 Hello. In this session, I talk about Shanghainese, which is also called Shanghai Wu, Wu being a cluster of languages in the southeastern part of mainland China. Please take a look at this map, the arrow points to the greater Shanghai area. And then on this page on the right, there is this picture about so-called all the Chinese languages or dialects, if you want, and also the non-Chinese languages as well in this bluish part. On the left, you see the areas where Wu languages are spoken. Notably, in addition to Shanghai, there are also some famous cities and towns after which the languages are named Suzhou, Ningbo, Shaoxing, Hangzhou, and Changzhou, and also Wanzhou here, which is indistinguishable from other Wu languages. So the Wu languages claim cluster of speakers of 80 million. For Shanghai Wu, it's mainly spoken by people in the greater Shanghai area, which accounts for about 6,340 kilometers with a regular resident number of 24 million plus. Almost all the speakers of Chinese also speak Mandarin. By the year 2020, it is estimated that more than 20 million speakers of Chinese live there in the greater Shanghai area. If we look at the development of Shanghai Wu, then we can identify three periods. The first period is called early Chinese. It started from the mixing of middle Chinese with the indigenous Baiyue languages. And that period, Chinese took shape at a time approximately near the spring and autumn period. And then the formation period for the language went all the way to the Han dynasties. And we can identify a second period, which starts from 1843. That is after the first European war when Shanghai became a trading port open to the Western powers, following the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing. So a lot of people migrated there. And that is a period for modern Chinese, which ended in the mid 1950s when the central government of China published a series of regulations forbidding the use of the so-called dialects being published in their own special forms. And contemporary Chinese started since the 1950s. For contemporary Chinese, we can identify three variants. The old variant is nearest to modern Chinese. It is typically spoken by people born in the 1920s and 30s. And it is still widely used in the suburban areas. Occasionally you can even find some small children who can speak very fluent old variants in these areas. And there are many different versions of the old variant, depending on the location. The middle variant is taken to be the standard variant and used to be spoken by the majority of middle aged people in the urban Shanghai area. But that should be the definition for the 1980s and 90s. So it is still being spoken by those people, but they are no longer in their middle ages. The new variant is mostly used by young people in the urban area nowadays. In the end up it has some distinct phonetic and lexical features, but it overlaps a lot with the middle variant. And it is often code mixed with Putonghua that is Mandarin Chinese. What makes Chinese unique? I think there are several aspects. One is that it is mutually unintelligible with some other major Han languages like Cantonese and Mandarin. But it is mutually intelligible with most of the Wu Chinese, except perhaps for Wenzhou Wu, but there is still some overlaps. Shanghai used to be the representative of the Wu languages. But it is not good representative anymore because Chinese has assimilated so much of Mandarin in terms of flexes and grammar. It has also lost a lot of its distinct sounds. So I think that it is probably fair to say that some other Wu languages are not that affected by the inroads made by the Mandarin should be taken as the representative now. Chinese has five tones and also it is rich in Tongsendi and also predictable. That makes it different from some other Han languages. These other languages are either poor in Tongsendi or they have Tongsendi, but you can't really work out the rule for that. Chinese has a unique lexicon that I'm going to talk about later. And it also has an idiosyncratic grammar that has been very much overlooked in the past studies, but it is gaining popularity. I mean the study of Chinese grammar. This is obviously too big a topic for me to talk about here, but I'll talk about the sentence final particles. What is also interesting is that modern Shanghai is the most recorded in written form next to Mandarin. And that is because of the special contributions made by missionary linguists that lived and worked in Shanghai during the period when modern Chinese was spoken. These published forms are beginning to be usable because of the digitizing efforts made in many overseas libraries. Now the phonology of Chinese. I read the example expressions first, and then I pronounce the sounds, the relevant sounds again. 