*** Welcome to piglix ***

Suzhounese

Suzhounese
蘇州閒話 / 苏州闲话
sou˥ tseu˨˩ he˩˧ ho˧
Native to China
Region Suzhou and southeast Jiangsu province
Native speakers
 approx. 5-7 million (date missing)
Sino-Tibetan
Language codes
ISO 639-3 –
ISO 639-6 suji
Linguist list
 wuu-suh
Glottolog None
Linguasphere 79-AAA-dbb >
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.
Suzhou dialect
Traditional Chinese 蘇州話
Simplified Chinese 苏州话
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese 蘇州閒話

The Suzhou dialect (simplified Chinese: 苏州话; traditional Chinese: 蘇州話; pinyin: Sūzhōu huà; Suzhounese: Sou-tsøʏ ghé-ghô 蘇州閒話), also known as Suzhounese, is the variety of Chinese traditionally spoken in the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province, China. Suzhounese is a variety of Wu Chinese, and was traditionally considered the Wu Chinese prestige dialect. Considered one of the most flowing and elegant languages of China, it is rich in vowels and conservative in having many initials.

Suzhounese is spoken within the city itself and the surrounding area, including migrants living in nearby Shanghai. There is also an increasing number of Suzhounese speakers in New York City in the United States.

The Suzhou dialect is mutually intelligible with dialects spoken in its satellite cities such as Kunshan, Changshu, and Zhangjiagang, as well as those spoken in its former satellites Wuxi and Shanghai. It is also partially intelligible with dialects spoken in other areas of the Wu cultural sphere such as Hangzhou and Ningbo. However, it is not mutually intelligible with modern Mandarin or Cantonese; but, as all public schools and most broadcast communication in Suzhou use Mandarin exclusively, nearly all speakers of the dialect are at least bilingual. Owing to migration within China, many residents of the city cannot speak the local dialect but can usually understand it after a few months or years in the area.


...
Wikipedia

...