Since I haven't unloaded a Shanghainese phonetic text for a while, I thought I'd share this short one.

Hello all. Today I want to discuss the phenomena in Shanghainese where there are vernacular and literary pronunciations (and also classical text pronunciations ~ but I'll leave that for separate discussion).

Most people are probably already aware of this, but if not, this paragraph is to get you up to speed.....Basically depending on the vocabulary and the context, the same word can be pronounced differently. For example, 人 person normally is nyung eg. 工人. But when used for words borrowed from Mandarin it can be pronounced zung eg. 人民. Even in contexts of 100% spoken Shanghainese, both vernacular and literary pronunciations are used together because the latter word is borrowed into a literary Shanghainese reading.

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In comparison, in contexts where a Shanghainese person encounters written Mandarin or any similar formal context, (assuming they don't codeswitch into speaking straight Mandarin) there exists a standard to pronounce the words entirely in literary Shanghainese ... even if normally a vernacular Shanghainese pronunciation exists and is more suitable.

Here is a video of Soong Ching-ling giving a speech 80 years ago in this format: https://youtu.be/Cx6FSmLOACM

Here is a video of someone reading a letter from 30 years ago in this format: https://youtu.be/E8REWTTEsz0 (In this one you can even tell literary Shanghainese is a separate phenomena to codeswitching to Mandarin)

You may notice that they keep the sentence order, grammatical particles and Mandarin specific vocabulary entirely the same as in Mandarin. Only the pronunciation is changed to literary Shanghainese.

I believe this is a similar situation as in Cantonese (someone can correct me if there are nuances that an outsider is not aware of). In Shanghai, any formal radio broadcast or news broadcast would have followed this format. (and just to be clear, there does exist a written Shanghainese vernacular too for spoken Shanghainese, separate to the literary Shanghainese readings of writing in Mandarin).

If we go back far enough, this format of pronunciation used to be the common standard since many people couldn't speak Mandarin. And as the second video showed, this standard was still alive in the 90s .... which is well within my lifetime, and if not yours, at least your parents' lifetime. Are there anyone's family out there that still maintains this tradition?

You might be aware that I only learnt characters via Shanghainese (since I do not know Mandarin), so whenever I encounter written Mandarin, I can only do the literary Shanghainese reading style. (And even if it doesn't make sense since it's like a different language, I can still pronounce entire paragraphs of Mandarin in Shanghainese very naturally). I would like to know whether anyone else here still does this?

I quite like this word 頭. Because of its characteristics of being so basic yet also capable of having so much utility. I thought I would write up something and list its uses (I'll lay them out from simple to complex). If I missed out any different categories, please feel free to add them.

• Most literal/basic 頭 is head. As in, 額角頭高碰着天花板. I quite like this expression because when I think of it literally it sounds kind of funny, yet also quite pleasant to imagine too).
• Figuratively 頭 as the head or leader. As in 頭頭，打頭. (And yes don't read that last one literally).
• As a position particle or location. As in 壗頭，搿頭，後頭，高頭 (interestingly the latter was borrowed from Ningponese into Shanghainese)
• Phonetically as a substitute. As in 差頭，噱頭 (According to laypeople's etymology borrowed from English as charter and shit respectively).
• Modifying a verb. As in 吃頭， 用頭，做頭. To indicate a manner or style of doing that action.
• Creating a noun from other nouns. As in 柱頭，粒粒頭，須須頭，小鬼頭，女人頭. To indicate those nouns are objects (can be derogatory in the last examples obviously since they refer to people).
• Creating a noun from adjectives. 毛頭，大頭，壓頭. (The case of 毛 is interesting because many people pronounce it with a 去音 now, in old Shanghainese it had a 平音. However, in the combination 毛頭 it still is 平音).
• Creating a noun from other expressions 咋拉頭，豪𢜶頭. I quite like the latter example. 豪𢜶 is to tell people to hurry up when they are too slow. But when you add a 頭, it takes the extended meaning of the word zealot. Originally 150 years ago it specifically meant a religious zealot. But the connotation has loosened to mean any zealot.

There is a literary pronunciation of tsú used in expressions like 左右 (tsú-yeu).

