Suzhou dialect

Suzhou dialect (蘇州話 / 苏州话; pinyin: su zhou hua) is a dialect of Wu, one of the subdivisions of Chinese spoken language. It is spoken in the city of Suzhou, in Jiangsu province of China.

It is typical of the Wu dialects, being rich in vowels and conservative in having many initials, and has many similarities with the Shanghai dialect.

Phonology

Initials

	Labials	Dentals	Silibants	Palatals	Velars	Laryngeals
Unvoiced Unaspirated Stops	p	t	ʦ	ʨ	k	(ʔ)
Unvoiced Aspirated Stops	pʰ	tʰ	ʦʰ	ʨʰ	kʰ
Voiced Stops	b	d		ʥ	g
Nasals	m	n		ɲ	ŋ
Unvoiced Fricatives	f		s	ɕ		h
Voiced Fricatives	v		z			ɦ
Liquids		l

Suzhou dialect has a set of voiced initials and exhibits unvoiced unaspirated and aspirated stops, there are unvoiced and voiced fricatives sets. Moreover, palatized initials also feature.

Rimes

 

Vowels	Diphthongs	Tripthongs	Nasals	Glottals
			m, n, ŋ, l
ɿ
ɥ
i	iø, io, iæ, iɒ	iøʏ	in, ioŋ, iaŋ, iɒŋ	iəʔ, ioʔ, iɔʔ, iaʔ, iɒʔ
y			yən	yɤʔ
u	uø, uE, uɒ		uən, uɒŋ, uaŋ	uɤʔ, uoʔ, uaʔ
ɪ
ø	øʏ
				ɤʔ
o			oŋ	oʔ
	əu		ən	əʔ
E
				ɔʔ
æ
a			aŋ	aʔ
ɑ
ɒ			ɒŋ	ɒʔ

Suzhou has one tripthong rime, [ iø&#655 ]. Unlike Shanghai, it has no nasalised rimes, although it does have a set of rimes which end in a nasal stop. Middle Chinese ru tone characters which end in [ -p -t -k ] end as a glottal stop [ -ʔ ] in Suzhou. Middle Chinese nasal endings [ -m ] have merged with rimes which end with [ -n ] in Suzhou. Middle Chinese [ -ŋ ] ending rimes have split into two types in Suzhou. Those which have a high fronted main vowel merge with [ -n ] ending rimes. Those which possess a palatising medial [ -i- ] and back main vowel, retain the [ -ŋ ] ending.

Tones

Yin Ping	Yang Ping	Shang	Yin Qu	Yang Qu	Yin Ru	Yang Ru
陰平	陽平	上聲	陰去	陽去	陰入	陽入
44	24	52	412	31	4	23

In Suzhou, part of the Middle Chinese Shang tone characters has merged with the modern yin qu tone.

See also

• List of Chinese dialects