Shanghainese

Since the late 19th century, it has served as the lingua franca of the entire Yangtze River Delta region, but in recent decades its status has declined relative to Mandarin, which most Shanghainese speakers can also speak.

"[4] This has led to Shanghainese becoming one of the fastest-developing languages of the Wu Chinese subgroup, undergoing rapid changes and quickly replacing Suzhounese as the prestige dialect of the Yangtze River Delta region.

It underwent sustained growth that reached a peak in the 1930s during the Republican era, when migrants arrived in Shanghai and immersed themselves in the local tongue.

For example, in 1995, the TV series Sinful Debt featured extensive Shanghainese dialogue; when it was broadcast outside Shanghai (mainly in adjacent Wu-speaking areas) Mandarin subtitles were added.

[11][12] Professor Qian Nairong, linguist and head of the Chinese Department at Shanghai University, is working on efforts to save the language.

[13][14] In response to criticism, Qian reminds people that Shanghainese was once fashionable, saying, "the popularization of Mandarin doesn't equal the ban of dialects.

[20][21][22][23][24] In 2018, the Japanese-Chinese animated anthology drama film Flavors of Youth had a section set in Shanghai, with significant Shanghainese dialogue.

Due to the large number of ethnic groups of China, efforts to establish a common language have been attempted many times.

Other than the government language-management efforts, the rate of rural-to-urban migration in China has also accelerated the shift to Standard Chinese and the disappearance of native languages and dialects in the urban areas.

[29] As more people moved into Shanghai, the economic center of China, Shanghainese has been threatened despite it originally being a strong topolect of Wu Chinese.

[30] To have better communication with foreign residents and develop a top-level financial center among the world, the promotion of the official language, Standard Mandarin, became very important.

[46] The transcriptions used above are broad and the following points are of note when pertaining to actual pronunciation:[47][48][49] The Middle Chinese nasal rimes are all merged in Shanghainese.

With this analysis, Shanghainese has only a two-way phonemic tone contrast,[53] falling vs rising, and then only in open syllables with voiceless initials.

Similarly, the syllables in a common expression for 十三點 (zeq-sé-ti, "foolish") have the following underlying phonemic and tonal representations: /zəʔ¹²/ (zeq), /sɛ⁵³/ (sé), and /ti³³⁴/ (ti).

[56] 我ngu/ŋu˩˩˧1SG紅 顏 色ghon- nge- seq-ɦoŋ˩˩˧꜖ ŋe˩˩˦꜓ səʔ˦꜕red個gheqɦəʔ꜖POS電 話di- ghodi˩˩˧꜖ ɦo˩˩˧꜓phone尋zhin-ʑin˩˩˧꜖find勿veq-vəʔ˩˨꜓-NEG到tautɔ˧˧˦꜖-POT了。leqləʔ/-PRES我 {紅 顏 色} 個 {電 話} 尋 勿 到 了。ngu {ghon- nge- seq-} gheq {di- gho} zhin- veq- tau leq/ŋu˩˩˧ {ɦoŋ˩˩˧꜖ ŋe˩˩˦꜓ səʔ˦꜕} ɦəʔ꜖ {di˩˩˧꜖ ɦo˩˩˧꜓} ʑin˩˩˧꜖ vəʔ˩˨꜓ tɔ˧˧˦꜖ ləʔ/1SG red POS phone find -NEG -POT -PRES"I cannot find my red phone.

[59] Shanghainese also has a multitude of loan words from European languages, due to Shanghai's status as a major port in China.

Some terms mix the two pronunciation types, such as 大學 ("university"), where 大 is literary (da) and 學 is colloquial (ghoq).

Similarly, there is no distinction for tense or person in verbs, with word order and particles generally expressing these grammatical characteristics.

Nouns, for example, can be reduplicated to express collective or diminutive forms;[67] adjectives so as to intensify or emphasize the associated description; and verbs to soften the degree of action.

走tseuwalk走tseuwalk走 走tseu tseuwalk walktake a walkWord compounding is also very common in Shanghainese, a fact observed as far back as Edkins (1868),[69] and is the most productive method of creating new words.

This construction, which appears to be unique to Shanghainese,[75] is commonly employed to project the speaker's differing expectation relative to the content of the phrase.

[64] Although Shanghainese does lack overt grammatical number, the plural marker 拉 (la), when suffixed to a human denoting noun, can indicate a collective meaning.

[78] 學生ghoq-sánstudent拉-laPL個gheqPOSS書sýbook學生 拉 個 書ghoq-sán -la gheq sýstudent PL POSS bookstudents' booksThere are no articles in Shanghainese,[78] and thus, no marking for definiteness or indefiniteness of nouns.

[79] 搿geqthis隻-tsaqCL皮球bi-jieuball搿 隻 皮球geq -tsaq bi-jieuthis CL ballthis ball[81]Classifiers can be reduplicated to mean "all" or "every", as in: Shanghainese verbs are analytic and as such do not undergo any sort of conjugation to express tense or person.

[88] 電影di-inmovie散場se-zanfinish快了。khua-leqIMM.FUT P電影 散場 快了。di-in se-zan khua-leqmovie finish {IMM.FUT P}The movie is soon to finish.Experiential aspect expresses the completion of an action before a specifically referenced timeframe, marked post-verbally by the particle 過 (ku).

[89] 我ngu1S到tauto海裡he-lisea-inside去chigo游泳yeu-yonswim游過yeu-kuswim-EXP五趟。ng-thaonfive-times我 到 海裡 去 游泳 游過 五趟。ngu tau he-li chi yeu-yon yeu-ku ng-thaon1S to sea-inside go swim swim-EXP five-timesI have swum the sea five times (so far).The durative aspect is marked post-verbally by 下去 (gho-chi), and expresses a continuous action.

[89] 儂non2S就zhieueven讓gnianlet伊yi3S做tsudo下去gho-chiDUR好了。hau-leqgood-PF儂 就 讓 伊 做 下去 好了。non zhieu gnian yi tsu gho-chi hau-leq2S even let 3S do DUR good-PFPlease let him continue to do it.

[91] 餅乾pin-kóebiscuit撥peqby人家gnin-kásomeone吃脫了。chiq-theq-leqeat-PERF餅乾 撥 人家 吃脫了。pin-kóe peq gnin-ká chiq-theq-leqbiscuit by someone eat-PERFThe biscuits were eaten by someone.Personal pronouns in Shanghainese do not distinguish gender or case.

Older varieties of Shanghainese featured a different 1st person plural 我伲 (ngu-gni),[92][93] whereas younger speakers tend to use 阿拉 (aq-laq),[93][94] which originates from Ningbonese.

[64] Adjectives can take semantic prefixes, which themselves can be reduplicated or repositioned as suffixes according to a complex system of derivation,[99] to express degree of comparison or other changes in meaning.