Hangzhou dialect

Hangzhounese
杭州話
Pronunciation	[hantseiwu]
Native to	People's Republic of China
Region	Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Native speakers	unknown (1.2 million cited 1987)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Chinese Wu Taihu Hangzhounese
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
ISO 639-6	hgou
Glottolog	hang1257

Hangzhounese, or Hangzhou dialect (simplified Chinese: 杭州话; traditional Chinese: 杭州話; pinyin: hángzhōuhuà; Rhangzei Rhwa), is spoken in the city of Hangzhou and its immediate suburbs, but excluding areas further away from Hangzhou such as Xiāoshān (蕭山) and Yúháng (余杭) (both originally county-level cities and now the districts within Hangzhou City). The number of speakers of the Hangzhounese has been estimated to be about 1.2 to 1.5 million. It is a dialect of Wu, one of the Chinese varieties. Hangzhounese is of immense interest to Chinese historical phonologists and dialectologists because phonologically, it exhibits extensive similarities with the other Wu dialects; however, grammatically and lexically, it shows many Mandarin tendencies.

Classification

Hangzhounese is classified as a dialect of Wu Chinese, although some western linguists claim Hangzhou is a Mandarin Chinese dialect.

Richard Vanness Simmons, a professor of Chinese at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA, claims that the Hangzhou dialect, rather than being Wu as it was classified by Yuen Ren Chao, is a Mandarin dialect closely related to Jianghuai Mandarin. Hangzhou dialect is still classified under Wu. Chao had developed a "Common Wu Syllabry" for the Wu dialects. Simmons claimed that had Chao compared 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 dialects like Minnan, Hakka, Gan, and Hangzhou dialects, which it does not share with Northern Mandarin. Sino Vietnamese also shares some of these characteristics. The stratum in Minnan specifically consist of Zeng group and Geng group's "n" and "t" finals when an "i" initial is present.

John H. McWhorter claimed that the Hangzhou 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 east to the Qiangtang River in south. A growing number of Hangzhounese speakers is emerging overseas in New York City, United States.

Phonetics and phonology

Consonants

Consonants of Hangzhou dialect

		bilabial	labio-dental	alveolar	alveolo-palatal	velar	glottal
nasal		m		n	ɲ	ŋ
plosives	voiced	b		d		ɡ
	voiceless unaspirated	p		t		k	ʔ
	voiceless aspirated	pʰ		tʰ		kʰ
fricatives	voiced		v	z			ɦ
	voiceless		f	s	ɕ		h
affricates	voiced			dz	dʑ
	voiceless unaspirated			ts	tɕ
	voiceless aspirated			tsʰ	tɕʰ
approximants			ʋ	ɹ
lateral approximants				l

Tones

Citation tones

The Hangzhou tonal system is similar to that of the Suzhou dialect, in that some words with shàng tone in Middle Chinese 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.)

Tone chart of Hangzhou dialect

Tone number	Tone name	Tone letters	Description
1	yin ping (陰平)	˧˨˧ (323)	mid dipping
2	yang ping (陽平)	˨˩˨ (212)	low dipping
3	shang (上)	˥˩ (51)	falling
4	yin qu (陰去)	˧˦ (334)	mid rising
5	yang qu (陽去)	˩˧ (113)	low rising
6	yin ru (陰入)	˥ʔ (5)	high checked
7	yang ru (陽入)	˩˨ʔ (12)	low checked

Vocabulary

Time

gemore(葛毛)-- now

deimore(头毛)-- just now

yalidei(夜里头)-- at night

rizong(日中)-- at noon

reli(日里)-- in the day

zaogedei(早盖头)-- in the morning

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 impact on Hangzhou's dialect was its establishment as Lin'an, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty. When the Northern Song Dynasty was conquered by the Jin Dynasty in 1127, large numbers of northern refugees fled to what is now Hangzhou, speaking predominantly Mandarin of the Henan 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 in 1912. The local Manchu garrisons were dissolved, adding significant numbers of Beijing dialect Mandarin speakers to the population.

Because of the frequent commerce and intercourse between Hangzhou and Shaoxing, the Hangzhou dialect is also influenced by the Shaoxing dialect.

See also

• List of Chinese dialects
• Suzhou dialect
• Shanghainese
• Wu dialects

External links

• Wu Association