The characteristics of Shanghai dialect! ! !

The history of Shanghai dialect is only over 700 years, much shorter than Suzhou dialect and Songjiang dialect, but Shanghai dialect is a distinctive dialect, which is determined by Shanghai's unique geographical environment and historical opportunities. It turns out that Shanghai is located at the beach head of the Yangtze River Delta, and the so-called "Shanghai Beach" is the most appropriate name for it. It is a remote rural place far from the government and on the edge of economically developed areas. Suzhou and Jiaxing are two big houses in history, with developed economy and prosperous culture, but Songjiang is relatively backward and Shanghai is near the beach, so as far as Songjiang dialect is concerned, it develops slowly in Taihu Lake area, and Shanghai dialect is even older. Many ancient sounds and characters left by Songjiang dialect are preserved. However, facing the East China Sea, Shanghai has encountered a special opportunity. 1843 after Shanghai was forced to open its port, it became a free-developing concession with a long period of civil autonomy, making Shanghai quickly become an international metropolis and financial center. With the huge immigration and the rapid economic development, Shanghai dialect has become the fastest-growing language in Wuyu area of Taihu Lake. In the past 150 years, Shanghai dialect has developed by leaps and bounds with the development of Shanghai. In just two or three generations, we can see that some components of Shanghainese dialect have changed significantly, which is unique in the history of modern language development in China.

To sum up, Shanghai dialect has the following obvious characteristics:

A mixed language of old and new spans a long distance.

Although Shanghai has only a history of more than 700 years, human activities in Songjiang area have a history of more than 6,000 years. The early residents of Shanghai moved in from Songjiang, and the development of Shanghai language was slow. Many archaic characters in the original Jiangnan language have been preserved to this day. For example, the word "saw" in Shanghai dialect is pronounced as "cover", and the word "deficiency" in "five deficiency and six swelling" is pronounced as "hi", all of which are the legacy of Jiangdong dialect in the south of the Yangtze River in the early Middle Ages. The "horn" in Shanghai dialect is "horn" and the "shell drop" in "egg shell drop" is "shell". Why are there two versions? This is the proof of the existence of complex consonants in ancient Chinese, that is, there are still complex consonants [kl] in Shanghai dialect, sometimes pronounced as [klo? ], sometimes divided into two syllables, pronounced [ko? lo？ ], sometimes monosyllabic pronunciation [ko? ]。 In ancient times, there was a compound sound [kl], which can be found in the pictophonetic characters of Chinese characters. For example, the initial of "Ge, Ti" is now pronounced [k], and the initial of "Luo, Luo" is now pronounced [l]. In the old-school pronunciation of the elderly, the initials "bang" and "Duan" do not pronounce [p] and [t], but are contracted voiced sounds [' b '] and ['d] with strong nasal sounds, which are found only in Qingyuan, Xianju and other mountainous areas in southern Zhejiang, and also in Zhuang and Dong languages. Zhuang and Dong people are descendants of ancient Baiyue people, and the abbreviation of Baiyue pronunciation, as a language bottom, has long been preserved in the main initials of Shanghai dialect. These examples show that there are still very old factors in Shanghai dialect. More recently, for example, in Shanghai dialect, "turtle, expensive and ghost" are all read for nothing [? Y], pronounced "ju" instead of "Gui"; "Loss" [? Hy] (loss) is pronounced as "area" and "loss"; Cabinet (counter), kneeling? Y] pronounced "distance"; "Scarf" is pronounced as "rain", "hello" and "Wei" as "detour", not as "Wei" and "Wei". In some rural areas, "going home" is still pronounced as "going home", "salmon" is also pronounced as "lifting five" and "Zhong Kui" is pronounced as "bell", all of which are the oldest pronunciations in Wu dialect area of Taihu Lake. However, with the rapid integration of pronunciation, Shanghai dialect is in the forefront, such as "bowl" and "dark", "official" and "dry"; There is no distinction between "circle" and "rain", between "power" and "vessel", between "publishing a book" and "tearing urine", between "stone" and "tongue". These are the earliest events in Shanghai dialect, and they are ahead of other Wu dialects. The entering rhyme of Shanghai dialect is the best preserved in Wu dialect. "Ke [kh]", "Choke [kh]", "Carve [kh∧k]", "Thirst [KH]" and "Ke [khe? ] ","shell [kh? K] "and" cry [khok] "are different sounds, that is, there are seven basic rhymes. Now there are only two teenagers in the urban area," guest = choking = engraving = knocking [kh], shell = crying [kho? ]"。 The number of vowels in Shanghai dialect has changed from162 in the middle of the 9th century to only 32 in the new school at the end of the 20th century, which was completed in four generations. This phonetic span has never appeared in other dialects. The internal pronunciation in Shanghai is very different. People of different identities and ages speak Shanghainese with different accents at different stages of development. They often notice the differences, but they don't feel any communication barriers. Occasionally there will be misunderstandings. For example, an old Shanghai published an article in Xinmin Evening News, criticizing the young conductor on the bus for calling "Urumqi Road" Maiji Road, because "Maiji Road" was the old name taken by the original colonialists. Actually, he heard wrong. The conductor is called "Qi Mu Road" for short (disyllabic tendency), which is the beginning of the approach between [A] and [o] of the new phonetic school. ] to [? ] (the initial consonant of "Qi") merge results (Qi = Qi). On another occasion, Zhao Zhigang, a famous young actor of Yue Opera, was criticized for saying "I won the prize today" and his words were not civilized enough. In fact, Zhao Zhigang means "I won the lottery", and the pronunciation of the word "take" has changed from [nE] to [n? ], accompanied by the sound of "fishing" [l? ] similar. The elder heard wrong. Now [n? ] restored the old sound of Shanghai dialect, and the "Na" sound in 1862 wheat high temperature record was [n? ]。 No matter which school, old school or new school, it can't be an authority in Shanghai to influence others' speech.

