Is Wu and Mandarin dialect the same?

xwa] in Beijing Mandarin. Wu and the Suzhou dialect in particular is perceived as soft in the ears of Mandarin speakers; hence there is the idiom “the tender speech of Wu” (吳儂軟語; 吴侬软语)….Wu Chinese.

What is the rarest dialect in China?

Wenzhounese
Due to its long history and the isolation of the region in which it is spoken, Wenzhounese is so unusual in its phonology that it has the reputation of being the least comprehensible dialect for an average Mandarin speaker.

What is the hardest dialect in Chinese?

The full list:

• Wenzhou dialect.
• Cantonese.
• Suzhou and Minnan dialects.
• Shanghainese.
• Shaanxi dialect.
• Changsha dialect.
• Sichuan dialect.
• Shandong dialect.

What dialect is spoken in Ningbo?

Wu Chinese
The Ningbo dialect (Chinese: 宁波话/寧波話, 宁波闲话/寧波閒話) is a dialect of Wu Chinese, one subdivision of Chinese language. Ningbo dialect is spoken throughout Ningbo and Zhoushan prefectures, in Zhejiang province.

What country has the most dialects?

Ranked: The Countries with the Most Linguistic Diversity

• Papua New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse country in the world, with approximately 840 different languages spoken across the islands.
• In second place, Indonesia has around 711 different languages.

Where did the dialect of Wu come from?

Wu today descends from the languages spoken in Eastern Chu and the Wu and Yue kingdoms, along with northern and Han influences later on. The Wu dialects still retain characteristics of early Middle Chinese no longer found in any of the other Chinese forms (Chao 1928).

Which is the correct spelling for Wu Chinese?

For example, 溫州話 ( Wu Chinese: [ʔy˧꜖ tɕiɤu˧꜖ ɦo˩꜒꜔]) is used for Wenzhounese. Affixing 閒話 is also common and more typical of the Taihu division, as in 嘉興閒話 Kashin’ghenwo for Jiaxing dialect .

Which is the most common dialect of Chinese?

Wu Chinese. Suzhou dialect is widely considered to be the most linguistically representative of the family. It was mostly the basis of the Wu lingua franca that developed in Shanghai leading to the formation of standard Shanghainese, which as a center of economic power and possessing the largest population of Wu speakers,…

What does the idiom Wu mean in Mandarin mean?

Among speakers of other Sinitic languages, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light and flowing. There is an idiom in Mandarin that specifically describes these qualities of Wu speech: 吴侬软语, which literally means “the tender speech of Wu”.