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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 wúnóngruǎnyǔ. The actual source of this impression is harder to place. It is likely a combination of many factors; in any case, descriptions of Wu (or its geographical predecessor) as being "soft and light" date from as far back as the Eastern Jin Dynasty, even though the Chinese dialects of that time must all have been markedly different from those of today.
Like all other varieties of Chinese, there is plenty of dispute as to whether Wu is a language or a dialect. Please see here for the issues surrounding this dispute.
| Wu (吴语) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | China |
| Region: | Shanghai; Most of Zhejiang province; southern Jiangsu province; Xuanzhou prefecture of Anhui province |
| Total speakers: | 77.175 million |
| RankingThis page tries to present a list of languages by total native speakers . Note, however, that lists such as this may vary somewhat depending upon the definition given to certain terms. In particular, the exact difference between " dialect" and " language": | 10 [1] |
| GeneticLanguages Most languages are known to belong to language families ("families" hereforth). An accurately identified family is a phylogenetic unit, i. all its members derive from a common ancestor. The ancestor is very seldom known to us directly, since mos classificationLanguages Most languages are known to belong to language families ("families" hereforth). An accurately identified family is a phylogenetic unit, i. all its members derive from a common ancestor. The ancestor is very seldom known to us directly, since mos: | Sino-Tibetan Chinese |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | - |
| Regulated by: | - |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | zh |
| RFC 3066 | zh-wuu |
| ISO 639-2(B) | chi |
| ISO 639-2(T) | zho |
| SIL | WUU |
The modern Wu language can be traced back to the ancient Yue peoples centred around southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang. The Japanese Go-on (呉音) pronunciation of Chinese characters (obtained from the Wu Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms period) is from the same region of China where Wu is spoken today.
Jerry Norman's general introduction to the Chinese language and dialects, Chinese (BooksEnthsiast.com), states that northern Wu dialects are much influenced in their phonology and vocabulary from the Mandarin dialects to the north. After the Japanese occupation of northern China during the Second World War, Japanese vocabulary entered Chinese which filtered down into Wu speaking areas.
of the Chinese dialects starting from 1500 BC, and Wu's position relative to them.| Politics | Business | Finance |
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