TheShaoxing dialect (simplified Chinese:绍兴话/绍兴方言;traditional Chinese:紹興話/紹興方言;pinyin:Shàoxīnghuà/Shàoxīng fāngyán) is aWu dialect spoken in the city ofShaoxing more specifically in the city center ofYuecheng and its surrounding areas. It is a representative Wu dialect with a tripartite distinction on voiced stop initials and a textbook register split with each of the four tonal categories ofMiddle Chinese being divided into upper and lower registers. Within Wu, it is classified as a Northern Wu dialect belonging to theTaihu division within which it is classified under the Linshao subdivision (臨紹小片/临绍小片).
It is the pronunciation of the Shaoxing dialect which is the standard to be used on the texts ofYue opera. It is also the native language ofCai Yuanpei andLu Xun whoseBaihua was often peppered with phrases from his native dialect.
The suburban areas to the north and east stretching from Dongpu (东浦) to Doumen (斗门) and north of Pingshui (平水) in the southern suburban areas are basically the same as that of the city center. Outside of these areas, people may still speak "Shaoxing dialect," but there are noticeable differences between these speech forms and those of the main urban area of Shaoxing.[1]
The Shaoxing dialect has received an unusually large amount of attention. Documented research for the dialect has existed since theKangxi era in theQing dynasty, when there were three main works dealing with the Shaoxing dialect.
In the modern era,Chao Yuen Ren documented four regions in Shaoxing in hisModern Wu Research (现代吴语研究). Besides Chao, the Shaoxing dialect has received the most attention from Chinese dialectologistWang Futang (王福堂) whose 1959Shaoxinghua jiyin (绍兴话记音) was the first full-length paper in the modern era dedicated wholly to the dialect. A concise grammar, phonology, and nearly 300 page word list of the dialect has been compiled by Yang Wei (杨葳) and Yang Jun (杨浚) inShaoxing Fangyan (绍兴方言). There is also an English-language monographThe Phonology of Shaoxing Chinese by Zhang Jisheng and a handful of other works in Chinese.
The Shaoxing dialect is also mentioned inZhejiang Fangyan Fenqu (浙江方言分区),Zhejiang Fangyanci (浙江方言词), andShaoxingshi yanyu juan (绍兴市谚语卷). As with most locations in China, Shaoxing is also covered in theLinguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects.
