Wenzhounese (Lucheng)

Wenzhounese (溫州話、甌語) is a Wu Chinese language spoken predominately in Wenzhou prefecture in Zhejiang Province off China’s eastern coast, but also by a large diaspora of Chinese immigrants across Europe, North America, and other countries. Within Wenzhou prefecture, there are also other Sinitic languages besides Wenzhounese spoken, but Wenzhounese is the dominant language spoken across the largest area.

Wenzhounese can at once refer to both this language dominant across Wenzhou Prefecture as well as the specific dialect dominant within the metropolitan Wenzhou City districts. In the broad sense of referring to the dominant language of Wenzhou Prefecture it is sometimes referred to as the Ou or Oujiang language (甌語), which encompasses the various closely related dialects of Wenzhounese spoken not only in Wenzhou City but also in satellite cities and counties such as Rui’an, Yueqing, Yongjia, and Wencheng. The dialect spoken in the urban Lucheng (鹿城) district is generally considered to be the most representative prestige accent of the language.

Oujiang is in turn classified by linguists as a branch of the Wu linguistic branch, spoken across Zhejiang province, southern Jiangsu province, the Shanghai municipality, and parts of Anhui and Jiangxi provinces. Wenzhounese is not mutually intelligible with any Wu language or variety outside the Oujiang subgrouping, such as Shanghainese.

Initials

Sonorant class initials (m, v, n, l, ny, ng) are voiced (Yang) by default, but sometimes can take Yin tones, and become slightly glottalized (mh, vh, nh, lh, nyh, ngh). For simplicity, if the glottalization is predictable from presence of a Yin tone mark (the extremely vast majority of cases), the initial glottalization will not be transcribed.

Rimes

Plain Rimes

The /ø̆y/ rime in Wenzhounese is predominantly /y/ with a short onglide, which makes it sound very different from the similar diphthongs present in Fuzhounese and Cantonese where the /y/ is the offglide; as such, it is transcribed differently in the Lexx Rom system.

Nasal Rimes

/eŋ ~ əŋ/ are in free variation.

Tones

The Yinshang and Yangshang tones are identical in contour and tone sandhi behavior and can be considered the same tone, but with voiced (Yang) initials lowering the pitch slightly.

Likewise, the Yinru and Yangru tones are identical in contour and tone sandhi behavior and can be considered the same tone, but with voiced (Yang) initials lowering the pitch slightly.