Wenzhounese

Wenzhou
溫州話
Native to	Wenzhou Prefecture, Zhejiang, China
Region	Southeastern China, and in Wenzhou immigrant populations in New York City; Paris; Milan and Prato, Italy
Native speakers	5 million est.
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Wu Wenzhou
Official status
Official language in	not official
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–

Wenzhounese (simplified Chinese: 温州话; traditional Chinese: 溫州話; pinyin: wēnzhōuhuà) or Oujiang (simplified Chinese: 瓯江话; traditional Chinese: 甌江話; pinyin: ōujiānghuà) is the speech of Wenzhou, the southern prefecture of Zhejiang Province, China. It is the most divergent division of Wu Chinese, and is sometimes considered a separate language. It has noticeable elements of Min, which borders it to the south. The term Oujiang is sometimes used to disambiguate this broad sense of the term, as opposed to Wenzhou or Wenzhounese as the dialect of Wenzhou proper.

Wenzhou is not mutually intelligible with other varieties of Wu neighboring it to the north and west, let alone with Min Dong to the south or with the official language of China, Mandarin.

Due to its long history and the geographical features of the region on which it is located, Wenzhou Chinese is so eccentric in its phonology that it has the reputation of being the "least comprehensible dialect" for an average Mandarin speaker. It preserves some vocabulary from classical Chinese lost elsewhere, and has noticeable grammatical differences from Mandarin.

Classification

The linguistic mosaic that makes up China is especially diverse in Zhejiang province, where Wenzhou is located. Wenzhou is further divided into many dialects. When people refer to the standard Wenzhou dialect, they usually mean the language spoken by the people living in more developed areas of Wenzhou, i.e. Lucheng, Ouhai, Longwan, Yongjia, Ruian, and Yueqing, though they may mean Oujiang as a whole. Over five million people speak dialects of Oujiang/Wenzhou that are mutually intelligible, but differences are marked, with sound systems changing almost comprehensively every ten kilometers, especially in rural areas. People from Taizhou, who speak the Wu dialect which borders Wenzhou to the north, cannot comprehend Wenzhou.

Reputation for Eccentricity

Due to its high degree of eccentricity, the language is reputed to have been used during the Second Sino-Japanese War during wartime communication. Due to its unique grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, the language is basically impossible for any non-local to understand.

There is a famous rhymed saying in China that goes, "Do not fear the heavens and the earth (i.e. anything), but be afraid of hearing a person from Wenzhou speak in their local tongue." (天不怕，地不怕，就怕温州人説温州話)

Geographic distribution

Wenzhounese is spoken primarily in Wenzhou and the surrounding southern portion of Zhejiang Province of China. To a lesser extent, it is also spoken in scattered pockets of Fujian Province in Southeastern China. Overseas, it is spoken in increasingly larger communities in Flushing Chinatown and Brooklyn Chinatown, New York City, USA; historically, there has also been a Wenzhounese-speaking community in Paris, France.

Dialects

Oujiang (Dong'ou) 甌江 (東甌)

• Wenzhou dialect 溫州話
• Rui'an dialect 瑞安話
• Wencheng dialect 文成話

The most important difference between eastern Oujiang dialects such as Wencheng and Wenzhou proper is the entering tone, which merged with rising tone after unvoiced consonants, and the retention of /f/ before /o/:

	八	风	到	晓得
Wenzhou	puu	hoŋ	tə	ɕadei
Wencheng	bɔ	foŋ	tɶ	ɕodi

Phonetics and phonology

Consonants

Consonants of Wenzhou dialect

		bilabial	labio-dental	alveolar	alveolo-palatal	palatal	velar	glottal
nasal	voiced	m		n	ɲ		ŋ
	voiceless	ʔm		ʔn	ʔɲ		ʔŋ
plosives	voiced	b		d			ɡ
	voiceless unaspirated	p		t			k
	voiceless aspirated	pʰ		tʰ			kʰ
fricatives	voiced		v	z				ɦ
	voiceless		f	s	ɕ			h
affricates	voiced			dz	dʑ
	voiceless unaspirated			ts	tɕ
	voiceless aspirated			tsʰ	tɕʰ
approximants						j
lateral approximants				l

Tones

Citation tones

Wenzhou has three phonemic tones. While it has eight phonetic tones, most of these are predictable: The yin–yang tone split dating from Middle Chinese still corresponds to the voicing of the initial consonant in Wenzhou, and the ru tones are simply syllables with a final stop.

Tone chart of Wenzhou dialect

Tone number	Tone name	Tone contour
1	yin ping (陰平)	˦ 4
2	yang ping (陽平)	˧˩ 31
3	yin shang (陰上)	˦˥ 45
4	yang shang (陽上)	˧˦ 34
5	yin qu (陰去)	˦˨ 42
6	yang qu (陽去)	˨ 2
7	yin ru (陰入)	˧˨˧̚ 323
8	yang ru (陽入)	˨˩˨̚ 212

Grammar

Syntax

Wenzhou dialect has some unique particularities regarding syntax. Like other Chinese dialects, Wenzhou dialect has meanly SOV language structure, but in some situations it's meanly SOV or OSV. SOV is commonly used with verb+suffix, the common suffixes are 过去起落来牢得还. ex. 书给其还 （个）瓶水pai去

Examples

There are a lot of sub-branches of Oujiang group of dialects, some are not very intelligible like Wenzhou city dialect with some Wencheng dialect, but there is no trouble understanding neighbouring dialect or very few, I'll take as example 2 dialects spoken in Li'ao village of Ouhai District, Wenzhou, one dialect is spoken in 白门 (where the local people have 姜 as their surname), the other one is 王宅 (where local people have normally 王 or 黄 as their surname), they are nearly 100% except for few vocabulary, as the word RUBBISH is different in these 2 dialects, in one, the 白门 dialect it is ʔlutsuu, in the other is ʔladʒee (from mandarin 垃圾).

EXEMPLES OF OUJIANG DIALECTS

dialect	一两三四五六七八九十
wenzhou	iaii, liɛ2, sa1, sɨ3, ŋ2, loɯɯ, ts'aii, puu, tɕaɯ2, zaii
ruian	iaa, la2, so1, sɨ3, ŋ2. loɯɯ (also liɯɯ in some variants), ts'aa, puu, tɕaɯ2, zaa

See also

• List of Chinese dialects
• Wu Chinese
• Suzhou dialect
• Shanghai dialect
• Hangzhou dialect

References

• Qián,nǎiróng (1992). Dāngdài Wúyǔ yánjiū. (Contemporary Wu linguistics studies). Shànghǎi: shànghǎi jiāoyù chūbǎnshè. (錢乃榮. 1992. 當代吳語研究. 上海敎育出版社) ISBN 7-5320-2355-9