The mutual unintelligibility of Sinitic lect

[Lux de Veritas]

There is 7 main Sinitic lect,

1. Mandarin
2. Cantonese
3. Min
4. Wu (or inaccurately as Shanghai-ese)
5. Gan (Jiangxi lect)
6. Xiang (Hunan lect)
7. Hakka

All sinitic lects are mutually unintelligible. And even their many of their sublects are mutually unintelligible with one another.

Above is Wenzhou lect. I cannot understand almost a single word if I hear it with virgin ear, and even with subtitle, I am not able to understand a single sentence. With subtitle, I am able to catch probably 10-15% of individual words.

I am a speaker of three main Sinitic lect, namely Min Nan/Taiwanese, Cantonese and Mandarin. My native lect is Min Nan/Taiwanese while my Mandarin is as good as native, but I pronounce with a tone peculiar to Taiwanese people.

Wenzhou lect is reportedly a sublect of Wu. Any Wu speaker want to comment? How much can you guys Wu speaker understand Wenzhou lect?

 

[Zsari]

Wenzhou lect is reportedly a sublect of Wu. Any Wu speaker want to comment? How much can you guys Wu speaker understand Wenzhou lect?

Less than 5%, lol, that is with the subtitle.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

About 1/3 vocabularies of the Wenzhounese sound familiar to me.

 

[Okemos]

There is 7 main Sinitic lect,

1. Mandarin
2. Cantonese
3. Min
4. Wu (or inaccurately as Shanghai-ese)
5. Gan (Jiangxi lect)
6. Xiang (Hunan lect)
7. Hakka

All sinitic lects are mutually unintelligible. And even their many of their sublects are mutually unintelligible with one another.

Above is Wenzhou lect. I cannot understand almost a single word if I hear it with virgin ear, and even with subtitle, I am not able to understand a single sentence. With subtitle, I am able to catch probably 10-15% of individual words.

I am a speaker of three main Sinitic lect, namely Min Nan/Taiwanese, Cantonese and Mandarin. My native lect is Min Nan/Taiwanese while my Mandarin is as good as native, but I pronounce with a tone peculiar to Taiwanese people.

Wenzhou lect is reportedly a sublect of Wu. Any Wu speaker want to comment? How much can you guys Wu speaker understand Wenzhou lect?

I am Wu speaker from northeastern Zhejiang. I can understand basically all Wu sub-dialects from southern Jiangsu to Zhejiang, and Shanghai, in fact, I speak my own dialect when travelling in Shanghai, Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu, but nobody other than Wenzhou people really can understand their dialect, lol. Wenzhou dialect is not really Wu dialect. It is heavily influenced by Fujian dialect. It's considered hardest sub-dialect.

Also you cannot say they are all mutually unintelligible. My grandparents can understand Mandarin TV, though they cannot speak.

This is representative of Wu dialect, 吴侬软语。

Found a nice folk song in Wu dialect.

I can understand both videos perfectly, but not Wenzhou dialect!

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

I am Wu speaker from northeastern Zhejiang. I can understand basically all Wu sub-dialects from southern Jiangsu to Zhejiang, and Shanghai, in fact, I speak my own dialect when travelling in Shanghai, Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu, but nobody other than Wenzhou people really can understand their dialect, lol. Wenzhou dialect is not really Wu dialect. It is heavily influenced by Fujian dialect. It's considered hardest sub-dialect.

Also you cannot say they are all mutually unintelligible. My grandparents can understand Mandarin TV, though they cannot speak.

This is representative of Wu dialect, 吴侬软语。

Found a nice folk song in Wu dialect.

I can understand both videos perfectly, but not Wenzhou dialect!

The Wu dialect already starts to alter heavily in Taizhou.

And the central Zhejiang is an intermediate between the North Wu and South Wu, maybe slightly closer to the North Wu.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Well, Wenzhou dialect is probably the most difficult dialect for other Chinese people to understand, as we were talking about on the other thread.

I'm a Hong Konger so my native dialect is Cantonese. I had to learn Mandarin separately, and I use it very often (many of my closest friends are Mainlanders). My ancestry is Hakka, but my spoken Hakka is not very good.

With other dialects it is mostly just guesswork for me, sometimes it is easier to guess depending on the context, sometimes it is nearly impossible, like with Wenzhou dialect.

Can't understand much Teochew for example, despite it being close to Hakka and Hokkien. But luckily they can usually speak either Mandarin or Cantonese when talking to me, so it's rarely ever a problem. Can't understand much Hokkien either, but those guys can usually speak Mandarin too.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

Well, Wenzhou dialect is probably the most difficult dialect for other Chinese people to understand, as we were talking about on the other thread.

I'm a Hong Konger so my native dialect is Cantonese. I had to learn Mandarin separately, and I use it very often (many of my closest friends are Mainlanders). My ancestry is Hakka, but my spoken Hakka is not very good.

With other dialects it is mostly just guesswork for me, sometimes it is easier to guess depending on the context, sometimes it is nearly impossible, like with Wenzhou dialect.

Can't understand much Teochew for example, despite it being close to Hakka and Hokkien. But luckily they can usually speak either Mandarin or Cantonese when talking to me, so it's rarely ever a problem. Can't understand much Hokkien either, but those guys can usually speak Mandarin too.

Teochew is actually a sub-dialect of Hokkien.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Teochew is actually a sub-dialect of Hokkien.

That's right. How well can you understand Hokkien btw?

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

That's right. How well can you understand Hokkien btw?

It is harder to understand than the standard Cantonese.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

My native lect is Min Nan/Taiwanese while my Mandarin is as good as native, but I pronounce with a tone peculiar to Taiwanese people.

The Taiwanese way of speaking Mandarin has a lot of influence overseas. The older generation in HK for example learned to speak Mandarin from watching Taiwanese shows, so they speak in a similar way.

Also there is no "sh" sound in Cantonese, no "r" sound either, leading to problems pronouncing some things.

How easy is it for you to understand Teochew by the way?

 

[terranMarine]

Beijing locals' mandarin sounds different compared to Taiwan

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

Beijing locals' mandarin sounds different compared to Taiwan

Of course, the accent is vastly different, but they can still 100% understand each other nevertheless.

Kinda like the difference of the American English and the British English.

 

[terranMarine]

Of course, the accent is vastly different, but they can 100% understand each other nevertheless.

Kinda like the difference of the American English and the British English.

True, but i think the sound of Taiwanese Mandarin is more crisp compared to Northern Mainlanders.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

True, but i think the sound of Taiwanese Mandarin is more crisp compared to Northern Mainlanders.

They use to pronounce more with the nasal than the Putonghua from the North China, kinda similar the way how Cantonese and Fujianese used to speak Putonghua.

Many middle age folks from Shanghai also have an unique thick accent, but the young folks speak the standard Putonghua with no heavy accent, similar to the accent spoken by the anchors from CCTV.

 

[terranMarine]

They use to pronounce more with the nasal than the Putonghua from the North China, kinda similar the way how Cantonese and Fujianese used to speak Putonghua.

Many middle age folks from Shanghai also have an unique thick accent, but the young folks speak the standard Putonghua with no heavy accent, similar to the accent spoken by the anchors from CCTV.

Ah i see