Taihu Wu (吳語太湖片) or Northern Wu (北部吳語) is a Wu Chinese language spoken in much of the southern part of the province of Jiangsu, including Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, the southern part of Nantong, Jingjiang and Danyang; the municipality of Shanghai; and the northern part of Zhejiang province, including Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Ningbo, Huzhou, and Jiaxing. A notable exception is the dialect of the town of Jinxiang, which is a linguistic exclave of Taihu Wu in Zhenan Min-speaking Cangnan county of Wenzhou prefecture in Zhejiang province. Speakers in regions around Taihu Lake and Hangzhou Bay, are the largest population among all Wu speakers. Taihu Wu dialects such as Shanghainese, Shaoxing and Ningbo are mutually intelligible even for L2 Taihu speakers.
Linguistic affinity has also been used as a tool for regional identity and politics in the Jiangbei and Jiangnan regions. While the city of Yangzhou was the center of trade, flourishing and prosperous, it was considered part of Jiangnan, which was known to be wealthy, even though Yangzhou was north of the Yangzi River. Once Yangzhou's wealth and prosperity were gone, it was then considered to be part of Jiangbei, the "backwater".
After Yangzhou was removed from Jiangnan, many of its residents switched from Jianghuai Mandarin, the dialect of Yangzhou, to Taihu Wu dialects. In Jiangnan itself, multiple subdialects of Wu competed for the position of prestige dialect.[2]
In 1984, around 85 million speakers are mutually intelligible with Shanghainese.[3]
Taihu Wu varieties tend to preserve historical voiced initials.[4] The number of phonemic vowels can reach numbers higher than that of some Germanic languages.[5] Taihu Wu varieties typically have phonemic 7-8 tones,[6] though some can go as high as 12 or as low as 5,[7][8] and they all have highly complex tone sandhi.[9]
^VanNess Simmons, Richard (1999), Chinese Dialect Classification: A comparative approach to Harngjou, Old Jintarn and Common Northern Wu, John Benjamins Publishing Co., p. 3-7, ISBN90-272-3694-1
^Li, Hui; Hong, Yulong (2012), 偒傣話：世界上元音最多的語言 [Dondac: The language with the most vowels in the world], Fudan University Press, p. 12, ISBN978-7-309-09153-3
^Chappell, Hilary; Lan, Li (2017), "Mandarin and other Sinitic languages", Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese language, Oxford: Taylor & Francis, p. 605-628
^Xu, Zhen (2009), 吴江方言声调研究 [A Study on the Tones of the lect of Wujiang] (thesis), Shanghai Normal University, p. 9
^Qian, Nairong; Xu, Baohua; Tang, Zhenzhu (2007), 上海话大词典 [The Great Dictionary of Shanghainese] (1 ed.), Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House, p. 386, ISBN978-7-5326-2248-1
^Rose, Phil; Toda, Takako (1994), "A Typology of Tone Sandhi Rules in Northern Wu", Current Issues in Sino-Tibetan Linguistics, Ōsaka: 267–273
Shi, Menghui; Chen, Yiya (2022). "Lili Wu Chinese". Illustrations of the IPA. Journal of the International Phonetic Association: 157–179. doi:10.1017/S0025100320000092, with supplementary sound recordings.
[Lili Wu is near the confluence of Suzhou, Jiaxing and Shanghai dialects]
Chen, Yiya; Gussenhoven, Carlos (2015). "Shanghai Chinese". Illustrations of the IPA. Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 45 (3): 321–327. doi:10.1017/S0025100315000043, with supplementary sound recordings.
