Reviews from Cheng Naishan’s Ala Shanghai People

Ms. Cheng Naishan is good at writing prose about old Shanghai. The article "From Local to Shanghainese" published in "Yeguang Cup" on March 31, 2005 is indeed a masterpiece of this type of article. "Where is your family from?" "Ala is a local." A short two-sentence dialogue. Bring the article to the point. However, "Allah" is not what Shanghai locals call themselves.

Shanghainese may be the dialect that has developed the fastest and changed the most in the past century. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Shanghai was just a medium-sized county on the southeast coast. The Shanghainese dialect at that time was somewhat similar to Suzhou dialect. Shanghai was opened as a port in 1842. With the influx of a large number of foreign people, Shanghai gradually became an immigrant city where people from all over the world live together. "A city cannot exist without peace." Among the immigrant groups in Shanghai, Ningbo people were the largest. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, the number of Ningbo people living in Shanghai had reached 400,000, accounting for about one-third of the total residents of Shanghai at that time. It is said that someone once made statistics and found that at least a quarter of the current Shanghainese people are originally from Ningbo, and almost all Ningbo people can find relatives in Shanghai through twists and turns. Such a large immigrant group will undoubtedly have a huge impact on the development of Shanghai. Many words in modern Shanghainese come from Ningbo dialect, the most typical of which is "Ala".

In the book "Shanghai Scale Claws" written by Yu Muxia from Qingpu, Shanghai in 1933, there is a short article "The word "A" among Ningbo people:

The people of Ningbo are "Ala" , "Allah" is from Ningbo. The word "Allah" can already represent the people of Ningbo. Therefore, when people in Ningbo call someone, they always use the word "Ah", such as "Brother", "Di", "Amei", "Ah Da", "Ah Er", "Ah San"... all It's so familiar that it flows and blurts out. "Ala" is long, "Ala" is short, and "Ala Shexi" is especially the mantra of Ningbo people. As long as you hear the word "Ala" in someone's conversation, you can know that he is a complete and authentic Ningbo person. .

It can be seen that "Ala" was originally the first-person pronoun in Ningbo dialect. Until the 1930s, the first person pronoun of Shanghai was not "Ala", and those who said "Ala" on the streets of Shanghai were authentic Ningbo immigrants. The first-person pronouns of local residents in Shanghai are "伲" and "我伲". In September 1931, Qu Qiubai wrote "The Oriental Soldiers" in Mandarin and Shanghainese respectively, imitating folk tunes in "Lanlai Tune". The Shanghainese version has these two sentences: "But it's hard for me to be a common man. It's really called, "Take 40 million people as a favor."

The change of dialect is a gradual process. After 10 years, Shanghai dialect has changed a lot. In the 1940s, linguist Ni Haishu wrote a novel "Tricycle" in Shanghai dialect. The hard-working tricycle driver pedaled desperately in order to allow passengers to catch up with the movie. He said: "Treading is a tricycle." "Slow boy's movie must be qualified. It takes at least twenty-five minutes to walk to Gordon Road. It's too slow. What does it matter if you go slow? You're used to it. You don't care if you hurry up." Obviously, during this period, "Allah" has become. The first person pronoun in Shanghai dialect.

After liberation, with the end of the immigration wave, Shanghainese dialect in the modern sense gradually took shape. "Allah is a Shanghainese!" At this time, "Allah" has completely replaced "Wo伲" as the symbol of Shanghainese. Of course, "Wo伲" has not completely withdrawn from the stage of history. In suburban counties of Shanghai, "Wo伲" is still the self-proclaimed name of locals. However, in the eyes of those urbanites with a sense of superiority, "Wo伲" has become "country people". " synonym for ".

Shanghainese has a strong vitality, and it continues to absorb words from local dialects and even foreign languages. The Shanghainese dialect is changing, and the composition of Shanghai residents is also constantly changing, so there is a distinction between "Shanghaiese" and "locals." "Wo伲" is a local, and "Ala" is a Shanghainese!