Websites for Shanghainese?

[ala]

One Shanghainese website:

http://www.shanghaining.com/

Mostly mainland Shanghainese late teens early twenties posters. In Shanghainese (using characters purely for phonetics) and occasionally Mandarin. Posts are mainly for entertainment, not much deep, serious discussions. Pretty big membership though. A lot of activities planning for the locals and overseas Shanghainese.

[roddy]

http://www.sinosplice.com/chinese/dialects/

Is well worth a look for some very basic Shanghainese phrases . . .

Roddy

[geek_frappa]

this is pretty funny.

http://www.shanghaining.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=39201&page=&page=1&sid=pFKRqpsU#pid1005800

[geek_frappa]

http://www.sinosplice.com/chinese/dialects/

Is well worth a look for some very basic Shanghainese phrases . . .

Roddy

wow! very cool site.

[ala]

The pronounciation in the Sinosplice shockwave is not accurate, and is very awkward sounding. The speaker was probably nervous as the syllables come out detached and painful to my Shanghainese ears. Also a lot of the pronounciations have been Mandarinized and stressed inaccurately. The meter (timing of syllables) was very off too. To a native speaker raised in Shanghai proper, it sounds like each syllabic sound was recorded in random conversation and then pasted together to form a new synthetic sentence. By that I mean, the flow (the natural contour encompassing multisyllabic words) isn't there and the result is 洋泾浜 Shanghainese that sounds really bad and crass. Fluency in Shanghainese very much depends on this idea of flow due to tone sandhi. The speaker probably was faced with Mandarin text and had to translate; Shanghainese people cannot read and speak out loud in Shanghainese at the same time without sounding really awkward and confused (since they are not used to it).

Here is a much better guide with audio to Shanghainese:

http://www.linguasinica.com/Shanghai/default.html

Check out the tones and orthography area to get an idea of what I mean by word contour and flow. Japanese speakers are probably more familiar with this concept. For example: (capital letters = higher pitch/tone) iMAshita vs. iTTE-IMAshita vs. MAtte-imashita; or niHONGO-DE vs. niHONGO-DEsu vs toSHOkan-desu. The flow patterns also differ depending on number of syllables in a word or short clause. Getting it wrong makes you sound funny and incorrect.

[ala]

Some general pitch rules in Shanghainese multisyllabic words (up to 5 syllables). All syllables after the first lose their original tones and are pronounced based on the table below as neutral syllables. Even the first syllable that determines subsequent pitches is altered in a polysyllabic word. There are of course some exceptions (for example in voiced consonants like b-,d-,g-,z-,v-,r-; and finals like -n), and this table only applies to Shanghainese. Other Wu dialects have even more complex tone sandhi.

1st syllable original tone　--> 2 syllables, 3 syllables, 4 syllables, 5 syllables

53 --> 55 21, 55 33 31, 55 33 33 31, 55 33 33 33 31

34 --> 33 44, 33 55 31, 33 55 33 31, 33 55 33 33 31

13 --> 22 44, 22 55 31, 22 55 33 31, 22 55 33 33 31

5 --> 33 44, 33 55 31, 33 55 33 31, 33 55 33 33 31

2 --> 11 23, 11 22 23, 11 22 22 23 or 22 55 33 31 depending on word, 22 55 33 33 31

Wu dialects are great examples of showing that Chinese is not a monosyllabic language. The features above are also found in other tonal languages like Tibetan and Japanese. 5 = high pitch, 1 = low pitch. Mandarin's is vastly undeveloped with only a few occurences, such as: 你好 ni2hao3 vs ni3 and hao3 (Tone 3 changes to Tone 2 when followed by another Tone 3 in Mandarin). Also Mandarin tone sandhi doesn't have much correlation with "word units", eg 洗脸. It appears to be just an euphonics thing, to keep the tempo.

"On the Underlying Tone Patterns of the Shanghai Dialect"

Shen, Xiaowen

Tokyo University Linguistic Papers Vol. 13

Tone sandhi of polysyllabic compounds in the Shanghai dialect has attracted the interest of many scholars, who have always given careful consideration to the tone of the monosyllable while trying to describe the rules of the tone sandhi of polysyllabic compounds. In this paper, I argue that the number of the tones of the Shanghai dialect, generally held to be five under previous analyses, can be reduced to only two underlying tone patterns, or tonemes, by recognizing the existence of the phoneme "voiced h".

