Shanghai dialect, is Shanghai culture disappearing? Miss Shanghai 10 years ago

While remembering the past, don’t forget to cherish the present~! It’s not too late to start protecting now, start with yourself and be the spark that can start a prairie fire.

At the same time, I personally believe that nothing should be overcorrected. Once Mandarin is promoted, it is time to protect Shanghainese. Once Shanghainese is safe, it is time to promote Mandarin. Why bother interfering? Wouldn't it be nice to let them happen naturally and harmoniously? It's natural and friendly for people to talk about hometown slang among the people in the market. Wouldn't it be nice to use the official language for TV news? !

The following is a quote from Tao Huan's "Protecting the Fractured Shanghai Dialect". The author is an associate professor at the Institute of Chinese Language and Literature, Fudan University

As one of the largest cities in China, Shanghai has attracted national attention; as a Wu dialect As a representative of the new generation, Shanghainese doesn’t seem to be popular. I have heard people complain more than once: Shanghainese always like to speak Shanghainese, and feel that speaking Shanghainese means xenophobia. On the other hand, few people complain that people in Sichuan speak Sichuanese, people in Cantonese speak Cantonese, and people in Xiamen speak Hokkien, although the latter two are more incomprehensible to most Chinese. What's more, people say that Shanghainese is not a real dialect, or that Shanghainese only has a history of more than a hundred years. These words come from the mouths of experts and professors, which is shocking.

The history of Shanghainese is far more than a hundred years ago, but 150 years ago, Shanghainese was little known; in the past 150 years, Shanghainese has experienced too many changes. The "Vietnamese" language used by ancestors in Shanghai thousands of years ago can still be found in Shanghai dialect. Songjiang dialect, the authoritative dialect after the establishment of Songjiang Prefecture in the Yuan Dynasty, is the largest source of Shanghai dialect today. In the late Qing Dynasty, Suzhou was the central city of Wudi. Through Suzhou Pingtan and other forms, Suzhou dialect also penetrated into Shanghai dialect. What best demonstrates Shanghainese’s tolerance for foreign cultures may be the many “imported products” left over from the concession period, some of which later made their way into Mandarin. For example, "sofa" and "chocolate", these two English words would probably look different if they were originally translated into Mandarin. Only in Shanghainese can they be consistent with English.

Shanghai dialect is extremely inclusive, which is inseparable from the fact that it is a city of immigrants. Shanghai's economic and cultural advantages make Shanghai dialect more influential in this region, but as a dialect, its power is still not enough to compete with Mandarin.

I once conducted a survey in school and asked Shanghai students to read three commonly used Chinese characters in Shanghainese: "pick", "shore" and "tile". The results are surprisingly consistent. "Zhao" is pronounced like "Zhan" in Shanghainese, "an" has the same pronunciation as "an", and "watt" is pronounced as wǎ. The pronunciation of these three characters has nothing to do with old Shanghai dialect, and they are all "translated" from Mandarin. It can be seen that the new Shanghainese have no idea how to speak Shanghainese. It can be expected that these sounds will remain and become the "authentic" Shanghainese accent in the future. In other words, in the past 150 years, Shanghai dialect has been influenced by many dialects and languages, but the blood connection has not been severed, but some elements have been absorbed. The intervention of Mandarin has cut off the inheritance of Shanghai dialect to a certain extent and completely changed its appearance.

Mandarin has changed Shanghai dialect in several ways. First, it has replaced many expressions, such as "so" replacing "introduction", "if" replacing "if" and "if", " "One day" replaced "one day", and "coming soon" replaced "coming soon". The second is to compress the use area of ??Shanghainese. In the past, Shanghainese was the only tool for communication among Shanghainese. Shanghainese was used whether chatting or reading. Now Shanghainese is mostly used at home and in daily life. In public places, Mandarin is used. Obviously more advantages. Third, the expressive function of Shanghainese has begun to be incomplete. Many words that are not Mandarin cannot be expressed. Even if you communicate in Shanghainese, you often need to include Mandarin in a sentence.

