What do Shanghai people mean when they say they are from Ningbo?

There are few indigenous residents mainly in Shanghai now. Generally, Shanghainese have moved from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and it is understandable to say that they are from Ningbo.

Ningbo dialect is not much left in Shanghai dialect, but the word "Allah" is very important. In addition, although Shanghai also uses the word "I", the pronunciation of "I" of our generation comes from Ningbo dialect.

Shanghainese now use the word "Allah" to represent "I", but in fact this word comes from Ningbo dialect, and "I am a child" is a local dialect in Shanghai. I have asked Shanghainese, and they say "you" more often, "I" more formally, and I usually use less spoken English. At around 1940s, we started to use "Allah".

Extended data

Characteristics of Ningbo dialect;

In the Wu dialect system, Ningbo dialect is known as "hard". There is a saying that "it is better to quarrel with Suzhou people than to gossip with Ningbo people", which means that Ningbo dialect is "as hard as stone" and speaks like a quarrel.

In this regard, Zhou Zhifeng, a professor at Ningbo University and an expert in Ningbo dialect, introduced in Zhou Zhifeng's Interpretation of Ningbo Dialect that Ningbo Dialect is "rock-solid" because it perfectly retains the characteristics of ancient entering tones, and many "disyllabic vowels" have also become "single vowels".