爸爸 不 婆婆 母母 妈妈 母 法夫 武夫 五 家家 地 塔塔 地 东东 nǐ, nǐ nīn, nǐ, nǐ rounded, xiu xié, zia zia, zi, zi, gu gu, ge, ke ku, ke, nǎng wu, nǐ, ho hu, bao su, zi, zi, la ba, ah, hu, chu, wu, bo, gu, gu, u, du, wu, le, se, e, bu, bu, wu, bi, zi, yi, yā, yā, yā, xiu, chu, yu, jiu, liu, yu, zi, ye, ye, wu, fu, wu, wā, wā, wā, gui, wei, gui, zi, yu, yu, yu, chu, yu, be, nǐ, nǐ, nǐ, nǐ, nǐ, nǐ, nǐ, nǐ, lǎngzang, hǎng, gōng gōng, ong, 文登 恩 龙通 龙 八达 博国 欧 蜡蜡 香香 阳 苏阳 阳 金灵 营 胸涌 泳 用 车 牙 牙 阿游 游 年 节 要 光 虎 汪 汪 汪 汪 汪 汪 汪 汪 困 内 汪 我哭 我 我都 我 均匀 云 云 月 凉 月 Now we come to 痛 影 象 海 物 First 痛 错 自 可 We have these characters put together just to facilitate memorizing. But in fact, each syllable should be read apart. Otherwise, we'll see a tone sendee, which I'm going to talk about later. So again, 错 自 可 自 Second 痛 错 自 争 错 自 痛 久 寧 罗 寧 女 宁 宁 龙 虞 死 Fourth 痛 错 错 缺 错 恶 错 错 恶 Fifth 恶 缺 惹 惹 惹 惹 惹 惹 惹 惹 惹 惹 It's the tone value. And we now come to 痛 善 寧 So that means that it is a phonological change occurring in tone languages in which the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes change based on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes. There are many variations. We look at the word internal sendee. So one plus one means two syllables combined. The initial syllable, if it starts with the first tone, then we'll have this sendee. I read each syllable apart first without 痛 善 寧. And then I read them together with 痛 善 寧. 意 善 依善 作 贵 作 贵 向 崗 向 崗 Second. 滴 信 滴 心 中 跪 中 跪 十 柄 十 柄 十 柄 Second. 十 唱 十 唱 哪 十 哪 十 某 柄 某 柄 柄 柄 柄 柄 绑 有 绑 有 比 倪 This 倪 can appear in a special street called 倪 西 路 倪 比 倪 比 倪 Fourth. 叉 绣 叉 绣 法 国 法 国 Fifth. 联 称 联 成 多 四 多 十 拉 踏 拉 踏 Three syllables combined. 登 信 拥 登 信 拥 四 人 处 四 人 处 心 扯 平 心 扯 平 Second type. 党 向 党 党 乡党 火 绑 有 火 绑 有 We see that 榜 有 火 榜 有 雪 一 四 一 四 雪 一 四 哈 科 王 It's a special kind of dried cake, third type. Sang, Sheng, Gu, Sang, Sheng, Gu. Hmm, Xiang, Dou, Ng, Xiang, Dou. Luo, Dou, Zi, Luo, Dou, Zi. Zha, Guang, Deng, Zha, Guang, Deng. Ng, Mu, Dou, Mu, Dou, Ng, Mu, Dou, La, Keu, Fo, La Keu, Fo. It's a kind of drink. And I refrain from talking about four syllables combined due to the time constraint. And the above are broad Tongsendi types with no pulses within the word. And the opposite will be narrow Sandy with internal pulses. And usually we're talking about word external syllables put together. For example, about the grammatical structure verb object construction, for example. There are also studies about these narrow types of Tongsendi on an experimental phonetic basis. Now I talk about the unique lexical of Shanghai Wu. The first source of its uniqueness concerns the words and expressions that are typically Wu, which is different from the Northern Chinese. So in terms of word formation, you don't find equivalence. Although you can always translate. Or so, sometimes we say or so, so that means make haste quickly. Be quick. In English, just a little. Be done. Easy. It means someone has made a mess of something. It's a derogatory term about someone who is in penury and useless. Someone who is showing an arrogant. That is equivalent to the English F word. I mean, someone is clever should because he knows the rules well. And probably sometimes also he puts on the right type of clothes. It means someone wants to show off the big book to punish someone by getting him stand at the corner of a room for a long time. That means you touch on something oily and get some oil from it. For example, a piece of pork, but then it's extended sense means that you take advantage of something for example for men to touch a woman. No use. Again, it's another way to mean benefit from something to someone. It means get beaten. So do that means someone who is dumb. Stupid. I could have more means small potato. Yeah, when it means someone is silly in doing something unusual. Chopola. Someone is too full in stomach. So he does something extraordinary. No song to pull someone's legs. Yumbo. A silly person. Your new color. From some unknown corners. Then the law. Means again being silly, not knowing what to do. It means someone uses his index finger to crack on some others. Head and Chinese borrows a lot from European languages, especially from English, French, and German. And also it borrows from Japanese. Hot dog. It is a special dessert. It looks like a hot dog bun, but covered with chocolate and inside there may be cream. But the term is borrowed from hot dog. Number one. Number one. Usually the head worker in a workshop. In a factory. Number one. It's not used anymore. Stick. Sticker. That means a walking stick. But talk. And in fact it's pronounced as butter. That's butter. In English. Sparrow. That