Precautions Shanghai

Shanghainese language belongs to a dialect of Wu in Song Jiang whose development slightly lags behind before Shanghai opens its ports. According to record in Songjiang Prefecture, we could know that, “among all cities in Ming Dynasty, Shanghai is less important than Jiaxing. Until Qing Dynasty, Shanghai is considered less important than Suzhou.”

After Shanghai opened its port, a lot of immigrants from many areas, especially from Wu had an important effect for Shanghainese. It developed at a high speed while maintaining some characteristics in Song River area. The language was simplified and a large number of old vocabularies were replaced by the new words. Since then, Shanghainese became the dialect developing fastest in Wu dialect in Lake Taihu Area over the past 150 years. What’s more, it became the most effective dialect in Wu dialects replacing the status of the traditional Suzhou dialect. Both Shanghainese and Suzhou dialect are representatives of Wu dialects.