However, my question is about the vernacular pronunciation in expressions like;

• 左手 How does your family pronounce this? 1) ‘tsi-seu 2) ’tsiá-seu 3) kyá-seu 4) ká-seu. https://voca.ro/1jeH7AwvtlRZ The correct pronunciation is technically ‘tsi-seu, however in my experience it seems rarer than the other 3 variant readings.
• 左半爿 Ironically in this expression I have only ever encountered the tsi reading; tsi-pan-ban. (Note: 半 here takes the pan reading, not the usual pen reading https://voca.ro/1hJv4IL3R08H ). I don't know if anyone has encountered the other 3 variant readings in this expression?

Just speculating, but is it because 半爿 acts like a place particle (which can be attached to an endless list of words) and hence needs to be attached to the proper reading of left 左. Whilst 左手 is its own fixed expression and thus can vary with more freedom?

It can be anything. Ive alr heard of the old dramas etc but im honestly not too interested in watching those. Preferably podcasts, TV programs or even yt blog channels etc.

Thanks!

Hi all

I just found this group and I'm super excited to learn more of the language.

I speak semi fluent shanghainese but I can't really read or write beyond basic letters that a 4 year old might know.

I went to Mandarin classes as a kid and was terrible - not sure that I want to put myself through that again.

So I'm wondering if anyone has learned to read and write without knowing Mandarin? Or does anyone have any tips on learning to read and write in shanghainese?

Grateful for any advice!!

I’m looking for a corpus / list of audio recordings in Shanghainese

Is there a database with many sentences? There must be somewhere on the internet!

I’m making my own flashcards and would like to go to the next level

I learned ​this on Wiktionary, is this actually true?

Something like 我比你大 is Mandarin is 我還是儂大 in Shanghainese?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%82%84%E6%98%AF BTW this is the link to the page

Please help me, my mom is Shanghainese but she's kinda 洋涇浜, you guys are pretty much the only ones who can help me.

What’s up guys this is Pasu, local Pudong Shanghainese.
I was study in US over a decade and back Shanghai 4 years. I want to build some new connections with new friends who staying in Shanghai.
I’d like to boxing, jujitsu, board game, causally walk also cool.

I thought I would spotlight this bit of history regarding the first Yale public health student from China, who was mistakenly listed as a man in the records until now. Doctor Koh / Ge came from Jiangsu (江苏 / 江蘇) and judging from the alternative spelling, was a native speaker of a Wu tongue.

儂好!

We're mods over at r/translator. We always strive to make our multilingual community the universal place on Reddit to go for a translation, no matter what language people may be looking for. We are however somewhat lacking in Wu Chinese coverage, and were hoping some wonderful multilingual people here could help us out.

Would anyone be interested in helping translate any future requests for Wu Chinese on r/translator? You don't even need to subscribe to our subreddit! We usually get a request for it very occasionally and most requests that come in are pretty simple and casual and don't need advanced knowledge.

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謝謝!

When I was a child, my mom definitely steamed this cake before the final exam which symbolized victory and success. Have you ever tried this cake? It’s sticky rice outside with a sweet bean filling.

As you are probably already familiar with, in contemporary Shanghai, there seems to be the usage of 洋涇浜 to refer to Shanghainese that is spoken with heavy Mandarin influence. This type of Shanghainese phonetically and grammatically matches Mandarin. (And in my opinion is partially due to a lack of formal Shanghainese education since the 50s and the Mandarin push of the post 90s).

However historically, the 洋涇浜 is from the demarcation for the British concessions and specifically referred to the English Shanghainese mix that evolved there. For example the word for chicken was borrowed into Shanghainese as 吉根 kyih-kung. For me personally, it has evolved into losing its 入音 (and also probably because of its closeness to 雞) always pronounced it as 雞根 kyi-kung. The reason I use this obscure word as the example instead of something more common like 差頭, is because 吉根 is supposed to be a dead word. However for those who still know it, it is not dead.

I am guessing the reason why the term 洋涇浜 was recycled to refer to Mandarinised Shanghainese is because very few people know of these obscure English origin words. But personally I see a functional difference between borrowing vocabulary from English vs phonetically and grammatically copying Mandarin. The former still has the Shanghainese base, whilst the latter replaces it. Hence I personally do not like the contemporary usage of the term 洋涇浜 as it muddies these waters. What do you all think?