Using Japanese pitch accent notation:

┌ = pitch rises

┐ = pitch falls

　┌　　　　┌

上　海　言　话

　┌　┐

屋　里　厢

　┌　┐

图　书　馆

　┌　┐

大　学　生

　┌　┐

计　算　机

　┐

开　始

　┐

飞　机　场

　┐

中　国　人

　┌　┐　　

台　湾　人

　┌　

日　本　人

　┌　

热　开　水

　┌　

历　史　性

　┌　

实　际　浪

　┌　┐

马　路　浪

　┌　

小　说

　┌　┐

谢　谢　侬

　┌　┐

一　家　门

[sinosplice]

Ala, thank you for the feedback, and I'm sure your criticisms are valid. But what language, when read very slowly for non-native speakers, sounds natural? That's hard to do, and I think the person did a decent enough job.

Also, I think you missed the disclaimer in the Notes section:

The aim here was to provide a simple, fun sampling of Shanghainese that both foreigners and Chinese people could enjoy. Linguistic accuracy was strived for, but don't expect too much from someone who created this just for fun.

You haven't mentioned much about regional variations within Shanghainese. What part of Shanghai do you come from?

I any case, I'm happy to learn from someone who seems to be an expert.

[ala]

Yeah, hehe, I think missed the disclaimer section. Sorry if I sounded harsh in my post, I just found the Mandarin audio to be so much better (clearer, steadier, and more representative) than the Shanghainese.

But what language, when read very slowly for non-native speakers, sounds natural? That's hard to do, and I think the person did a decent enough job.

The problem with Shanghainese is that it is almost completely oral based, not a single Shanghainese had to go through the stages of "reading out loud" for Shanghainese in grade school. There is little opportunity to do so even if one wanted to. So now for a Shanghainese, reading prepared samples slowly as an adult under such circumstances will cause a great deal of inaccuracies that one 1. wouldn't make if one were speaking normally, and 2. would have been self-corrected in slow speech if one had greater practice in doing so in school. For English or Mandarin Chinese, we spent the majority of our primary school education reading text out loud at a fairly slow speed under the observation of our teachers and peers, this is bound to produce more accurate and steady pronounciation than a Shanghainese speaker told to be suddenly aware of her speech and reproduce it in an artificial setting. Oftentimes, the slow pronounciation gets Mandarinized.

You haven't mentioned much about regional variations within Shanghainese. What part of Shanghai do you come from?

It's not just regional variation. The generation of the speakers is a big thing too. There are three age groups for Shanghainese: 老派 (born between 19th century-1930's)、中派 (born between 1930's-1975)、新派 (born since mid 1970's). In 1863, 老派 Shanghainese had 63 rhymes. Today's 新派 form has only 35 rhymes and a very systematic tone sandhi pattern. Previously, 老派 and 中派 forms varied greatly depending on region, however 新派 has essentially become unified throughout the city due to its extreme simplification. Even the youth in Shanghai's countryside can speak 新派 now. Adjacent provinces' 新派 forms, such as that of Suzhou-hua, also closely resemble Shanghai's. Essentially 新派上海话 has become the putonghua of Wu Chinese. Most Shanghainese today though see 中派 spoken in the city proper as the most representative of a standard, pure form of Shanghainese 典型上海话. Ironically, the original 老上海话 is now seen as 乡下话, and is still heard sometimes in 南市区 and the suburbs. Most Shanghainese over 40 speak 中派 still.

Still, some regional differences remain even in 新派, such as whether the nasal "-ng" endings are /n/ or /N/ (-ng). Whether the x, q are pronounced like the Mandarin or like the Japanese sh, ch.

Also, whether the lateral approximant /l/ has the tongue slightly tapping the hard plate or not (to create a twirl like effect). The host you have for the soundboard was obviously a 新派 speaker, so location shouldn't have mattered too much as long as she was in Shanghai city, and Hongqiao is definitely in Shanghai. My complaint was not that the audio was in a nonstandard form of Shanghainese (since even the standard is highly debatable), but that even seeing it in its 新派 form, it sounded awkward and strange, and did not depict accurately the kind of pitches and pronounciations generally agreed to as 新派. Some of the sounds just seem kind of exaggerated (probably for the purpose of recording slowly?). If I heard that from a live person though, I would feel that that person was not very fluent. Maybe someone can tape record Shanghainese conversations on the streets of different demographics, in all its natural glory. That would be very interesting (although problematic in content and privacy).

