Spoken Chinese

The Chinese spoken language(s) comprise(s) many regional variants. Although the English word dialect is often used to translate the Chinese term fangyan (方言), the differences between the major spoken variations of Chinese are such that they are mutually unintelligible. Download high resolution version (400x770, 48 KB)the Sinitic Languages File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Download high resolution version (400x770, 48 KB)the Sinitic Languages File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. ...

See Is Chinese a language or a family of languages? for the debate on whether the variations of spoken Chinese should be considered "dialects" or "languages". Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ...

Classification

Chinese makes a very strong distinction between written language (文 wén) and spoken language (语[語] yǔ), and Chinese tend to conceptualize the variations of Chinese as different spoken languages sharing a common written standard and literary and cultural tradition. Within Chinese, there is a collective term for the Chinese written language (中文 zhōngwén), while there is no collective term that encompasses all of the variations of the spoken language. Terms used to describe spoken Chinese, such as 汉语 hànyǔ or 国语 guóyǔ refer only to one specific variation of spoken Chinese. Various styles of Chinese calligraphy. ...

When forced to conceptualize these variations in terms of language and dialect common in the West, most Chinese do not think of these variations as separate languages because they share a common written standard and literary and cultural tradition. However, the linguistic distance between different Chinese dialects is often much greater than forms of speech in other parts of the world, and thus are unquestionably considered distinct languages.

Linguists divide the variations in spoken Chinese language into seven to ten groups. However, the fact that two people are speaking dialects within the same category does not necessarily mean that they can completely understand each other. The converse is also true in that the two people speaking dialects in different groups can sometimes understand each other. The general situation is one of dialect continuum where one can understand perfectly people speaking the local dialect and that the intelligibility decreases as the speaker comes from more and more distant regions. This results in the common situation where A can understand B, B can understand C, but A cannot understand C. ... Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. ...

The linguistic diversity is particularly pronounced in southern variations such as Min, in which two towns which are five kilometers from each other can have types of speech that are completely unintellegible with one another. By contrast, there are areas in northern China that are several hundred kilometers apart but have mutually intelligible forms of Mandarin. Min can be: 闽 Mǐn, an abbreviation for the Chinese province of Fujian Min, a category of spoken Chinese found in Fujian and elsewhere Min, a kingdom in modern-day Fujian during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period Min River (Fujian) 岷 Mín, a place name in the Chinese... Mandarin  listen(Traditional: 北方話, Simplified: 北方话, Hanyu Pinyin: Běifānghuà, lit. ...

In addition, the categories that speakers use to self-classify the variety they are speaking may not correspond at all to a classification based strictly on linguistic features. For example, two speakers of Cantonese from different cities (say Taishan and Hong Kong) tend to think of themselves as speaking the same dialect, whereas speaker of Wu from Hangzhou and one from Shanghai would tend to think of themselves as speaking different dialects. Furthermore, a person speaking Sichuanese or Hunanese will think of themselves as speaking a variety of Chinese that is distinct from the national standard Putonghua, notwithstanding the fact that linguists place these forms of Chinese in the same linguistic category. Not to be confused with the unrelated Mount Taishan Taishan (台山 pinyin: Táishān; Cantonese: Toisan; local: Hoisan ) is a coastal city in Guangdong Province, China. ... Hangzhou (Chinese: 杭州; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Hang-chou) is a sub-provincial city in China, and the capital of Zhejiang province. ... Shanghai (Chinese: 上海; pinyin: ; Shanghainese IPA: ) is Chinas largest city and is situated on the banks of the Yangtze River Delta. ... Standard Mandarin refers to the official Chinese spoken language used by the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China on Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. ...

The various forms of Spoken Chinese are usually classfied into the following broad groups. (See List of Chinese dialects for a comprehensive listing of individual dialects.) The following is a list of major Chinese dialects. ...

• Mandarin 北方話/北方话: This is the mother dialect of Chinese living in northern and southwestern China. It is the basis for Standard Mandarin, the official spoken language of Chinese.

One distinctive feature of Mandarin is the partial loss of tones in comparison to Middle Chinese and the other dialects. Another is the loss of consonants on the ends of syllables, so that while Middle Chinese had an inventory of "-p, -t, -k, -m, -n, ng", Mandarin only has "-n, -ng". (A few dialects, such as that of Nanjing, also have /-?/, the glottal stop.) In addition, Mandarin underwent fewer tone splits than the other dialects. As a result, many words which sound different in dialects such as Cantonese are homophones in Mandarin. Mandarin has adjusted by developing compound words in order to make up for the development of homophones. The use of compounds is less frequent in other dialects.

