Why does Shanghainese sound so different from other Chinese dialects? (people, speaking)
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I have heard that Shanghainese is somewhat intelligible with Mandarin, and that it is the closest related Chinese dialect to Mandarin.
However, I speak Mandarin (as a 3rd language, and with an accent) but I can't understand a word of Shanghainese. It might as well be Japanese or Korean. After all, they speak very rapidly, like Japanese or Korean, to the point that the words sound polysyllabic, and certainly much more rapidly than other Chinese dialects foreign to me, e.g. Hokkien.
I have heard that Shanghainese and Japanese have virtually the same pitch-accent, two-tone system, and that Japanese Go-on Kanji reading originated from the region of Wu, which is where Shanghai is. I've also heard that Shanghainese has more polysyllabic words than any other Chinese dialect.
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Japanese doesn't have a true tone system, in the sense that the tone changes the meaning of the word. I don't know about the dialect of Shanghai, I used to think they spoke Mandarin there but recently learned that the dialect there is basically like a separate language, like Catalan is to Spanish.
Sort of related, I don't speak Mandarin but noticed while travelling around China some of the dialects. There was one dialect in Fujian province which sounded very much like Thai or Cambodian to me, I think it's a variant of Min. I also noticed the dialect around Beijing distinct, very rhotic (all 'r's' are pronounced).
Shanghainese is part of the Wu dialects or languages depending on your point of view and the Wu dialects were one of the first groups to branch off from the rest of the Chinese languages. Part of the early split meant that it was able to retain many of the phonetic characteristics and properties that later disappeared from many other Chinese languages/dialects and which explains why Shanghainese sounds distinctive from a lot of other chinese dialects. However, much Shanghainese spoken today has kind of gotten backwashed with standard Mandarin (as have most Chinese languages/dialects) in the last several decades so there's been a bit of a dilution of its distinctiveness.
Japanese doesn't have a true tone system, in the sense that the tone changes the meaning of the word. I don't know about the dialect of Shanghai, I used to think they spoke Mandarin there but recently learned that the dialect there is basically like a separate language, like Catalan is to Spanish.
Sort of related, I don't speak Mandarin but noticed while travelling around China some of the dialects. There was one dialect in Fujian province which sounded very much like Thai or Cambodian to me, I think it's a variant of Min. I also noticed the dialect around Beijing distinct, very rhotic (all 'r's' are pronounced).
Shanghainese dialect is part of the Wu language branch that may even actually predate the ancient language that produced the indigenous native Mandarin of the central and northern plains of ancient China WHICH produced the modern lingua-franca "guoyu" or "putonghua" Mandarin that is spoken with tremendous variations of fluency by "Chinese language" speakers in the mainland and diaspora. Shanghainese is almost always confused by foreigners as "Japanese"; it's probably a result of the peopling of Japan from the mainland during the early history of Asia - including the voyages of Qin Dynasty court shaman Xu Fu, who sailed to Japan with thousands of virgin boys and girls, and artisans and craftsmen intended as "sacrifice" for Qin Emperor Qinshihuang, but settled in Japan... and the "Qin language" at the time is nothing like the Mandarin you'd hear today, and may very well be an ancient lingo similar to the so-called "Altaic" languages (Mongolian, ancient Turkic [not modern Turkish], Korean, and Japanese, and... ?) proposed by various lingo scholars, BUT it has always been politically and racially critical that any Chinese related language (that'd be Wu) be exempt from the correlation with Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Buryat, Tuvan, Yakut, Yeniseian... because China is the scary sleeping giant of Asia and the current world powers want to portray China as the boogeyman and create Sino-phobia, and by excluding cultural, ethnic, and linguistic connection to the rest of Asia is fundamental to the anti-China propaganda that, barring you always live in a remote cave, are all quite familiar with. But the ultimate goal is to disrupt Asian unity and Pan-Asian power. Look up "Prehistory of Asia" in Wikipedia for an obvious glance at this anti-Asian effort by Western "free thinkers" lol.