Second, the language of North-South integration is highly tolerant.

After Shanghai became a commercial port, immigrants from all over the country gathered in Shanghai, and their language will inevitably have a certain influence on Shanghai dialect, especially in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, where the population is large and the language is similar to Shanghai dialect, which has the greatest influence on Shanghai dialect. North and South languages meet in Shanghai. In the free communication, many words are rooted in Shanghai and integrated into Shanghai dialect, which makes many synonyms appear in Shanghai dialect. For example, adverbs expressing "together" include "a * * *, a * *, a * * *, a * * *, a * *, a, a, a, a, a. Get together, get together * * * "and so on are mostly used in Zhejiang people; "Hengba Lengda" comes from Fujian Cantonese, and "Guoluo Sanmu" comes from Pidgin English "all sum" in Ningbo dialect. The original pronunciation was "He Lv's three eyes" and "a * * * together" was very common in Shanghai in the 1940s and 1960s. Now it is more common to say that "a * * *, * * together, a * * hot sea, a falling apart".

The diversification of commonly used words is a manifestation of the high inclusiveness of Shanghai dialect, which makes it easy for foreigners living in Shanghai to understand Shanghai dialect close to their hometown dialect. Let me give you a few more examples: in Shanghai dialect, "certain" has synonyms such as "certain, affirmative, accurate, accurate, fixed, fixed, fixed"; "About" includes "about, about, for fun, about, about, about times, about times" and so on; "Sudden" includes "sudden, sudden, sudden, sudden, sudden, sudden sound energy, touching the beginning, touching the end, touching the end, and biting the end". For another example, the directional word "back" includes "back, back bottom, back bottom, back, back head, back head, butt head"; "Exterior-interior" includes "exterior-interior potential, exterior-interior potential, exterior-interior potential, exterior-interior potential, exterior-interior potential" and so on. "Slowly" means "slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly". After the 1960s, Shanghai dialect gradually gave up many common words in this dialect, and some common forms in Wu dialect won, such as giving up "Hu Dang" and "Tian" and using "Chu" universally.