• Wu 吳語/吴语: spoken in the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Wu includes Shanghai dialect. Wu dialect is notable among Chinese dialects in having kept voiced consonants, such as /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, /v/, etc. (These may in fact be better described as voiceless consonants that create a voiced breathy element across the syllable: i.e. /p/, /t/, etc.)

• Hakka/Kejia 客家話/客家话: spoken by the Hakka people in several provinces across southern China. The term "Hakka" itself translates as "guest families", and the Hakka people are descended from immigrants from North China in ancient times. Hakka has kept many features of northern Middle Chinese that have been lost in the North. It also has a full complement of nasal endings, -m -n ŋ and occlusive endings -p -t -k, maintaining the four categories of tonal types, with splitting in the ping and ru tones, giving six tones. Some dialects of Hakka have seven tones, due to a splitting in the qu tone. One of the distinguishing features of Hakka phonology is that Middle Chinese voiced initials are transformed into Hakka voiceless aspirated initials.

• Min 閩語/闽语: spoken in Fujian, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia. Min is the only group of Chinese dialects that cannot be directly derived from Middle Chinese. Due to its great internal disparity, Min can be divided into seven groups of dialects: Min Nan (which includes Hokkien, Teochew (Chaozhou), and Taiwanese), Min Dong, Min Bei, Min Zhong, Pu Xian, Qiong Wen, and Shao Jiang.

• Yue 粵語/粤语: spoken in Guangdong province, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, all over Southeast Asia and by Overseas Chinese. Used by linguistics, "Cantonese" covers all the Yue dialects, such as Toishanese, though the term is also used to refer to just the Standard Cantonese of Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Some dialects of Yue have intricate sets of tone compared to other Chinese dialects—with varieties having up to nine or ten tones. Yue keeps a full complement of ancient Chinese word-final consonants (p, t, k, m, n, ng)

• Xiang 湘語/湘语: spoken in Hunan province. Xiang is usually divided into the "old" and "new" types, with the new type being significantly closer to Mandarin.

• Gan 贛語/赣语: spoken in Jiangxi province. In the past, it was viewed as closely related to Hakka dialects, because of the way Middle Chinese voiced initials have become voiceless aspirated initials, as those in Hakka. Thus, they were called Hakka-Gan dialects.

