The Hangzhou dialect (, ''Rhangzei Rhwa'') is spoken in the city of

Hangzhou Hangzhou ( or , ; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), also romanized as Hangchow, is the capital and most populous city of Zhejiang, China. It is located in the northwestern part of the province, sitting at the head of Hangzhou Bay, whic ...

, China and its immediate suburbs, but excluding areas further away from Hangzhou such as Xiāoshān (蕭山) and

Yúháng Yuhang is one of ten urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, East China. Its 2013 population was estimated at 1.17 million. Its inhabitants speak both Mandarin and a variety of Hangzhounese, ...

(余杭) (both originally county-level cities and now the districts within Hangzhou City). The number of speakers of the Hangzhou dialect has been estimated to be about 1.2 to 1.5 million. It is a dialect of Wu, one of the Chinese varieties. The Hangzhou dialect is of immense interest to Chinese historical phonologists and dialectologists because

phonologically 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 ...

, it exhibits extensive similarities with the other Wu dialects; however,

grammatically In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domains ...

and lexically, it shows many

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

tendencies. The language itself has the basic characteristics of Wu language. However, several waves of migration from the north, represented by the southward relocation of the ruling centre of Song dynasty, have caused the local language system to undergo great changes and gradually take on a special character in Jiangnan region. Hangzhou Dialect is classified as a "developing" language, with a rating of 5 on the

Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale The Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS), developed by Lewis and Simons (2010), measures a language's status in terms of endangerment or development. The table below shows the various levels on the scale: The EGIDS model ...

(EGIDS), showing that the language is still vigorously in use, but not sustainable or widespread.

Classification

The Hangzhou dialect is classified under

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 ...

, although some western linguists claim Hangzhou is a

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...

language. Richard VanNess Simmons, a professor of Chinese at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, United States, claims that the Hangzhou dialect, rather than being Wu as it was classified by

Yuen Ren Chao Yuen Ren Chao (; 3 November 1892 – 25 February 1982), also known as Zhao Yuanren, was a Chinese-American linguist, educator, scholar, poet, and composer, who contributed to the modern study of Chinese phonology and grammar. Chao was born a ...

, is a Mandarin variant closely related to

Jianghuai Mandarin Lower Yangtze Mandarin () is one of the most divergent and least mutually-intelligible of the Mandarin languages, as it neighbours the Wu, Hui, and Gan groups of Sinitic languages. It is also known as Jiang–Huai Mandarin (), named after th ...

. The Hangzhou dialect is still classified under Wu. Chao had developed a "Common Wu Syllabary" for the

Wu dialects The Wu languages (; Romanization of Wu Chinese, Wu romanization and Romanization of Wu Chinese#IPA, IPA: ''wu6 gniu6'' [] (Shanghainese), ''ng2 gniu6'' [] (Suzhounese), Mandarin pinyin and IPA: ''Wúyǔ'' []) is a major group of Sinitic languag ...

. Simmons claimed that had Chao compared the Hangzhou dialect to the Wu syllabary and Jianghuai Mandarin, he would have found more similarities to Jianghuai. Jianghuai Mandarin shares an "old literary layer" as a stratum with southern languages like Min Nan, Hakka, Gan and Hangzhou dialects, which it does not share with Northern Mandarin. Sino-Vietnamese also shares some of these characteristics. The stratum in Min Nan specifically consist of Zeng group and Geng group's "n" and "t" finals when an "i" initial is present.

John H. McWhorter John Hamilton McWhorter V (; born October 6, 1965) is an American linguist with a specialty in creole languages, sociolects, and Black English. He is currently associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University, where he also teaches Ame ...

claimed that the Hangzhou dialect was categorized as a Wu dialect because seven tones are present in Hangzhou, which is significantly more than the typical number of tones found in northern Mandarin dialects, which is four.

Geographic distribution

It stretches from ''yuhang xiasha'' in the east to the Qiangtang River in the south. A growing number of Hangzhounese speakers is emerging overseas in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, United States. The Hangzhou dialect is mainly spoken in the urban area in

, including the urban area of

Gongshu district Gongshu District ( ) is one of ten urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, East China, it is located in the core urban area of Hangzhou. Administrative divisions Subdistricts: * Mishixiang ...

Shangcheng district Shangcheng District () is the county seat and one of ten urban districts of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, People's Republic of China, it is located in the core urban area of Hangzhou. The district has an area of and a population o ...

Xiacheng district Xiacheng District was one of the former urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, East China, it is located in the core urban area of Hangzou. It has an area of , and a population of 330,000. ...

, the urban area of

Jianggan district Jianggan District was one of ten urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, East China. The district was located in the northeast of Hangzhou and on the northern (left) bank of the Qiantang Rive ...

, the urban area and seven villages of Xihu district, and part of

Binjiang district () is one of ten urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, in East China, it is located in the core urban area of Hangzou. It is across the Qiantang River from West Lake and the older parts of Ha ...