The vocabulary of Shanghai dialect can contain many words from other dialects. For example, when Shandong people come to Shanghai to sell "pies", a word called "pies" is added to the vocabulary of Shanghai dialect, and "da" is pronounced as "da" which is close to Shandong pronunciation, not "du". Another example is that Su Beiren sells "fried dumplings" in Shanghai, and Shanghainese add the word "fried dumplings" to their own language, which is pronounced as "San". Su Beiren calls the food that Shanghainese call "fried dough sticks" "Crispy Twist", and Shanghainese also call it "Crispy Twist". Even the pronunciation of "Twist" is followed by "Crispy Twist". Cantonese people sell "fish raw porridge" and "Wonton Noodles", and the word "fish raw" is called "raw fish" in Shanghai. Originally, they didn't read "raw fish", "wonton" and "wonton" because they were pronounced differently in different places and written differently. Shanghainese copied them. Ningbo people in Shanghai call "blindness" "thousand"; Call "dried vegetables" as "dried vegetables", and Shanghainese can also use them. Shanghai dialect can absorb the first-class common words of other dialects, and can also replace its own common words. For example, the word "Allah" absorbed from Ningbo dialect replaced the first-person plural "sorry" in the old Shanghai dialect, and "Gaotou" and "Window Door" tended to replace "Langxiang" and "Window", and the tone of continuous reading of "old man" and "old lady" also used Ningbo sound. It is not discrimination, not exclusion, but can absorb the living language of immigrants to Shanghai at will, and even transform themselves, which fully shows the boldness of Shanghai people's speech.

The three leaders have strong freedom in the new language.

The leadership of Shanghai residents is innovative in civic awareness, which creates a vibrant Shanghai dialect. /kloc-from the end of 0/9 to the beginning of the 20th century, Shanghai's economy developed rapidly, and foreign new things emerged one after another. It was a novelty at that time, so Shanghainese coined a new term, such as "road, house, bookstore, newspaper, cinema, truck, tricycle, football, golf club, museum, kindergarten, running water, snowflake". With the rise of bookstores and newspapers, many transliterated or paraphrased loanwords, such as "sofa, coffee, beer, humor, cells", have also spread all over the country through books, newspapers and magazines founded in Shanghai. Folk expressions are also often fashionable. For example, when the word "tram" came into being in Shanghai, there was a track at that time. Then Shanghainese call the wrinkles on people's faces "tramway" and call walking "1 1". Since the establishment of Shanghai Stock Exchange, the words "open" and "closed" have been extended from abacus to trading, and fixed orders have become "open orders", that is, there are "open orders" and "dark orders", so there have been extra large guest orders (for foreigners only) and "foreign orders" (for foreigners only). Further development, foreigners who spend money unjustly are called "foreign dishes". Later, they simply referred to the "A Mu Spirit" as "foreign dishes" because "laymen don't know the goods" and "they are fooled into not knowing". This kind of divergent thinking of flexible word-making and word-using can not but be said to have been created in the atmosphere of Shanghai, a Shanghai-style society.

Another feature of Shanghai culture is that it faces overseas, combines Chinese and western cultures, and is eclectic. Shanghai dialect actively introduces loanwords. At the beginning of the 20th century, before it was first used, a large number of Japanese words were introduced and a large number of transliteration words were created, so that some suffixes also came from foreign languages, such as the "three" of "beggar, red-headed three" and the "mold" of "little gesture and three-light code". For another example, calling someone "Lao Kela" comes from "classics", and "mode" means "methods and tricks", which once produced the world-famous "Pidgin language". It is very common for young people to speak Shanghainese with foreign words now. This habit of "takenism" keeps the Shanghainese dialect in a new fashion, which is conducive to promoting social modernization.