(The following three dialect groups are not always classified separately.) Mandarin  listen(Traditional: 北方話, Simplified: 北方话, Hanyu Pinyin: Běifānghuà, lit. ... Standard Mandarin refers to the official Chinese spoken language used by the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China on Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. ... Middle Chinese (中古漢語, pinyin: zhōnggǔ Hànyǔ), or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). ... Nanjing (Chinese: 南京; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Nan-ching; Postal System Pinyin: Nanking, formerly Jinling 金陵, Jiangning 江宁, and Tianjing 天京) is the central city of downstream Yangtze Basin and is a renowned historical and cultural city. ... The glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. ... Wu (吳方言 pinyin wú fāng yán; 吳語 pinyin wú yǔ) is one of the major divisions of the Chinese language. ... Jiangsu (Simplified Chinese: 江苏; Traditional Chinese: 江蘇; pinyin: Jiāngsū; Wade-Giles: Chiang-su; Postal System Pinyin: Kiangsu) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. ... Zhejiang (Chinese: 浙江; pinyin: Zhèjiāng; Wade-Giles: Che-chiang; Postal System Pinyin: Chehkiang or Chekiang) is a eastern coastal province of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Shanghainese (上海話; pinyin: Shànghǎihuà, Shanghainese in SAMPA: [ zA~ hE hE wo ]) is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai. ... Hakka is one language in the family of languages known as Chinese. ... Hakka (Chinese: 客家; pinyin: kèjiā, literal meaning guest families) are a Han Chinese people whose ancestors are said to originate from around Henan and Shanxi in northern China over 2700 years ago. ... Min (閩方言 in pinyin: min3 fang1 yan2) is a general term for a group of dialects of the Chinese language spoken in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian as well as by migrants from this province in Guangdong (around Chaozhou-Swatou, and Leizhou peninsula), Hainan, three counties in southern Zhejiang... Fujian (Chinese: 福建; pinyin: Fújiàn; Wade-Giles: Fu-chien; Postal System Pinyin: Fukien, Foukien; local transliteration Hokkien from Min Nan Hok-kiàn) is one of the provinces on the southeast coast of China. ... Location of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. ... Mǐn N n (Chinese: 閩南語), also spelt as Minnan or Min-nan; native name B ; literally means Southern Min or Southern Fujian and refers to the local language/dialect of southern Fujian province, China. ... Hokkien can refer to: Hokkien (dialect): a Chinese dialect, a member of the Min dialect branch, similar to Taiwanese An old transliteration of the name of the Fujian province of China This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The Teochew dialect (Diō-jiu-oē, Chinese:潮州话, Hanyu Pinyin: Cháozhōuhuà, Teochiu or Tiuchiu), is a Chinese language and dialect of Minnan spoken in a region of eastern Guangdong refered to as Chaoshan. ... See alternative meanings for other possible definitions. ... This article is on all of the Yue dialects. ... Guangdong (Simplified Chinese: 广东; Traditional Chinese: 廣東; pinyin: Guǎngdōng; Wade-Giles: Kuang-tung; Kwangtung in older transliteration; Cantonese: gwong2 dung1), is a province on the south coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Not to be confused with the unrelated Mount Taishan Taishan (台山 pinyin: Táishān; Cantonese: Toisan; local: Hoisan ) is a coastal city in Guangdong Province, China. ... Standard Cantonese refers to the most prominent dialect of Cantonese (Yue), a subdivision of spoken Chinese. ... Location within China CITIC Plaza Guangzhou fireworks display at night Guangzhou (Simplified Chinese: 广州; Traditional Chinese: 廣州; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Kuang-chou; Jyutping: Gwong2zau1; Yale: Gwóngjaū) is the capital of the Guangdong Province in southern China. ... Xiang (湘語/湘语), also Hunan, Hunanese, or Hsiang, is a subdivision of spoken Chinese. ... Hunan (Chinese: 湖南; pinyin: ) is a province of China, located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting (hence the name Hunan, meaning south of the lake). Hunan is sometimes called 湘 (pinyin: Xiāng) for short, after the Xiang River which runs through the province. ... Gan (赣) is one of the major divisions of spoken Chinese, concentrated in and typical of Jiangxi Province. ... Jiangxi (Chinese: 江西; pinyin: Jiāngxī; Wade-Giles: Chiang-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Kiangsi) is a southern province of the Peoples Republic of China, spanning from the banks of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) in the north into hillier areas in the south. ... Hakka is one language in the family of languages known as Chinese. ...

• Hui 徽語/徽语: spoken in the southern parts of Anhui province—usually classified as a sub-branch of Gan.

• Jin 晉語/晋语: spoken in Shanxi province, as well as parts of Shaanxi, Hebei, Henan, and Inner Mongolia. It is often classified together with Mandarin.

• Pinghua 平話/平话: spoken in parts of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It is sometimes classified together with Cantonese.

Some varieties remain unclassified. These include: The Hui (徽) dialects are unrelated to the Hui (回) ethnic group of China. ... Anhui (Chinese: 安徽; pinyin: Ānhuī; Wade-Giles: An-hui; Postal System Pinyin: Ngan-hui, Anhwei or An-hwei) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Jin (simplified: 晋语; traditional: 晉語; pinyin: jìnyǔ), or Jin-yu, is a subdivision of spoken Chinese. ... Not to be confused with the neighboring province of Shaanxi Shanxi (Chinese: 山西; pinyin: Shānxī; Wade-Giles: Shan-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Shansi) is a northern province of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Not to be confused with the neighboring province of Shanxi Shaanxi (Simplified Chinese: 陕西; Traditional Chinese: 陝西; pinyin: Shǎnxī; Wade-Giles: Shan-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Shensi, pronounced like Shahn-shee) is a northwestern province of the Peoples Republic of China, and includes portions of the Loess Plateau on... Not to be confused with the unrelated province of Hubei Hebei (Chinese: 河北; pinyin: Hébĕi; Wade-Giles: Ho-pei; Postal System Pinyin: Hopeh), is a northern province of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Not to be confused with the unrelated provinces of Hainan and Hunan Henan (Chinese: 河南; pinyin: Hénán; Wade-Giles: Ho-nan), is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. ... Inner Mongolia (Mongolian: ᠥᠪᠦᠷ ᠮᠣᠨᠺᠤᠯᠤᠨ ᠥᠪᠡᠷᠲᠡᠺᠡᠨ ᠵᠠᠰᠠᠬᠤ ᠣᠷᠤᠨ r Mongghul-un bertegen Jasaqu Orun; Chinese: 内蒙古自治区; Hanyu Pinyin: N i Měnggǔ Z qū) is an Autonomous Region of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Pinghua (平話/平话), also Guangxi Nanning, is a subdivision of spoken Chinese. ... Guangxi (Simplified Chinese: 广西; Traditional Chinese: 廣西; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Kuang-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Kwangsi; Zhuang: Gvangjsih Bouxcuengh Swcigi or (old orthography} Gvaŋзsiƅ Bouчcueŋƅ Sɯcigi) is an autonomous region of the Peoples Republic of China. ...

