Suzhou dialect

Suzhou dialect
蘇州閒話
Spoken in	People's Republic of China
Region	Suzhou, Jiangsu province
Native speakers	approx. 5-7 million  (date missing)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Chinese Wu Taihu Suzhou–Shanghai–Jiaxing (Su-Hu-Jia) Suzhou dialect
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
linguist List	wuu-suh

Suzhou dialect (simplified Chinese: 苏州话; traditional Chinese: 蘇州話; pinyin: Sūzhōu huà; Native name: 蘇州閒話) is a dialect of Wu, one of the subdivisions of Chinese spoken language. It is spoken in the city of Suzhou, in Jiangsu province of China, and is the traditional prestige dialect of Wu.

It is typical of the Wu dialects, being rich in vowels and conservative in having many initials. It has many similarities with the Shanghai dialect.

Distribution

Considered one of the most flowing and elegant languages of China, often called effeminate, especially by the Shanghainese, the Suzhou dialect is mutually intelligible with dialects spoken in neighbouring Shanghai, and the dialects spoken its satellite cities of Kunshan, Changshu, Zhangjiagang etc. It has noticeable differences with Wuxi dialect, although this does not render the two dialects unintelligible to each other. It is also partially intelligible with dialects spoken in Hangzhou and Ningbo. Neither native Mandarin nor Cantonese speakers understand Suzhou dialect.

Due to the city's population flow patterns, many Suzhou-area residents native to the city do not speak Suzhou dialect, but can usually understand it, although the level of fluency varies. Standard Mandarin, therefore, is spoken throughout the city.

Phonology

Initials

Initials of Suzhou dialect

		Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental	Alveolo- palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m		n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	aspirated	pʰ		tʰ		kʰ
	voiceless	p		t		k	ʔ
	voiced	b		d		ɡ
affricates	aspirated			tsʰ	tɕʰ
	voiceless			ts	tɕ
	voiced				dʑ
Fricative	voiceless		f	s	ɕ		h
	voiced		v	z			ɦ
Lateral				l

Suzhou dialect has a set of voiced initials and exhibits unvoiced unaspirated and aspirated stops, there are unvoiced and voiced fricatives sets. Moreover, palatized initials also feature.

Rimes

Vowels	Diphthongs	Triphthongs	Nasals	Glottals
			m, n, ŋ, l
ɨ
ɥ
i	iø, io, iæᵄ, iɒ	iøʏ	in, ioŋ, iã, iɒ̃	ɪʔ(iəʔ), ioʔ, iaʔ, iɒʔ
y			yən	yɤʔ
u	uø, uɛ, uɒ		uən, uɒ̃, uã	uɤʔ, uaʔ
ɪ(iɪ)
ø	øʏ
o			oŋ	oʔ
	əu		ən	ɤʔ
ɛ
æᵄ
			ã	aʔ
ɑ
ɒ			ɒ̃	ɒʔ

Suzhou has one triphthong rhyme, [iøʏ]. Unlike Shanghai, it has no nasalised rhymes, though it does have a set of rhymes that end in a nasal stop. Middle Chinese entering tone characters which end in [p t k] end as a glottal stop [ʔ] in Suzhou. Middle Chinese nasal endings [m] have merged with rhymes that end with [n] in Suzhou. Middle Chinese [ŋ] ending rhymes have split into two types in Suzhou. Those with a high-fronted main vowel merge with [n] ending rhymes. Those with a palatising medial [i] and back main vowel retain the [ŋ] ending.

Tones

Suzhou is considered to have seven tones. However, since the tone split dating from Middle Chinese still depends on the voicing of the initial consonant, these constitute just three phonemic tones: pin, shang, and qu. (Ru syllables are phonemically toneless.)

Tone chart of Suzhou dialect

Tone number	Tone name	Tone letters	Description
1	yin ping (陰平)	˦ (44)	high
2	yang ping (陽平)	˨˨˦ (224)	level-rising
3	shang (上)	˥˨ (52)	high falling
4	yin qu (陰去)	˦˩˨ (412)	dipping
5	yang qu (陽去)	˨˧˩ (231)	rising-falling
6	yin ru (陰入)	˦ʔ (4)	high checked
7	yang ru (陽入)	˨˧ʔ (23)	rising checked

In Suzhou, part of the Middle Chinese Shang tone characters has merged with the modern yin qu tone.

See also

• List of Chinese dialects
• Hangzhou dialect
• Changzhou dialect

External links

• Wu Association
• Soochow(Suzhou) Dialect