Wu Chinese

Wu is a major group of Chinese languages spoken in the Wu cultural region. This area includes Shanghai, Zhejiang province, and parts of Jiangsu province. Most speakers live south of the Yangtze River. People often call these languages "Wu" to group them together. This term is a recent linguistic coinage. Many local speakers do not use this name for themselves. Instead, they identify with their specific local variety. They often name their speech by adding a word for "speech" to their town's name. For example, people in Wenzhou refer to their speech as Wenzhounese.

The Wu languages are divided into two main categories. Northern Wu varieties form a language family. This means the different varieties in the north are mutually intelligible. Speakers of these varieties can understand each other quite well. Southern Wu varieties are different. They do not form a single phylogenetic language family. This means they are not mutually intelligible. A person speaking one Southern Wu variety might not understand another. This creates a diverse landscape of speech across the region.

Linguists find Wu very significant because it is so distinct. It preserves many features from medieval Chinese. For instance, it keeps all the voiced initials from that era. It also uses a glottal stop for the checked tone. A glottal stop is a brief closure of the vocal cords. Wu also has unique morphological and syntactic innovations. These are special ways of building words and sentences. It also contains a lexicon, or vocabulary, found only in the Wu grouping. This makes the language a vital tool for studying history.

The history of Wu involves many waves of migration. Before Han Chinese people arrived, the Jiangnan region was home to Kra-Dai or Austroasiatic peoples. These groups were known as the Baiyue. Traditional history says Taibo of Wu settled the area during the Shang dynasty. He brought Chinese administrative practices to the region. Later, the Upheaval of the Five Barbarians caused a massive migration. This happened in the 4th century CE. Migrants from the north entered the Jiangnan region. This movement helped shape the vernacular that became modern Wu.

A second major migration occurred during the Southern Song dynasty. This wave moved to Lin'an, which is modern-day Hangzhou. This migration helped form the modern literary layer of the language. During the Yuan and Ming dynasties, many operatic traditions appeared. These traditions used the local speech. In the Qing dynasty, missionaries began translating the Bible. They recorded the exact pronunciations of many local varieties for the first time. This provided a written record of how the languages sounded.

Economic changes also shifted how Wu is spoken. In the 19th century, Suzhounese was the prestige dialect. A prestige dialect is a variety that is highly respected or used by the elite. However, the status changed by the turn of the 20th century. The economic boom in Shanghai led to its variety becoming the new prestige variety. This change coincided with a period of rapid language change in the city. Today, Standard Mandarin is promoted nationwide. However, the 21st century has seen new efforts to revive Wu varieties.

Wu also shows connections to other ancient language groups. It contains many loanwords from the Kra-Dai language family. A study in Maqiao found that 126 out of 1,000 surveyed words were of Kra-Dai origin. For example, the word for aubergine is shared between Wu and Kra-Dai. Some researchers also suggest links to Austroasiatic languages. While these influences exist, Wu is still most strongly influenced by other Chinese languages. This mix of ancient roots and Chinese development makes Wu a unique linguistic treasure.