• Danzhou dialect 儋州話/儋州话: spoken in Danzhou, Hainan, this is a dialect that has not yet been put into any category.

• Xianghua 鄉話/乡话: spoken in a small strip of land in western Hunan, this is a group of dialects that have not been conclusively classified.

• Shaozhou Tuhua 韶州土話/韶州土话: spoken at the border regions of Guangdong, Hunan, and Guangxi, this is an area of great linguistic diversity, and has not yet been conclusively described or classified.

In addition, the Dungan language (東干語/东干语) is a language descended from Chinese spoken in Kyrgyzstan, and is akin to northwestern dialects of Mandarin. However, it is written in the Cyrillic alphabet and may not be considered by all to be part of spoken Chinese. Hainan (Chinese: 海南; pinyin: ) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located at the southern end of the country. ... Hunan (Chinese: 湖南; pinyin: ) is a province of China, located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting (hence the name Hunan, meaning south of the lake). Hunan is sometimes called 湘 (pinyin: Xiāng) for short, after the Xiang River which runs through the province. ... Guangdong (Simplified Chinese: 广东; Traditional Chinese: 廣東; pinyin: Guǎngdōng; Wade-Giles: Kuang-tung; Kwangtung in older transliteration; Cantonese: gwong2 dung1), is a province on the south coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Hunan (Chinese: 湖南; pinyin: ) is a province of China, located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting (hence the name Hunan, meaning south of the lake). Hunan is sometimes called 湘 (pinyin: Xiāng) for short, after the Xiang River which runs through the province. ... Guangxi (Simplified Chinese: 广西; Traditional Chinese: 廣西; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Kuang-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Kwangsi; Zhuang: Gvangjsih Bouxcuengh Swcigi or (old orthography} Gvaŋзsiƅ Bouчcueŋƅ Sɯcigi) is an autonomous region of the Peoples Republic of China. ... The Dungan language (东干语 [東干語] in Chinese) is a language spoken by the Dungan of Central Asia, including Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. ... Mandarin  listen(Traditional: 北方話, Simplified: 北方话, Hanyu Pinyin: Běifānghuà, lit. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (or azbuka, from the old name of the first letters) is an alphabet used to write six natural Slavic languages (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ...

Sociolinguistics of spoken variations of Chinese

In southern China where the difference between Standard Mandarin and the local dialect is particularly pronounced, well-educated Chinese are generally fluent in Mandarin, and most people have at least a good passive knowledge of it, in addition to being native speakers of the local dialect. The choice of dialect varies based on the social situation. Standard Mandarin is usually considered more formal and is required when speaking to a person who does not understand the local dialect. The local dialect (be it nonstandard Mandarin or non-Mandarin altogether) is generally considered more intimate and is used among close family members and friends and in everyday conversation within the local area. Chinese speakers will frequently code switch between Standard Mandarin and the local dialect. Parents will generally speak to their children in dialect, and the relationship between dialect and Mandarin appears to be mostly stable. Standard Mandarin refers to the official Chinese spoken language used by the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China on Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. ... Code-switching is a term in linguistics referring to alternation between one or more languages, dialects, or language registers in the course of discourse between people who have more than one language in common. ...

Knowing the local dialect is of considerable social benefit and most Chinese who permanently move to a new area will attempt to pick up the local dialect. Learning a new dialect is usually done informally through a process of immersion and recognizing sound shifts. Typically, a speaker of one dialect of Chinese will need about a year of immersion to understand the local dialect and about three to five years to become fluent in speaking it. Because of the variety of dialects spoken, there are usually few formal methods for learning a local dialect.

