Wu Dialects

Wu Chinese - History - Origins
... Like most other branches of Chinese, Wu mostly descends from Middle Chinese which more or less supplanted the pre-existing language ... This language, called Old Wu-Min, was one of the earliest splits from Northern Chinese and is still preserved in the Min dialects of Fujian which also originate ... Wu dialects like Min retain many ancient characteristics and are considered some of the most historic dialects ...

Wu Chinese - Diachronic Study of Wu - Ming and Qing Wu
... The diachronic study of written Ming and Qing Wu, the time when the dialects began to take on wholly unique features, can be placed into three stages the Early Period ... the beginning of the Qing in the 17th century, when the first documents showing distinctly Wu characteristics appear ... The majority of early period documents record the Wu varieties of southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang, so any discussion in this section is primarily relevant to ...

Wu Chinese
... Wu (simplified Chinese 吴语 traditional Chinese 吳語 pinyin Wú yǔ, ) is a grouping of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of spoken Chinese also known ... Chinese varieties classified as Wu are primarily spoken in Zhejiang province, the municipality of Shanghai, and southern Jiangsu province ... Major Wu dialects include those of Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, and Yongkang ...

Wu Chinese - Names
... The average speaker of a Wu dialect is mostly unaware of this name for the language they speak since the term Wu is a relatively recent classificatory imposition on ... Saying one speaks Wu is akin to saying one speaks a Germanic language ... of their local language's affinities with other similarly classified dialects and will generally only refer to their local Wu variety rather than the dialect family ...