Hangzhou dialect

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 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, it exhibits extensive similarities with the other Wu dialects; however, grammatically and lexically, it shows many Mandarin tendencies.[3]

Hangzhou dialect
杭州話 ɦaŋ-tsei-ɦu
Pronunciation[ɦãtseiɦu]
Native toPeople's Republic of China
RegionHangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Native speakers
(1.2 million cited 1987)[1]
Sino-Tibetan
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
ISO 639-6hgou
Glottologhang1257[2]
Linguasphere79-AAA-dbd

Classification

Hangzhou dialect is classified under the Wu Chinese, although some western linguists claim Hangzhou is a Mandarin Chinese language.

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 variant closely related to Jianghuai Mandarin. Hangzhou dialect is still classified under Wu. Chao had developed a "Common Wu Syllabary" 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.[4] 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.[5][6]

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.[7]

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.

Phonology

Initials
Initials of Hangzhou dialect
  Labial Dental/Alveolar Alveolo-palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ  
Plosive tenuis p t   k ʔ
aspirated pʰ tʰ   kʰ  
voiced b d   ɡ  
Affricate tenuis   ts tɕ    
aspirated   tsʰ tɕʰ    
voiced   dz dʑ    
Fricative voiceless f s ɕ   h
voiced v z     ɦ
Lateral   l      

Finals
Vowel nuclei of the Hangzhou dialect
Front Central Back
Unrounded Rounded
Close /i/ /y/ /u/
Mid /ɛ/ /ə/ /ɔ/
Open /a/
Diphthong /ei, ou/
Finals of the Hangzhou dialect[8][9]
Coda Open Nasal Glottal stop
Medial ∅jwɥʮ ∅jwʮ ∅jwɥʮ
Nucleus i i     iɲ         
y y     yɲ         
u u               
ei ei wei             
ou ou               
ɛ ɛjɛwɛ ʮɛ       jɛʔ ɥɛʔ 
ə       ən wənʮən      
ɔ ɔjɔwoɥoʮo oŋjoŋ   oʔjoʔ   
a ajawa ʮa ãjãwãʮã aʔ waʔ ʮaʔ
Syllabic continuants: [ɿ] [ʮ] [m̩] [ŋ̩] [l̩]

The Hangzhou dialect has a rare "apical glide" [ʮ] which can precede vowels in finals. As with Shanghainese, the Middle Chinese entering tone characters, which ended in [p t k], now end in a glottal stop [ʔ] in the Hangzhou dialect, while Middle Chinese nasal endings [m n ŋ] have now merged as generic nasal finals or dropped nasalization altogether.

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 numberTone nameTone lettersDescription
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(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 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.

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See also

References
  1. Sinolect.org
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Hangzhou". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. (Simmons 1995)
  4. David Prager Branner (2006). David Prager Branner (ed.). The Chinese rime tables: linguistic philosophy and historical-comparative phonology. Volume 271 of Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science: Current issues in linguistic theory (illustrated ed.). John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 206. ISBN 90-272-4785-4. Retrieved 23 September 2011. Had Chao developed a syllabary for the Jiang-Huai Mandarin dialects with a diagnostic power and representativeness comparable to that of his Wu Syllabary, and had he placed Hangzhou in that context, he most surely would have discovered
  5. Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, Inc. Internet Database Service (2007). Linguistics and language behavior abstracts: LLBA., Volume 41, Issue 4. Sociological Abstracts, Inc. p. 1541. Retrieved 23 September 2011. We point out that in fact this stratum is an old literary layer in Minnan dialects. We find it also exists in Hakka-gan dialects, the Hangzhou dialect. South East Mandarins, & Jianghuai Mandarins extensively. In Sino-annamite. there are (the University of Michigan)
  6. University of California, Berkeley. Project on Linguistic Analysis (2007). Journal of Chinese linguistics, Volume 35. Project on Linguistic Analysis. p. 97. Retrieved 23 September 2011. We find it also exists in Hakka-gan dialects, Hangzhou dialect, South East Mandarins, Jianghuai Mandarins extensively. In Sino-annamite, there are some similarities to Minnan dialects. Basing on our new findings, we believe that in Song
  7. John H. McWhorter (2007). Language interrupted: signs of non-native acquisition in standard language grammars (illustrated ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 129. ISBN 0-19-530980-4. Retrieved 23 September 2011. For example, many Mandarin dialects have more than four tones. Hangzhou has no fewer than seven, such that it was previously classified as a Wu dialect ( Simmons 1992; Baxter 2000, 106–8). In the Jiang-Huai region five-tone dialects are not uncommon, with six-tone ones reported on the Northern/Central boundary (Norman 1988, 194). These represent a retention of one of the original four tones of Middle Chinese (the rù tone), as distinguished from the more common Mandarin trait of having lost this tone while collapsing the two-way register distinction between the three others into a four-tone contrast not contingent upon register
  8. Yue, Yang; Hu, Fang (2018), "Vowels and Diphthongs in Hangzhou Wu Chinese Dialect" (PDF), Proc. Interspeech: 207–211, doi:10.21437/Interspeech.2018-1225
  9. Simmons, Richard VanNess (1992). The Hangzhou dialect (Thesis).
  • Boltz, William G. (2000–2001). "Notes on Richard VanNess Simmons: Chinese Dialect Classification" (PDF). Oriens Extremus. 42.
  • Qián, Nǎiróng 錢乃榮 (1992). 當代吳語研究 Dāngdài Wúyǔ yánjiū [Contemporary Wu linguistics studies]. Shanghai: 上海敎育出版社 Shànghǎi jiàoyù chūbǎnshè. ISBN 7-5320-2355-9.
  • Simmons, Richard VanNess (1995). "Distinguishing characteristics of the Hangzhou dialect" (PDF). New Asia Academic Bulletin. 11: 383–398.
  • Simmons, Richard VanNess (1999). Chinese Dialect Classification: A comparative approach to Harngjou, Old Jintarn, and Common Northern Wu. John Benjamins. ISBN 978-90-272-3694-4.
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