Long-short (romanization)

The long-short romanization system is a romanization system for Wu Chinese. It was designed to accommodate the two most widely spoken Northern Wu dialects, the Shanghai dialect and the Suzhou dialect. The system is called "Long-short" (长短音 in Chinese) because the system distinguishes between long vowels, which are written with two vowels, and short vowels, which are written with one. In some dialects, the short vowels are pronounced with a following glottal stop, making the distinction between short and long vowels more important.

Because the phonological complexity of Wu Chinese is comparable with that of Middle Chinese, the romanization system has needed to incorporate a wider range of sounds compared to Mandarin Chinese or Cantonese. One notable example involves the use of the "muddy voice", which means that Wu Chinese is one of the few Chinese dialects with a three-way distinction between voiced, voiceless and aspirated consonants. Because most dialects only distinguish between unaspirated and aspirated, the romanization systems used for those dialects use the same convention (writing, for example, the unaspirated [p] as "b" and the aspirated [pʰ] as p), but this format is insufficient for Wu Chinese, so the long-short romanization uses an "h" to show aspiration (so that [pʰ] is written "ph").

Initials and Finals

In Wu Chinese, like in other varieties of Chinese, all syllables are divided into initials (an initial consonant) and finals (the vowel, glide and syllable coda), as well as having an inherent tone.

Initials

See also:

		Labial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m m	n n	ɲ gn	ŋ ng
Plosive	voiceless	p p	t t		k k	ʔ *
	aspirated	pʰ ph	tʰ th		kʰ kh
	slack voice	b̥ b	d̥ d		ɡ̊ g
Affricate	voiceless		ts tz	tɕ c
	aspirated		tsʰ ts	tɕʰ ch
	slack voice		(d̥z̥) dz	d̥ʑ̊ dj
Fricative	voiceless	f f	s s	ɕ x		h h
	slack voice	v̥ v	z̥ z	ʑ̊ j
Approximant			l l			ɦ r

* /ʔɲ/ is written "kn", /ʔn/, /ʔm/ and /ʔl/ are written with a preceding apostrophe (such as ’n) and is not written if it is the only initial consonant. ’um, ’un and ’ung are used for /ʔn̩/, /ʔm̩/ and /ʔŋ̩/ respectively.

/ɦj/ and /ɦɥ/ are both written as "y" and /ɦw/ is written as "w". /j/, /ɥ/ and /w/ are otherwise considered as part of the final.

The consonants s, z, tz and ts become alveolo-palatal in the Shanghai dialect when they are written before "i". They always remain dental in the Suzhou dialect.

Finals

See also:

Long vowels

Dialect	a	e	o	i	ei	oe	ii	iu/ü	eu	au/oo	ou	u
Shanghai	aː ~ ɑː	eː ~ ɛː	ɔː	iː	eː ~ ej	ɜəː	iː	yː	øː	uː/oː	uː	uː
Suzhou	ɒː	eː	æː	iː	eː	ɘɪ	iː	yː	ɵː	oː	ɜu ~ uː	uː
Dialect	ia	ie	io	iee	iei	ioe			ieu
Shanghai	jaː	jeː ~ jɛː	jɔː	iː	jeː ~ jej	jɜəː			ʏː
Suzhou	jɒː	jɪː	jæː	jɪː	jɪː	ɘɪ			jɵː
Dialect	ua	ue			uei				ueu
Shanghai	waː	weː ~ wɛː			weː ~ wej				wøː ~ wɛː
Suzhou	wɒː	weː			weː				ɵː

Short Vowels

	Vowels with following glottal stops					Vowels with following nasals
Dialect	å/aq	aq	eq	oq		ån/ahn	an	en	on
Shanghai	ɐ	ɐ	ə	o/ʊ		ãː	ãː	əɲ	oŋ ~ ʊŋ
Suzhou	ɒ	a	ə	o		ãː ~ ɒŋ	ãː/aŋ	ən	oŋ
Dialect	iå ~ iaq	iaq	ieq	ioq		iån ~ iahn	ian	in	ion
Shanghai	jɪ	jɪ	jɪ	jo ~ jʊ		jãː	jãː	ɪɲ	joŋ ~ jʊŋ
Suzhou	jɐ	jɐ	ɪ ~ jə	jo		jãː ~ jɒŋ	jãː ~ jaŋ	jɪn	joŋ
Dialect		uaq	ueq	üeq		uån/uahn	uan	uen	ün
Shanghai		wɐ	wɐ	ɥɪ		wãː	wãː	wəɲ	ʏɲ
Suzhou		wa	wə	ɥə		wãː ~ wɒŋ	wãː ~ waŋ	wɪn	ɥin

Syllabic consonants

Northern Wu has seven syllabic consonants, three of which are glottalized.

	Unglottalized				Glottalized
Dialect	um	un	ung	ul	`um	`un	`ung
Shanghai	m̩	n̩	ŋ̩	r̩/əɫ	ʔm̩	ʔn̩	ʔŋ̩
Suzhou	m̩	n̩	ŋ̩	əɹ	ʔm̩	ʔn̩	ʔŋ̩

Null Finals

Similar to other Chinese dialects, Wu features "null finals", which occurs after non-palatal fricatives, and are pronounced like syllabic consonants.

Dialect	zi	zu	si	su	tsi	tsu	tshi	tshu
Shanghai	zɿ/dzɿ		sɿ		tsɿ		tsʰɿ
Suzhou	zɿ	zɥ	sɿ	sɥ	tsɿ	tsɥ	tsʰɿ	tsʰɥ

Tones

The Shanghai dialect has five tones, while the Suzhou dialect has mostly retained the Middle Chinese tone system, except that it now only has one Shang tone, with the other merging with the Yin Qu tone.