Shaoxing dialect

The Shaoxing dialect is a Wu dialect spoken in the city of Shaoxing more specifically in the city center of Yuecheng 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 of Middle Chinese being divided into upper and lower registers. Within Wu, it is classified as a Northern Wu dialect belonging to the Taihu division within which it is classified under the Linshao subdivision.
It is the pronunciation of the Shaoxing dialect which is the standard to be used on the texts of Yue opera. It is also the native language of Cai Yuanpei and Lu Xun whose Baihua was often peppered with phrases from his native dialect.

Distribution

The suburban areas to the north and east stretching from Dongpu to Doumen and north of Pingshui 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.

Research into the Shaoxing dialect

The Shaoxing dialect has received an unusually large amount of attention. Documented research for the dialect has existed since the Kangxi era in the Qing dynasty, when there were three main works dealing with the Shaoxing dialect.

越语肯綮录 by Mao Qiling
越言释 by Ru Dunhe
越谚 by Fan Yin

In the modern era, Chao Yuen Ren documented four regions in Shaoxing in his Modern Wu Research. Besides Chao, the Shaoxing dialect has received the most attention from Chinese dialectologist Wang Futang whose 1959 Shaoxinghua jiyin 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 and Yang Jun in Shaoxing Fangyan. There is also an English-language monograph The Phonology of Shaoxing Chinese by Zhang Jisheng and a handful of other works in Chinese.
The Shaoxing dialect is also mentioned in Zhejiang Fangyan Fenqu, Zhejiang Fangyanci, and Shaoxingshi yanyu juan. As with most locations in China, Shaoxing is also covered in the Linguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects.

Phonological inventory

Citation tones

Register	Ping	Shang	Qu	Ru
Upper	42	35	33	4
Lower	21	13	22	2

Register	Ping	Shang	Qu	Ru
Upper	52	335	33	45
Lower	231	113	11	23

Register	Ping	Shang	Qu	Ru
Upper	41	55	44	5
Lower	15	22	31	32

Shaoxing dialect

Distribution

Research into the Shaoxing dialect

Phonological inventory

Citation tones

Syllable structure

Works cited