Romanization of Wu Chinese in the context of "Shanghainese"

Wu (simplified Chinese: 吴语; traditional Chinese: 吳語; pinyin: Wúyǔ; Wugniu and IPA:wu-gniu₆ [ɦu˩.nʲy˦] (Shanghainese), ghou-gniu₆ [ɦou˨.nʲy˧] (Suzhounese)) is a major group of Sinitic languages spoken primarily in Shanghai, Zhejiang province, and parts of Jiangsu province, especially south of the Yangtze River, which makes up the cultural region of Wu. The Wu languages are at times simply called Shanghainese, especially when introduced to foreigners. The Suzhounese variety was the prestige dialect of Wu as of the 19th century, but had been replaced in status by Shanghainese by the turn of the 20th century, coinciding with a period of rapid language change in the city. The languages of Northern Wu constitute a language family and are mutually intelligible, while those of Southern Wu do not form a phylogenetic language family and are not mutually intelligible.

Historical linguists view Wu of great significance because of its obviously distinct nature. The Wu languages typically preserve all voiced initials of medieval Chinese, as well as the checked tone in the form of a glottal stop. Wu varieties also have noticeably unique morphological and syntactic innovations, as well as lexicon exclusively found in the Wu grouping. It is also of note that the influential linguist Chao Yuen Ren was a native speaker of Changzhounese, a variety of Northern Wu. The Wu varieties, especially that of Suzhou, are traditionally perceived as soft in the ears of speakers of both Wu and non-Wu languages, leading to the idiom "the tender speech of Wu" (吴侬软语; 吳儂軟語).

The Classical Gardens of Suzhou (traditional Chinese: 蘇州園林; simplified Chinese: 苏州园林; pinyin: Sūzhōu yuánlín; Suzhounese (Wugniu): sou-tseu yoe-lin) are a group of gardens in the city of Suzhou, in Jiangsu, China, that have been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Spanning a period of almost one thousand years, from the Northern Song to the late Qing dynasties (11th-19th century), these gardens, most of them built by scholars, standardized many of the key features of classical Chinese garden design with constructed landscapes mimicking natural scenery of rocks, hills and rivers with strategically located pavilions and pagodas.

Huzhou (Chinese: 湖州; pinyin: Húzhōu, listen; Huzhou dialect: ghou² cieu¹) is a prefecture-level city in northern Zhejiang province (Hangzhou–Jiaxing–Huzhou Plain, China). Lying south of Lake Tai, it borders Jiaxing to the east, Hangzhou to the south, and the provinces of Anhui and Jiangsu to the west and north respectively.

Huzhou is on the south bank of Taihu Lake, which it is named after. It has a history of more than 2,300 years. It governs Wuxing and Nanxun districts and three counties of Deqing, Changxing and Anji, with a total area of 5,818 square kilometers. As of the 2020 census, its population was 3,367,579 inhabitants, of whom 1,015,937 lived in the built-up (or metro) area made of Wuxing District as Nanxun District was not yet being conurbated.