Character for "ci4" in Shanghai's "ci4 fan4 gao1"

[Gary Soup]

I was discussing the popular (but harder and harder to find) Shanghainese breakfast item ci4 fan4 gao1 with a Shanghainese friend and asked him for the literal meaning of ci4 in the name. He was unable to find it in his big Chinese-English dictionary but wrote it down as a phonetic 次 on top of the rice character 米 and guessed that it might be a character used only in Shanghainese. Does this ci4 occur in any dictionary, and if so, what is the literal meaning?

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Making ci4 fan4 gao1 (right)

[roddy]

It's in the ABC as

zi1 - sacrificial grain in 粢盛

seems to be a variant of 齐?

Roddy

[ala]

Yeah, it's "zi" 粢, but pronounced like pinyin "ci" in Shanghainese.

[Gary Soup]

Thanks, you guys are awesome. I found it in Wenlin as zi1 "grain used in ancient sacrifices" (I guess Wenlin is based on ABC, come to think of it). What's confusing is that the phonetic charcter on top is ci4, no? Is this a case of Shanghainese, for once, being more conservative than the Mandarin?

[ala]

Is this a case of Shanghainese, for once, being more conservative than the Mandarin?

Hehe, in terms of consonants, Shanghainese like all Wu dialects is almost ALWAYS more conservative than Mandarin, such as 葡萄 being "budao", 皮 being "bi", 城 being "zen" (English z), 人 being "nin" or "zen". Many consonants appear to be reversed from Mandarin (voiceless consonants in Mandarin are instead voiced in Shanghainese/Wu). No other Chinese dialect comes close to the Wu dialects' preservation of early Middle Chinese consonants (3 Kingdoms, Jin, Sui, early Tang dynasties).

Another example like the 粢 example (reversal in aspiration) off the top of my head is "遍" (as in 普遍), in Mandarin is "bian" [pien], in Shanghainese it is like Hanyu Pinyin "pi" [p'i].

[Gary Soup]

Thanks. I assume you are referring to initial consonants, not finals, which seem to have a life of their own (or no life at all).

[ala]

yup, sorry, i just meant initial consonants.

shanghainese and wu dialects have only two final consonants: /?/ and /N/, where /N/ can be realized as a nasalized vowel [~], alveolar [n], palatal [gn], or velar [ng], but there is usually no phonemic distinction (kind of like the Japanese n, which is usually uvular, but can be alveolar [n], labial [m] and velar [ng]). The /?/ final is mostly not pronounced either.

final rimes in general are in a very "advanced" state of development in shanghainese. hehe. for example 来、雷、蓝 and 水、暑、四 are homophonous sets in shanghainese. there are no diphthongs in shanghainese.