Jump to content

Wuhan dialect

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wuhan dialect
武汉话
Pronunciation[u⁴²xan¹³xua³⁵]
Native toChina
RegionWuhan, Hubei
Language codes
ISO 639-3
ISO 639-6xghu
cmn-xwu
GlottologNone

The Wuhan dialect (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: , local pronunciation: [u⁴²xan¹³xua³⁵]; pinyin: Wǔhànhuà), also known as the Hankou dialect after the former town of Hankou, belongs to the Wu–Tian branch of Southwest Mandarin spoken in Wuhan, Tianmen and surrounding areas in Hubei, China. The Wuhan dialect has limited mutual intelligibility with Standard Chinese. Grammatically, it has been observed to have a similar aspect system to Xiang Chinese.[1]

Phonology

[edit]

Tones

[edit]

Like other Southwest Mandarin varieties, there are four tones. Words with the checked tone in Middle Chinese became the light level tone.

  • Dark level 55 (also 44)
  • Light level 312
  • Rising 42
  • Falling 35
  • Neutral
Middle Chinese tone class Wuhan Example
Dark level
āōēīūǖ 拉 (la55)
Light level ǎǒěǐǔǚ 爸 (pa213)
Rising tone àòèìùǜ 走 (zou42)
falling tone áóéíúǘ 叫 (tɕiau35)
neutral tone .

Media use

[edit]

Wuhan dialect is used in the 2019 film The Wild Goose Lake.

It is also used in the 2021 film Embrace Again, which is set in Wuhan. Embrace Again was filmed and released in two versions, one in Wuhan dialect and one in Standard Mandarin.[2]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Zhang, Shiliang (2015). The Wuhan Dialect: A Hybrid Southwestern Mandarin Variety of Sinitic (MA thesis). The University of Hong Kong. doi:10.5353/th_b5481914 (inactive 2024-04-12). hdl:10722/211145.{{cite thesis}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of April 2024 (link)
  2. ^ "Light in the early, dark days of the pandemic". global.chinadaily.com.cn. Retrieved 8 January 2022.