is in fact a kind of lock. It's called spring lock. Sting. Sting. Radiator. Smoking. Cement. When chance. Means chance. When chance means take your chance. It means someone who is working and try to get his luck in life. There are also expressions that are culturally loaded. Because of the unique placing of Shanghai in China. Many, many years Shanghai was the most modern place in the whole China. Shanghai means the elite areas. Shanghai means the place where the poorest live. The community of people from a certain part north of Yangtze river. That emigrate to Shanghai who speak with a special accent. And that are looked down by those people in older times. Non-local people. That's also a term that Shanghai people would like to use to distinguish themselves from others. Nga de means foreign country. And Nga di means the Chinese areas that do not belong to Shanghai. Tiao Wangpu. It means if someone is desperate, he will jump into the river of Wangpu and kill himself. Do si po xin ru. Si po xin ru means it's a special street where the dead person gets cremated. So although Shanghai has a larger moratorium. But people use this smaller one for this set expression. Da Guangming is the name of the biggest cinema in Shanghai. I think I can hold a house about 1000 audience. I talk about grammatical features in modern Chinese. I would prefer to refer to modern Chinese because it has many interesting features. Very different from other languages that have become either obsolescent or obsolete. So we can study the written records like Bible translation, church pamphlets, grammar books, textbooks. And also from studying the three written forms of Chinese, especially those written in Roman letters and in invented characters. We can get a good idea of how Chinese was pronounced. These are some recent books. In this book, Gramer to dialect the Shanghai. Then there is some interesting description about Chinese highlighting the importance of its particles. And what is interesting is that people claim that the sentence final particles in modern Chinese can serve as time indicators like some of the particles signal present. But in fact it's more like current relevance. And some sentence particles signal past, and that is even more interesting because you don't really find similar cases in other languages of Chinese. Joseph Edkins, a grammar of colloquial Chinese as exhibited in Shanghai dialect, also gives many interesting examples. So I will read through some of these examples to get you a few of how the sentence final particles work. 義無上立法下個哲, is 哲, it's about current relevance like present perfect. 死勒死龍得瓦他哲,哲。 標定哲,我學得有幾滴重哲。 農日幾日不得滴都哩個,個, or past. 義日幾日住哩個,個, or past as well. Some other examples which I took from a famous story called The History of Little Harry. There are some other known special grammatical features. One is that Shanghai Wu has a very rich topic construction system. It is also known to have a special topic construction called copying topics. And the language also has its unique way to mark a question using up, now also being obsolescence. I can understand it, but I never use it. For example, if you say, where you go to school, tomorrow, you tomorrow, I go to school. 農民舟啊七我堂,農民舟啊七我堂. And there is also one construction called Meihou, rather good Meihou. When you put it as a high-order predicate to be followed by a sentence, and the sentence must be non-veritical. That is, it is not a part of reality. So you say Meihou plus the sentence, which means if only yes. So it is a fixed counterfactual construction that you don't find in other languages of China. Recently in the past five years or so, people started talking about Shanghainese as being endangered. So even with a population, a language population of 20 million, you can still talk about the language being endangered. That is because Chinese is losing a lot of its distinct features. Children are not allowed to use Chinese in classrooms, in schoolyards, and on public occasions, sales shop assistants are not allowed to communicate in Chinese either. So people find it disheartening and even alarming to find that lots of younger people would prefer to use Mandarin when they talk to people, not in their own family. But even if you go to Shanghainese families, you will find that the small children, students, they would prefer to stick to Mandarin all the time. And it's only the parents who would like to still use Shanghainese. So that is a worrying sight in the eyes of many. This is a small pamphlet that you can download from this DOI in which we introduce more phrases and about the language and about the city of Shanghai. And finally, to use an expression in Chinese to say thank you. Thank you very much.