The words used by Shanghai residents also show the levels of different users. In front of synonymous words or sentences, they all talk without interference. Among ordinary people, there is no authoritative usage and no emphasis on standardization. Some people say the new Flying Hairy Crab-Hanging Eight Feet, while others say the old Four donkey kong Clouds-Hanging Eight Feet. Some people say "cool", others say "cool" and "smart". Tradition and fashion are developed, and the correspondence between vulgarity and formality is developed.

There are also many differences in grammar between northern dialect and southern dialect in China. What is used here and what is not used there can be reconciled in Shanghai. If you can nod or shake your head instead of answering questions, there are roughly four forms in Chinese: 1, v? 2, v is not v; 3, v is not; 4, but v ("v" is a verb). In many simple dialects, only one of them is often used to ask questions. For example, Suzhou dialect only uses the form of "ke v", Hangzhou dialect and Shaoxing dialect only use the form of "v not v", Yixing dialect only uses the form of "v not" and Jiaxing dialect only uses the form of "v". But in Shanghai dialect, these four formats and their mixed formats can be freely said. Such as "Agriculture is a student?" "Nong is not a student?" "Nong A is a student?" "Nong is a student, okay?" And "Nong A is a student?" "Is the farmer a student or a queue jumper?" "Nong is a student, isn't he?" Even in the form of English rhetorical questions, such as "don't be a student, or cut?" Shanghai people also use it. Therefore, foreigners who come to Shanghai can communicate in Shanghai, no matter where they come from or what form they ask, and Shanghainese can understand them. In this way, just as people's economic activities in Shanghai are very smooth and they can ask questions freely, Shanghai dialect has developed great freedom in this complex communication environment.

A common Chinese sentence "V 1+ people+things +V2" with a part-time form was originally only expressed in Shanghai dialect. Later, under the influence of immigrant dialects, it became very free. As long as there is no semantic ambiguity, the following six statements can be used: "Buy side dishes to eat in Iraq", "Buy side dishes to eat in Iraq", "Buy side dishes to eat in Iraq" and "Buy side dishes to eat in Iraq". This shows the strong language assembly ability of Shanghai dialect and its flexible adaptability to local speaking habits.

The language of unification and dispersion is very flexible.

Nowadays, many Shanghainese are bilingual, such as Shanghainese dialect and their native dialect. For example, some Shanghainese in northern Jiangsu speak northern Jiangsu dialect in their own communities, but they speak Shanghai dialect with other people or in more formal communication occasions. How many Shanghainese can speak Mandarin today? People can constantly switch between bilingualism and multilingualism according to different occasions or different objects, which has become commonplace in social communication in Shanghai. This creates a benign environment for the hybridization and mutual absorption of advantages between different languages. The language environment in Shanghai can be divided and combined, and people gather different levels of Shanghainese on different occasions. Grandparents are old-fashioned, old friends are vulgar, young and new friends are trendy, teachers and colleagues are "authentic and standardized", writing in meetings, white-collar workers using foreign languages, investors using market buzzwords, and speaking Mandarin in front of formal occasions and media microphones. Many Shanghainese who have lived in Shanghai for a long time speak "Shanghai Putonghua" with many Shanghainese dialect or phonetic features, such as "This film is good", "I can't get it", "You can't go", "He's not happy, but I'm sure", and even the bus stop announcer turns the car around. Please hold the handrail. What other "U-turn in the stadium" and "Please be careful when opening the door" are all variations of Shanghai dialect of Mandarin, not to mention that "zh, ch, sh, R" and "Z, C, S, L" are indistinguishable; Foreigners who came to Shanghai not long ago also said "ordinary Shanghainese" in the Shanghai dialect they just learned a little, such as "Let's take a photo on Nanjing Road!" But everyone can understand and communicate. It is in this open environment that Shanghai dialect has changed, becoming more lively, simpler and more universal where necessary, becoming more differentiated, more delicate, unified and dispersed in some special occasions, and forming a rich social dialect.