Shanghainese (上海闲话 / Zanhe-ëwo)

Shanghainese is a dialect of Wu spoken by about 15 million people in Shanghai. There are also many Shanghainese speakers in Hong Kong. There is no standard written form of Shanghainese and it rarely appears in writing. Though the language is the everyday spoken language of Shanghai, it isn't used in education and is only occasionally heard on local radio stations.

The Common Chinese Language movement was started by Shanghai intellectuals and writers during the early 20th century to create a common vernacular medium for national communication. Mandarin was selected as the base, due to the large number of Mandarin speakers in China and its relative simplicity. The bulk of vernacular Mandarin Chinese literature were written not by native Mandarin speakers but by native Wu and Shanghainese speakers. As result, a lot of today's Mandarin Chinese vocabulary comes from Wu Chinese via these literary works. The words and usages have become so well adapted into Standard Mandarin that most speakers assume they are indigenous to Mandarin rather than being cognates of Shanghainese.

What the early Shanghainese proponents for a common Chinese language did not anticipate was that Standard Mandarin's promotion would be handled through the simultaneous oppression of all other Chinese regionalects, and most harshly on Wu and Shanghainese.

Recently Shanghainese has become popular in Shanghai's underground music scene as something that challenges the dominance of Mandarin and Cantonese in music.

Source: http://www.zanhe.com/general.html

Shanghainese pronunciation (Zanhe-ëwo Rumazi)

Shanghainese pronunciation

Useful phrases in Shanghainese

Recommended books

Chinese Translation

Our Price:$10.00

Shanghainese (上海闲话 / Zanhe-ëwo)

Shanghainese pronunciation (Zanhe-ëwo Rumazi)

Links

Other varieties of spoken Chinese