It can be said that Shanghainese, as Shanghai's "most important intangible cultural heritage", is in a weak position - it can only play the role of citizens' language and daily life language. On more formal and important occasions, It has lost its footing. This is because people unconsciously choose a language that shows a higher social status, which in turn leads to the further weakening of the original language or dialect with a lower social status and eventually being abandoned. Political articles, scientific articles and even newspaper drafts have little demand for dialects. The writers of these articles have the highest social status, and their languages ??also have the highest social status. Some dialect words will be treated as "coined words" and changed when they appear in formal articles. The dialect spoken by the people who drive cars and sell pulp is the most vivid, but due to the low social status of the users, these words cannot be used in official circles.

The spread of Shanghainese dialect also has two disadvantages that cannot be ignored. First, due to the large number of immigrants, Shanghai’s cultural identity is not very strong. Shanghai citizens like Pingtan, Yue Opera, and some even like Peking Opera, but the influence of Shanghai Opera seems to be limited to some original residents of Shanghai. Compared with Cantonese and Hokkien, Shanghainese dialect lacks the cultural products attached to it, so Shanghai residents are not very loyal to Shanghainese dialect, which cannot be compared with the loyalty of Sichuanese, Guangzhou and Xiamen people to their own dialects. .

Secondly, Shanghainese is the business card of Shanghainese, and the image of Shanghainese also affects the image of Shanghainese. The prejudice against Shanghainese spoken by outsiders mentioned at the beginning is essentially a stereotype of Shanghainese. As a result, many outsiders are even less interested in Shanghainese dialect and Shanghai culture. Recently, after the "coffee garlic" controversy, the outside world may have more negative views on Shanghainese people and Shanghainese dialect.

Learning a language requires an appropriate environment. One of the important reasons why Shanghainese dialect is broken is that after children enter kindergarten, they are almost separated from the Shanghainese dialect environment, and the influence of school continues until a person reaches adulthood. Natural language learning cannot be completed through school education. Our poor English learning is the best example.

Therefore, the most important thing to protect Shanghainese is to give Shanghainese the opportunity to speak Shanghainese. In addition to Shanghai families consciously educating their children to speak Shanghainese, they can first add content of Shanghainese education to school education. Vernacular China is also China. A vernacular course can be set up to introduce the history and culture of Shanghai on the one hand, and on the other hand, Shanghainese is used for explanation, reading and communication in class.

Secondly, increase the use of dialects in radio and television programs. Many local TV stations have launched dialect news programs, and the response to the programs has been unexpectedly enthusiastic. As far as I know, Hangzhou's "Ah Liu Tou Shuo News" and Ningbo's dialect news program both have the highest annual ratings. It can be seen that the general public has a need to use dialects and watch dialect programs. I very much look forward to Shanghai TV’s newsroom programs being able to use Shanghainese.

In addition, if there is financial support, dialect inheritance centers, clubs, etc. can also be established. Invite celebrities and experts who use dialects to hold discussions with people in dialects and provide dialect training courses. Anyone who is willing to learn can learn dialects. At present, there are also some dialect websites that are spontaneously established by the private sector.

Chinese dialects are an integral part of the Chinese language, a wealth of the Chinese language, and a symbol of the diversity of the "species" of the Chinese language. The promotion of Mandarin back then was not an act of "letting nature take its course", so protecting dialects cannot be something that comes naturally. To let nature take its course is to sit back and wait for it to die. We can refer to biological protection and cultural relics protection. No one is adopting a "let nature take its course" strategy on either issue. In addition, the United States is a country with no official language and no "Mandarin". It is probably not true that dialects will cause communication barriers.

For most people, language is a tool. We can all feel the benefits of a unified language, but few people think of the disadvantages of a single language. If dialects die out, it may bring communication convenience to a certain extent, but the negative impact it will bring to Chinese language and Chinese culture may far outweigh this convenience. UNESCO wants to protect endangered languages ??and dialects in order to maintain linguistic and cultural diversity. Just like the loss of biological diversity, once language loses its diversity, it will also degenerate.

For example, Mandarin is not as vibrant now as it was before liberation, because it was very inclusive at that time. Dialects often have some expressive expressions that are not found in Mandarin. "Embarrassed" was imported into Mandarin by Wu dialect a long time ago. Otherwise, if Beijing dialect wants to express the concept of "embarrassed", it can only say "embarrassed". But now if you can’t enter Mandarin, you can’t be absorbed and utilized. In recent years, Zhao Benshan's sketches have brought some Northeastern dialects to Mandarin, such as "fooling". Flirting is more flavorful than lying and cheating.