Hangzhou dialect
| Hangzhou dialect | |
|---|---|
| 杭州話 ɦaŋ-tsei-ɦʊ | |
| Pronunciation | [ɦãtseiɦʊ] |
| Native to | People's Republic of China |
| Region | Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China |
|
Native speakers
|
(1.2 million cited 1987) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| ISO 639-6 | hgou |
| Glottolog | hang1257 |
| Linguasphere | 79-AAA-dbd |
Hangzhou dialect (simplified Chinese: 杭州话; traditional Chinese: 杭州話; pinyin: hángzhōuhuà; Rhangzei Rhwa), is spoken in the city of Hangzhou and its immediate suburbs, but excluding areas further away from Hangzhou such as Xiāoshān (蕭山) and Yúháng (余杭) (both originally county-level cities and now the districts within Hangzhou City). The number of speakers of the Hangzhouvian has been estimated to be about 1.2 to 1.5 million. It is a dialect of Wu, one of the Chinese varieties. Hangzhouvian is of immense interest to Chinese historical phonologists and dialectologists because phonologically, it exhibits extensive similarities with the other Wu dialects; however, grammatically and lexically, it shows many Mandarin tendencies.
Hangzhou dialect is classified under the Wu Chinese, although some western linguists claim Hangzhou is a Mandarin Chinese language.
Richard Vanness Simmons, a professor of Chinese at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA, claims that the Hangzhou dialect, rather than being Wu as it was classified by Yuen Ren Chao, is a Mandarin variant closely related to Jianghuai Mandarin. Hangzhou dialect is still classified under Wu. Chao had developed a "Common Wu Syllabry" for the Wu dialects. Simmons claimed that had Chao compared Hangzhou dialect to the Wu syllabary and Jianghuai Mandarin, he would have found more similarities to Jianghuai. Jianghuai Mandarin shares an "old literary layer" as a stratum with southern languages like Min Nan, Hakka, Gan and Hangzhou dialects, which it does not share with Northern Mandarin. Sino-Vietnamese also shares some of these characteristics. The stratum in Min Nan specifically consist of Zeng group and Geng group's "n" and "t" finals when an "i" initial is present.
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