Jiangnanese (Shanghai)

Shanghainese is the most spoken variety of Jiangnanese, and it served as the lingua franca koine among Jiangnanese speakers during the 19th and 20th centuries before the promotion of Standard Mandarin. The phonology of Shanghainese is overall quite streamlined compared to its predecessor Suzhounese, and the amount of influence from Mandarin is also higher compared to Suzhounese.

Shanghainese accents vary slightly by accent and district; the middle-aged urban accent is generally taken as the base

Initials

In the Wu Chinese language branch, the voice quality of the initial consonant is important in determining the tonal behavior of the syllable, and therefore learners must learn which consonants are voiceless and which initial consonants are voiced. In traditional Chinese linguistics as well as in pedagogical materials, these two categories are named after the two halves of the Yin-Yang, so the voiceless initials are called Yin and voiced initials are called Yang.

Voiced (Yang) initials are <bh, m, v, dh, n, l, zz, jh, ny, xh, gh, ng, hh, y, w>. The other initials are unvoiced (Yin).

Rimes

Plain Rimes

Some speakers also distinguish an additional rime <ei> from <e>, this was present in Shanghainese accent spoken by the elderly generation but had dropped out in the middle-aged accent, and has now reappeared in the speech of some of the younger generations due to influence from Standard Mandarin. It is not indicated in Lexx Rom, but in general the guiding principle is that a character with rime <e> that is pronounced with <ei> in Standard Mandarin can be pronounced with <ei> in this younger accent of Shanghainese as well.

Nasal Coda Rimes

The nasal coda in Shanghainese as in most of the Wu Chinese branch does not have a distinction by place of articulation (unlike Standard Mandarin's distinction between -n and -ng, or Standard Cantonese's distinction between -m, -n, and -ng). In some rimes it can vary in surface realization between nasalization of the rime and a lightly articulated nasal consonant.

The <on>, <ion>, <uon> rimes merge into the <an>, <ian>, <uan> rimes in the speech of younger generations.

Checked Coda Rimes

The <euh>, <ueuh> rimes generally merge with the <ah>, <uah> rimes in the speech of younger generations.

Tones

Shanghainese can get by with minimal tone indication (as needed for exceptions). The initial consonant determines the tone of the syllable. Voiced consonants indicate that the syllable is a Yang tone (except in rare occasions where diacritic indicates otherwise); other initials indicate that the syllable is a Yin tone.

Syllables with ending -h (glottal stop) are Ru tone syllables; the Yinru tone syllables are those with a Yin initial (unvoiced) while the Yangru tone syllables are those with a Yang initial (voiced).

Yinping tone is always indicated, as à. The other four tones can be inferred by the Yin-Yang nature of the initial consonant as well as the presence or absence of Ru tone coda -h, and can therefore be omitted from writing.

However, in some rare circumstances, certain Yang initials of the sonorant class ( m, n, l, ny, ng) can take Yin tones instead of the expected default Yang tone; in these cases the tone diacritic will be marked explicitly, such as Yinping 蠻 (mè) and Yinqu 美 (mé) in contrast with default Yangshu 梅 (me). Phonetically, there is also some slight constriction of the glottis with the sonorant initial when it takes these higher tones, but this is not necessary to indicate in the case of Shanghainese.

Example Sentences