一般人很少注意。一个“上海人”说tsi，ts'i，si，另一个“上海人”说tci，tc'i，ci并不妨碍交际；一个说kwe（官），一个说kwø；一个说dzy（权），一个说dzYø；一个说“迭个”，一个说“搿个”，大家都懂，也弄不清哪是“道地”的上海话。

传统上海话应该是有八个声调，传统上海话阴上与阴去、阳平与阳上去的声调都很接近，所以在当代上海话就分别合并为“阴上去”和“阳平上去”两个声调，呈五声调格局。

关于“标准”问题，《广韵》音系太过遥远了，个人倾向1988年《上海市区方言志》所列的“中派音系”。理由有二，第一，这个音系是上海人在从小受到完善普通话教育之前形成的最后一个音系；同时也是由移民方言，主要是苏州、宁波吴语方言影响而导致的“吴语公约数”化的产物，最能反映吴语上海话自然发展形成的面貌。第二，这个音系的韵母体系比新派音系要整齐许多。

[Altair]

Ala, I have a moderately strong interest in phonetics and so followed with interest some of your posts above. I have some knowledge of standard Japanese and its tone system and was struck by your reference to it.

You mentioned tone sandhi in Mandarin. In more than one text book I have read, two other tone rules have been mentioned. I would appreciate your comment on them.

One rule is that a fourth tone followed by another fourth tone will have a reduced fall. As far as my ear can hear these distinctions, this seems to be true. (E.g., zai4 jian4)

The other rule is that a second tone followed by a first or second tone and preceding any other tone (i.e., the second tone cannot be the final syllable in the phrase or preceding a neutral tone) is changed to a first tone. I do not recall any certain examples of this that were give, but I recall that one book even included as examples of a second tone tones that were originally third tone. Perhaps an example would be "yi4 ben3 za2zhi4. If need be, I can search through my books to find the examples offered. Any thoughts?

[ala]

One rule is that a fourth tone followed by another fourth tone will have a reduced fall. As far as my ear can hear these distinctions, this seems to be true. (E.g., zai4 jian4)

I believe the jian4 actually starts out at a higher pitch, and there is indeed some leveling. Taiwanese Mandarin though has less tone sandhi in general. Mandarin has more complex tone sandhi than Cantonese or Gan, but has much less in comparison to Min and pales compared to the Wu dialects (where every lexically bound word has its tone sandhi changes). The thing about Mandarin tone sandhi is that it seems to be determined by rhythm and euphony, it is a leftward tone sandhi afterall. In Wu, the sandhi is determined by the first syllable (rightward) and is bound within a lexical word/phrase, and applies for all words. Basically, the only citation tones you use in Wu are monosyllabic words such as 我, or when you need to emphasize. Every tone for Shanghainese is determined by that little table I had above. The table is more complicated though for Suzhou-hua. Shanghainese today is borderline tonal （even the 5 citation tones can be reduced to 2); however, the dialect in Chongming (an island in Shanghai) can be classified as accentual. So tone sandhi in Wu and Mandarin/Min are quite different discussions.

The other rule is that a second tone followed by a first or second tone and preceding any other tone (i.e., the second tone cannot be the final syllable in the phrase or preceding a neutral tone) is changed to a first tone. I do not recall any certain examples of this that were give, but I recall that one book even included as examples of a second tone tones that were originally third tone. Perhaps an example would be "yi4 ben3 za2zhi4. If need be, I can search through my books to find the examples offered. Any thoughts?

Yeah that sounds about right.

Here are more Mandarin rules:

When a 3rd tone follows a 1st, 2nd, or 4th tone, the 3rd tone becomes lower. When the 3rd tone is followed by a neutral tone, the first syllable depends on the neutral tone’s original tone to decide if it will be pronounced as a 2nd tone or a lower tone. The 3rd tone's many syllable variations also depend on the speaker’s mood and pauses when speaking. Most variation in Mandarin occurs in the 3rd tone as you can see.

But the Mandarin variations are still greatly different in scope from the Wu variations.

TONE SANDHI: Patterns across Chinese dialects; from Cambridge Univ Press is an excellent book regarding this.

[Altair]

Sinosplice,

I think I can support some of what Ala is saying about reading difficulties. It seems that reading Shanghainese calls for different strategies than reading Mandarin. In reading Mandarin, you hardly need to "read ahead" more than one or two characters to give an acceptable reading to a character. Basically, it seems you have to watch out for third tones and be on the look out for neutral tones. To some degree, you probably also have to pay some attemption to the sentence intonation and to phrase rhythm, which require some knowledge of where a sentence is heading.