Within the People's Republic of China there has been a consistent drive towards promoting the standard language; for instance, the education system is entirely Mandarin-medium from the second year onwards. However, usage of local dialect is tolerated, and in many informal situations, socially preferred. Unlike Hong Kong, where colloquial Cantonese characters are often used for formal occasions, within the PRC a character set closer to Mandarin tends to be used. At the national level, differences in dialect generally do not correspond to political divisions or categories, and this has for the most part prevented dialect from becoming the basis of identity politics. Historically, many of the people who promoted Chinese nationalism were from southern China and did not natively speak the national standard language. One example of this is Mao Zedong often emphasized his Hunan origins in speaking, rendering much of what he said incomprehensible to many Chinese. One consequence of this is that China does not have a well developed tradition of spoken political rhetoric, and most Chinese political works are intended primarily as written works rather than spoken works. Identity politics is the politics of group-based movements claiming to represent the interests and identity of a particular group, rather than policy issues relating to all members of the community. ... The May Fourth Movement in 1919 marked the beginning of the upsurge of nationalist feeling in China. ... This is a Chinese name; the family name is Mao. ...

Another factor that limits the political implications of dialect is that it is very common within an extended family for different people to know and use different dialects. In addition, while speaking similar dialect provides very strong group identity at the level of a city or county, the high degree of linguistic diversity limits the amount of group solidarity at larger levels. Finally, the linguistic diversity of southern China makes it likely that in any large group of Chinese, that Standard Mandarin will be the only form of speech that everyone understands.

On the other hand, in the Republic of China on Taiwan, the government had a policy until the mid-1980s of promoting Standard Mandarin as high status and the local languages—Taiwanese and Hakka—as low status, a situation which caused a great deal of resentment and has produced somewhat of a backlash in the 1990s as part of the Taiwanese localization movement. The Republic of China (Traditional Chinese: 中華民國; Simplified Chinese: 中华民国; Wade-Giles: Chung-hua Min-kuo, Tongyong Pinyin: JhongHuá MínGuó, Hanyu Pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó) is a multiparty democratic state that is de facto composed of the island groups of Taiwan, the Pescadores, Quemoy, and the Matsu. ... Standard Mandarin refers to the official Chinese spoken language used by the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China on Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. ... See alternative meanings for other possible definitions. ... Hakka is one language in the family of languages known as Chinese. ... Localization (本土化, POJ: pún-thó·-hòa, Pinyin: Běntǔ huà) is a political term used within Taiwan to support the view of Taiwan as a centered place rather than as solely an appendage of China. ...

Manifestations of language differentiation

The Min dialects are often regarded as the dialects furthest removed from Standard Mandarin, in phonology, grammar, and vocabulary. To illustrate: in Taiwanese, a variety of Min, to express the idea that one is feeling a little ill, one might say Min (閩方言 in pinyin: min3 fang1 yan2) is a general term for a group of dialects of the Chinese language spoken in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian as well as by migrants from this province in Guangdong (around Chaozhou-Swatou, and Leizhou peninsula), Hainan, three counties in southern Zhejiang... Standard Mandarin refers to the official Chinese spoken language used by the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China on Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. ... Taiwanese (Tâi-oân-oē or Hō-ló-oē; Chinese: 台語, 台灣話 or 福佬話; Hanyu Pinyin: Táiyǔ or Táiwānhuà) is a language spoken fluently by about 60% of the population of Taiwan. ...

Goá kā-kī lâng ū tān-po̍h--á bô sóng-khoài.

which, when translated cognate-by-cognate into Mandarin would be something like: Cognates are words that have a common origin. ...

Wǒ zìjǐ rén yǒu dānbó a bù shuǎngkuài. (我自己人有單(?)仔不爽快)

An awkward sentence, if not simply non-productive. A little more colloquially it would be:

Wǒ zìjǐ yǒu yīdiǎn bù shūfú. (我自己有一點不舒服.)

A little better would be:

Wǒ yǒu yīdiǎn bù shūfú. (我有一點不舒服.)

which removes the reflexive pronoun (zìjǐ), not usually needed in Mandarin. Instead, some people, particularly in the north of China, would say:

Wǒ yǒu yīdiǎr bù shūfú. (我有一点ㄦ不舒服.)

Related topics

• Demographics of China
• Demographics of Taiwan
• Languages of China
• Subgroups of the Han nationality

By the most inclusive definition China consists of the Peoples Republic of China (which includes Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau) and the Republic of China (Taiwan). ... Taiwans population was estimated in 2003 as being 22. ... For treatment of the various forms of spoken Chinese, see Chinese spoken languages. ... In Mandarin: minxi (ethnic lineages) or zuqun (ethnic groups). ...

References

• DeFrancis, John. 1990. The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0824810686
• Hannas, William. C. 1997. Asia's Orthographic Dilemma. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 082481892X (paperback); ISBN 0824818423 (hardcover)

External links

• Shanghainese (Wu Chinese): Introduction and Development (http://www.zanhe.com)
• Learn Chinese Library (http://www.mandarintimes.com/)