Suzhounese (Suzhounese: 蘇州閒話; sou tseu ghe gho), also known as the Suzhou dialect (alternatively Soochow dialect), is the variety of Chinese traditionally spoken in the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu, China. Suzhounese is a variety of Wu Chinese, and was traditionally considered the Wu Chinese prestige dialect. Suzhounese has a large vowel inventory and it is relatively conservative in initials by preserving voiced consonants from Middle Chinese.
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👉 Suzhou dialect in the context of Classical Gardens of Suzhou
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.
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Suzhou dialect in the context of Wu Chinese
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).
Suzhou dialect in the context of Wuxi dialect
The Wuxi dialect (Simplified Chinese: 无锡话; Traditional Chinese: 無錫話; Pinyin: Wúxīhuà, Wu: mu sik wo, Wuxi dialect: [vu˨˨˧ siɪʔ˦ ɦu˨]) is a dialect of Wu. It is spoken in the city of Wuxi in Jiangsu province, China.
It has many similarities with Shanghainese and the Suzhou dialect. It is mutually intelligible with the Changzhou dialect to which it is most closely related. It is not at all mutually intelligible with Mandarin, China's official language.