The Jiangyin dialect ( zh, s=江阴话, p=Jiāngyīnhuà) is a Northern

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 ...

dialect spoken in the city of

Jiangyin Jiangyin (, Jiangyin dialect: ) is a county-level city on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, and is administered by Wuxi, Jiangsu province. Jiangyin is one of the most important transport hubs on the Yangtze River, it is also one of the most d ...

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 its ca ...

province. The Jiangyin dialect is a member of the

Taihu Wu Taihu Wu () or Northern Wu () is a Wu Chinese language 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 p ...

family of dialects, which means the inhabitants speak a dialect similar to that of nearby

Wuxi Wuxi (, ) is a city in southern Jiangsu province, eastern China, by car to the northwest of downtown Shanghai, between Changzhou and Suzhou. In 2017 it had a population of 3,542,319, with 6,553,000 living in the entire prefecture-level city ar ...

Changzhou Changzhou ( Changzhounese: ''Zaon Tsei'', ) is a prefecture-level city in southern Jiangsu province, China. It was previously known as Yanling, Lanling and Jinling. Located on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, Changzhou borders the provin ...

, Suzhou, and

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

. The Jiangyin dialect itself is of the Piling variety, related to the

Changzhou dialect The Changzhou dialect (Simplified Chinese: 常州话; Traditional Chinese: 常州話; IPA: ̥ɑŋ.tsei.ɦu(pronunciation in the Changzhou dialect)), sometimes called ''Changzhounese'', is a dialect of Wu, a Sino-Tibetan language family, and b ...

. The Jiangyin dialect has the highest degree of

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 an ...

with the dialects of the closest neighboring cities of Changzhou and Wuxi but also has a fairly large degree of mutual intelligibility with the dialects of nearby Suzhou and Shanghai. As one travels south towards Wuxi away from the urban center of Jiangyin, the Jiangyin dialect increasingly sounds closer to the

Wuxi dialect The Wuxi dialect (Simplified Chinese: 无锡话; Traditional Chinese: 無錫話; Pinyin: Wúxīhuà, Wu : mu1 sik1 wo3 , Wuxi dialect : u˨˨˧ siɪʔ˦ ɦu˨ is a dialect of Wu. It is spoken in the city of Wuxi in Jiangsu province, China. ...

. A book called

A collection of Jiangyin dialect A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes' ...

has been published.

References

Further reading