Phonology

Vowels

Initials

Finals

:Syllabic continuants: Notes: *The Hangzhou dialect has a rare "apical glide" which is an allophone of after sibilant initials. * is pronounced before rounded vowels. *Contrast can be found to justify most of these vowels as distinct phonemes in Hangzhou dialect. /i, y/ and /ï, ÿ/, however, are in complementary distribution. /ï/ and /ÿ/ are only found following sibilants /ts, ts', dz, s/ and /z/, where /i/ and /y/ does not. The

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...

rime Rime may refer to: *Rime ice, ice that forms when water droplets in fog freeze to the outer surfaces of objects, such as trees Rime is also an alternative spelling of "rhyme" as a noun: *Syllable rime, term used in the study of phonology in ling ...

s are retained, while and are either retained or have disappeared in the Hangzhou dialect. Middle Chinese rimes have become glottal stops, . Phonological features Contrast In HZD, bilabial fricatives �and �are allophone of bilabial fricatives /f/ and /v/ after Vowels /y/ and /ʏ/ are contrastive, representing different characters with different meaning. Glottalization of initial nasals and laterals Some initial nasals and laterals are glottalized.

Syllable Patterns and Tones

In Hangzhou dialect (hereafter: HZD), phonetic symbol is divided into onsets and rhymes using onset-rhyme model. Onsets are simple and not mandatory, vowels can appear initially if and �lappear in the rhyme. HZD does not allow codas, but nasals are permitted at the end of the syllable, if they are part of the complex nucleus. The old Hangzhou dialect has 53 rhymes. The Hangzhou tonal system is similar to that of the Suzhou dialect, in that some words with ''shàng'' tone in

have merged with the ''yīn qù'' tone. Since the tone split dating from Middle Chinese still depends on the voicing of the initial consonant, these constitute just three phonemic tones: ''pin, shang,'' and ''qu.'' '' (Ru'' syllables are phonemically toneless.) In HZD, the tones will change not only because of the nearby tones, but also due to the phrase structures.

Vocabulary

Time ::''gemore'' (箇卯) – now ::''deimore'' (头卯) – just now ::''yalidei'' (夜里头) – at night ::''rizong'' (日中) – at noon ::''relidei'' (日里头) – in the day ::''zaogedei'' (早间头) – in the morning ::''yadaobian'' (夜到边) – in the evening Expression of person, categorized by generation ::agong (阿公) – mother's father ::abo (阿婆) – mother's mother ::diadia (爷爷) – father's father ::nene (奶奶) – father's mother ::popo (婆婆) – grandfather's sister ::xiaodiadia (小爷爷) – grandfather's sister's husband ::aba (阿爸)/baba (爸爸) – papa ::muma (姆妈)/mama (妈妈) – mom :bobo (伯伯) – father's brother ::damuma (大姆妈) – wife of father's oldest brother ::xiaoboubou (小伯伯) – father's younger brother ::senniang (婶娘) – wife of father's little brother ::ayi (阿姨) / gugu (姑姑) – father's sister :guvu (姑夫) – father's sister's husband ::niangjiu (娘舅)/ajiu (阿舅)/jiujiu (舅舅) – mother's brother ::jiumu (舅妈) – wife of mother's brother ::zangren (丈人) – wife's father ::zangmuniang (丈母娘) – wife's mother ::yiniang (姨娘) – mother's sister ::ganyi (干姨) – mother's sister's husband ::agou (阿哥) – elder brother ::adi (阿弟) – little brother ::ajie (阿姐) – elder sister ::amei (阿妹) – little sister ::biaogou/biaodi (表哥/表弟) – male older/younger cousin who does not share surname ::biaojie/biaomei (表姐/表妹) – female older/younger cousin who does not share surname ::danggou/dangdi (堂哥/堂弟) – male older/younger cousin who shares the same surname ::dangjie/dangmei (堂姐/堂妹) – female older/younger cousin who shares the same surname :::xiaoya'er (小伢儿) – child

History

The most important event to have impacted Hangzhou's dialect was the city's establishment as Lin'an, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty. When the

Northern Song Dynasty Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...

was conquered by the Jin Dynasty in 1127, large numbers of northern refugees fled to what is now Hangzhou, speaking predominantly

of the

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

variety. Within 30 years, contemporary accounts record that immigrants outnumbered natives in Hangzhou. This resulted in Mandarin influences in the pronunciation, lexicon and grammar of the Hangzhou dialect. Further influence by Mandarin occurred after the overthrow of the

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...

in 1912. The local Manchu garrisons were dissolved, adding significant numbers of the

Beijing dialect The Beijing dialect (), also known as Pekingese and Beijingese, is the prestige dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. It is the phonological basis of Standard Chinese, the official language in the People's Republic of ...

Mandarin speakers to the population. Because of the frequent commerce and intercourse between

and

Shaoxing Shaoxing (; ) is a prefecture-level city on the southern shore of Hangzhou Bay in northeastern Zhejiang province, China. It was formerly known as Kuaiji and Shanyin and abbreviated in Chinese as (''Yuè'') from the area's former inhabitant ...

, the Hangzhou dialect is also influenced by the Shaoxing dialect. In recent years, with the standardization of

, the vitality of the Hangzhou dialect is decreasing. As Kandrysawtz concluded, the Hangzhou dialect is spoken in fewer places and by fewer people, especially the younger generation. Some people also hold the attitude that the Hangzhou dialect is not appropriate in official occasions.

References

* * * *

External links

Wu Association
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hangzhou Dialect Wu Chinese Culture in Hangzhou