM) syllables rarely change in compound words, they can change in phrases: "tall steel case" is underlyingly M.MLM.HM. The middle syllable shifts to HM, and sandhi operates on this *HM.HM sequence to produce HM.ML. The HM then shifts back, yielding /HM.M.ML/.
Such behaviour has been used to support arguments that contour tones in languages like Chinese are single units and they are independent of vowels or other segments.
Grammar
Morphology
Wenzhou has a tonal
deictic morpheme. To convey the sense of "this", the
classifier changes its tone to ''rù'' (dipping), and a voiced initial consonant is devoiced. For example, from 'group' there is 'this group', and from 'some (people)' there is 'these (people)'.
Syntax
Like other Chinese dialects, Wenzhou dialect has mainly
SVO language SVO may refer to:
* Saturn Valley Online, an EarthBound MMORPG
* Sheremetyevo International Airport, one three major airports serving Moscow, Russia, IATA Airport Code
* Social value orientations, a psychological construct
* Sparse voxel octree, a ...
structure, but in some situations it can be SOV or OSV. SOV is commonly used with verb+suffix, the common suffixes are 过去起落来牢得还.
:ex. 书(给)渠还, (个)瓶水pai去
Romanization
Reputation for eccentricity
Wenzhounese is reputed to have been used during the
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific T ...
during wartime communication via
code talker
A code talker was a person employed by the military during wartime to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication. The term is now usually associated with United States service members during the world wars who used their k ...
s and in the
Sino-Vietnamese War for programming military
code
In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communicati ...
. There is a common rhymed saying in China that reflects this comprehension difficulty: "Fear not the Heavens, fear not the Earth, but fear the Wenzhou man speaking Wenzhounese" ().
Examples
There are several sub-branches of Oujiang dialects, and some are not mutually intelligible with the Wenzhou city dialect and the Wencheng dialect, but neighboring dialects are often mutually intelligible. For example, there are 2 dialects spoken in Li'ao Village in the Ouhai District of Wenzhou: one spoken in Baimen (白門), where the local people have 姜 as their surname, and one spoken in Wangzhai (王宅), where local people have normally 王 or 黄 as their surname. Their dialects are almost fully mutually intelligible except for a few vocabulary items. An example would be the word for "garbage" (垃圾), which is in the Baimen dialect and in the Wangzhai dialect.
Numbers in Oujiang Dialects
(The long vowels transcribe the lengthened ''ru'' tone.)
Literature in Wenzhounese
A translation of part of the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...
, specifically the
four gospels
Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...
and the book of
Acts, was published in 1894 under the title "''Chaò-Chḯ Yi-sû Chī-tuh Sang Iah Sing Shī: Sz̀ fuh-iang tà sź-du 'ae-djüe fa üe-tsiu t'û¹-'ò''", with the entire book in romanized Wenzhou dialect.
[ (in Wenzhounese).]
See also
*
List of varieties of Chinese
The following is a list of Sinitic languages and their dialects. For a traditional dialectological overview, see also varieties of Chinese.
Classification
'Chinese' is a blanket term covering the many different varieties spoken across China. ...
*
Wenzhounese romanisation
*
Suzhou dialect
Suzhounese (; Suzhounese: ''sou1 tseu1 ghe2 gho6'' [] ), also known as the Suzhou dialect, is the Varieties of Chinese, variety of Chinese traditionally spoken in the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu, Jiangsu Province, China. Suzhounese is a varie ...
*
Shanghainese
The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a 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 langua ...
*
Hangzhou dialect
References
Citations
General sources
*
Qian Nairong
Qian Nairong (Shanghainese: ; born 1945 in Shanghai) is a Chinese linguist. He received a master's degree in Chinese from Fudan University in 1981. He is a professor and the head of the Chinese Department at Shanghai University. He is a research ...
(1992). ''Dāngdài Wúyǔ yánjiū''. (Contemporary Wu linguistics studies). Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe. (錢乃榮. 1992. 當代吳語研究. 上海敎育出版社)
* Shen, Kecheng (2009). ''Wēnzhōuhuà cíyǔ kǎoshì''. Ningbo: Ningbo chubanshe. (宁波 : 宁波出版社, 2009.)
{{Zhejiang topics
Languages of China
Languages of France
Languages of Italy
Languages of Spain
Wenzhou
Wu Chinese