Shanghainese dialect is part of the Wu language branch that may even actually predate the ancient language that produced the indigenous native Mandarin of the central and northern plains of ancient China WHICH produced the modern lingua-franca "guoyu" or "putonghua" Mandarin that is spoken with tremendous variations of fluency by "Chinese language" speakers in the mainland and diaspora. Shanghainese is almost always confused by foreigners as "Japanese"; it's probably a result of the peopling of Japan from the mainland during the early history of Asia - including the voyages of Qin Dynasty court shaman Xu Fu, who sailed to Japan with thousands of virgin boys and girls, and artisans and craftsmen intended as "sacrifice" for Qin Emperor Qinshihuang, but settled in Japan... and the "Qin language" at the time is nothing like the Mandarin you'd hear today, and may very well be an ancient lingo similar to the so-called "Altaic" languages (Mongolian, ancient Turkic [not modern Turkish], Korean, and Japanese, and... ?) proposed by various lingo scholars, BUT it has always been politically and racially critical that any Chinese related language (that'd be Wu) be exempt from the correlation with Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Buryat, Tuvan, Yakut, Yeniseian... because China is the scary sleeping giant of Asia and the current world powers want to portray China as the boogeyman and create Sino-phobia, and by excluding cultural, ethnic, and linguistic connection to the rest of Asia is fundamental to the anti-China propaganda that, barring you always live in a remote cave, are all quite familiar with. But the ultimate goal is to disrupt Asian unity and Pan-Asian power. Look up "Prehistory of Asia" in Wikipedia for an obvious glance at this anti-Asian effort by Western "free thinkers" lol.
Very interesting. So you think the Wu dialect group may have had roots that connected it to the Altaic languages? (The Tungusic language group also belongs to Altaic, btw.) Why do you include Yeniseian in there? It's neither Altaic nor Sinitic.
What other "hua" are there, besides putonghua? An uncle of mine was in China a very long time ago, maybe before or after WWI, and said the language used in whatever location he was at was referred to as something like "kwahua" or "kwanhwa", or maybe he mis-heard it, and it was "guohua" or something. Does this make any sense? I've never heard any term like that, but I came across a mention of something similar in a history article.
Very interesting. So you think the Wu dialect group may have had roots that connected it to the Altaic languages? (The Tungusic language group also belongs to Altaic, btw.) Why do you include Yeniseian in there? It's neither Altaic nor Sinitic.
What other "hua" are there, besides putonghua? An uncle of mine was in China a very long time ago, maybe before or after WWI, and said the language used in whatever location he was at was referred to as something like "kwahua" or "kwanhwa", or maybe he mis-heard it, and it was "guohua" or something. Does this make any sense? I've never heard any term like that, but I came across a mention of something similar in a history article.
There are probably hundreds of hua(local dialect) in China. Maybe he was referring to guanhua, which means "officials language reserved for government officials". Before WWI, most people only spoke their regional dialect, but government officials had to report to the emperor, they had to resort to guanhua. However, guanhua with local influence became the local language for some parts of China. That's why nanjinghua and chongqinghua are at least half intelligible because modern nanjinghua originated from huainan guanhua and modern chongqinghua originated from xinan(southwest) guanhua.
Japanese doesn't have a true tone system, in the sense that the tone changes the meaning of the word. I don't know about the dialect of Shanghai, I used to think they spoke Mandarin there but recently learned that the dialect there is basically like a separate language, like Catalan is to Spanish.
Sort of related, I don't speak Mandarin but noticed while travelling around China some of the dialects. There was one dialect in Fujian province which sounded very much like Thai or Cambodian to me, I think it's a variant of Min. I also noticed the dialect around Beijing distinct, very rhotic (all 'r's' are pronounced).
The tone system in shanghainese is very weak. That's why some people think shanghainese sounds like Japanese.
Yes, Beijing dialect has a lot in common with American English, lol.
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