Shanghai Chinese

• Published in: Journal of the International Phonetic Association Vol. 45; no. 3; pp. 321 - 337
• Main Authors: Chen, Yiya, Gussenhoven, Carlos
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01-12-2015; Cambridge University Press for the International Phonetic Association
• Subjects: Chinese; Dialects; Education; Families & family life; ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE IPA; Linguistics; Mandarin; Phonetic analysis; Phonetics; Phonology; Regional dialects; Researchers; Sound
• ISSN: 0025-1003; 1475-3502
• DOI: 10.1017/S0025100315000043

Shanghai Chinese (Shanghainese; 上海话) is a Wu dialect (ISO 639-3; code: wuu) spoken in the city of Shanghai (CN-31), one of the four municipalities in the People's Republic of China. Over the last century, the dialect has been heavily influenced by neighbouring dialects spoken in the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, such as Jianghuai Mandarin (江淮官话), the Suzhou Wu dialect (吴语苏州话), and the Ningbo Wu dialect (吴语宁波话), in addition to two other, more distant dialects, Cantonese (广东话) and Northern Mandarin (北方官话). Most native speakers of Shanghai Chinese are in fact descendants of immigrants from Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces who moved to Shanghai in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. More recently, the position of Shanghai Chinese has been eroded with the influx of immigrants from other parts of the country and the widespread adoption of Standard Chinese.