It seems that in Shanghainese, you must always "read ahead" to be sure what "tone" to give a character. In addition, you seem to have to anticipate precisely where a compound word will end in order to know what fall in pitch is appropriate to non-initial syllables. I have some experience with reading texts in non-standard dialects of a language I know, when I have only studied the language formally in a standard dialect. It really is very strange experience, since you have two integrate different areas of your knowledge on the spot. It's not so hard when you know the wording of an entire phrase and can mentally translate from one to the other, but it is very difficult when you are actually reading word by word. You can also have to fight strong semi-conscious impulses to adapt your reading pronunciation to what you perceive to be the prestige form of the language and the form appropriate to reading texts.

Written languages actually express much less of what we consider vital to pronunciation than what we are often conscious of. In English, even the phrases "town house" and "town hall" represent different types of compounds that have different grammar and different pitches. This difference is not represented in the writing system and is ignored in school instruction. Virtually no native speaker would be aware of these differences, even though he or she would unconsciously reproduce them faithfully, at least for standard English. I am not sure what such a speaker would do with these phrases if he or she tried to read them in "Cockney" or in African-American" english without first trying to "translate" them mentally.

Ala, In rereading some of your material, above I was again struck by some of the detail. I found it really strange to read Chinese with Japanese pitch marks . Some day I must really take a stab at learning some Shanghainese.

One interesting rule that Cantonese apparently has, but which I am not sure can be called tone sandhi, is where any tone other than the high level/falling (tone 1) or high/mid rising tone (tone 2) can be changed into the second tone. The phemonenon seems driven by something similar to the mysterious force that drives the 兒化 in Beijinghua. It is especially common in word compounds and even happens to words with the entering tone. Entering tone words are otherwise always pronounced with a level one.

I think I have seen a different explanation than what you have described for third tones preceding neutral tones derived from original third tones. I have found it important to study this, because I have virtually no access to native speakers or instructors and so have struggled with what tone to memorize for such words. Virtually none of the books I have indicate which tone to use.

The explanation I saw, which I think was in some graduate paper or linguistic article, can be summarized as follows. When words are formed at the lexical level and speakers are not conscious of any real grammatical relationship between them, a third tone preceding a neutral tone is pronounced the normal half third tone (i.e. with the low following pitch third tones have before any full tone). Examples of this are 椅子 yi3 zi and 姐姐 jie3 jie.

When words are formed at the grammatical level and speakers are conscious of the separability of the words, the third tone undergoes the normal tone sandhi before another third tone and changes to second tone. Examples of this are 小姐 xiao2 jie/xiao3 jie and, I think, compounds in phrases like 美美麗麗 mei mei li4 li4 (I am not sure about the second mei, which may only be reduced rather than completely neutralized), 請請 qing2 qing/qing3 qing, 本本書 ben2 ben shu1/ben3 ben shu1, and 比比皆是 bi2 bi jie1 shi4/bi3 bi jie1 shi4 ( courtesy of greek_frappa's website)(again, I am not sure about the second "bi," which may only be reduced in tone, rather than completely neutralized). The resulting neutral tone for the second syllables is said always to be something linke mid range after a second tone (45_3 or maybe 45_2) and "half high" after a third tone (21_4). These rules are said to be regardless of the original tone, unless the syllable is only reduced, rather than neutralized, which happens in some constructions, but not others.

Does all this seem to match the facts?

[taibeihong]

Ala, you seem very knowledgeable not just about Shanghainese, but also about phonetics and linguistics, so I think you'd be the ideal person to tell us more about Shanghainese. My mother language is Spanish, but I studied Mandarin and speak it more or less well. When I tried learning Shanghainese (living in Shanghai for 7 months motivated me), it was really difficult, the sound and tone systems were so different from Mandarin that I just couldn't get it! I'm not living in SHanghai right now, but I have a book and tapes to study the dialect/language. So far, I understand the tone contour that polysyllabic WORDS take. What I have problems with is the contours words take withing a sentence. WHat happens when, for example, a word that is 33 55 31 is followed by (let's say) a word that is 11 22 33? Do both words keep their contours or do they all merge? maybe into a sentence like 33 55 33 33 33 31? What happens with pronouns, verbs and objects? does "ngu e nong" (I love you) act like a polysyllabic word, or do ngu, e and nong keep their own contours? does "ngu ko nong zanhe e o" also acquire the contour of a 7 syllable word, or is it like a 3 syllable plus 4?

ANother question: you were talking about "xinpai" when referring to pronunciation. I'm very interested in knowing how does "xinpai" difer from other styles, phonetically speaking.

Thank you!