The Wenglingnese language, casually spoken | Wikitongues

The Wenlingnese language, also called Wenling Hua (温岭话), is a variety of the Taizhou Wu language from Zhejiang Province, China. This video was recorded by Wikitongues community members Jiali Lee and Elliot.

More from Wikipedia: The Wu group (Southern Wu in particular) is well known among linguists and sinologists as being one of the most internally diverse among the Sinitic groups, with very little mutual intelligibility between varieties across subgroups. Among speakers of other Sinitic languages, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is an idiom in Mandarin that specifically describes these qualities of Wu speech: 吴侬软语, which literally means "the tender speech of Wu". On the other hand, some Wu varieties like Wenzhounese have gained notoriety for their high incomprehensibility to both Wu and non-Wu speakers alike, so much so that Wenzhounese was used during the Second World War to avoid Japanese interception. Wu dialects are typified linguistically as having preserved the voiced initials of Middle Chinese, having a majority of Middle Chinese tones undergo a register split, and preserving a checked tone typically terminating in a glottal stop, although some dialects maintain the tone without the stop and certain dialects of Southern Wu have undergone or are starting to undergo a process of devoicing. The historical relations which determine Wu classification primarily consist of two main factors: firstly, geography, both in terms of physical geography and distance south or away from Mandarin, that is, Wu varieties are part of a Wu–Min dialect continuum from southern Jiangsu to Fujian and Chaoshan. The second factor is the drawing of historical administrative boundaries, which, in addition to physical barriers, limit mobility and in the majority of cases more or less determine the boundary of a Wu dialect.

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[sz]

Translation

Hello everyone! I'm Jiali. I’m from Wenling in Zhejiang province, China. I grew up by the sea, so we have a lot of seafood, so I’m quite smart. Wenlingnese is quite different from Putonghua (Mandarin), because the more south you go, where I’m from, the local languages have more "z c s" sounds, but very scarcely have "zh ch sh" sounds. People who don’t understand what I’m saying (in Wenlingnese) might feel that I’m arguing, because in my language there is a lot of stress that goes down (in tone). I grew up by the sea, but went to college in Shanghai. Although Shanhai is only three hours away by train, Shanghainese is quite different. It is softer, while Wenlingnese is more sharp (in pronunciation). Now, I only speak Wenlingnese when I’m with my parents or if I go back to Wenling. Today, young kids in Wenling schools speak standard Chinese and scarcely speak Wenlingnese, except maybe when they’re at home speaking with their grandparents or their parents. So for me, if I go back to Wenling, because I’ve lived in Shanghai for about ten years, even if I meet another Wenlingnese person here, I wouldn’t be used to speaking Wenlingnese. Even as I’m recording this video now, I feel that I’m struggling a little with my pronunciation. But if I’m calling my parents, I would be more comfortable speaking Wenlingnese. My mom video calls or calls me almost every day, so I have no problem talking with her. But if I meet another Wenlingnese person or if my high school classmate from Wenling talks to me, I feel a bit stuck and would usually talk to them in Mandarin Chinese. For me, Wenling has three good things: its mountains, its waters, and its seafood. Because we are near the sea, our food is mostly seafood. Wenling has its culture built on the sea, so it’s pretty nice, and I hope more people may be interested in learning about Wenling. Usually when I’m greeting people (in Wenlingnese), I usually say: hello, have you eaten (vai cho vong 3:27). It’s asking whether you have had a meal, whether it’s in the morning, afternoon, or evening, I would ask "have you eaten" as a greeting instead of hello or something else, it’s always "have you eaten". If you have the chance, I hope you can visit Wenling and have some seafood here. Goodbye!

[onemore]

It was fun to listen to. She spoke it with a very sunny disposition and that lifted my mood. 😀

[complimentary_voucher]

As a totally non-Mandarin or Cantonese speaker I can still easily hear that this is a distinct language, although I've heard other English speakers say they can't even tell the diff between Japanese and Mandarin. I think personally that is whack because they sound as distinct to me as Russian and French 🤷‍♀

[nicholaschen]

I'm not fluent, but I hear some of the words my parents chide me with!

[xxkq]

Sounds like a lot of influence from Mandarin in her speech which is natural for the younger generation. Certainly hear some similarities with Shanghainese though, interesting clip.

[niluus]

Thank you for the new video! Wenlingnese sounds beautiful. I haven't heard about it before and i found it quite interesting. I hope there will be subtitles soon 😄

[cavarsarah]

I'm a B2/C1 student of Mandarin and understood the gist + 30-40% of what was said here. The nuances were really interesting, and this (to me) was more immediately decipherable than other Chinese dialects I've heard. Thanks for the video!

[ReiKakariki]

Weinglinese have similiarities with Choquinjiang, Shangainese and Mandarim phoneticaly and in nominatives case. Interesting idiom, very local, very regional.

[junchen]

As someone who's fluent in Hokkien, Sichaunese, Cantonese, it's so weird how I can kind of understand most of it like I don't even know this language at all.

[austin]

this definitely sounds very similar to shanghainese with more mandarin influence. my grandmother speaks to me a lot

[LiftedTogether]

Beautiful language to hear. A subtitle would be a perfect addition to the video because although I don’t understand what is being said, her face and smile indicate a beautiful story.

[walruslennon]

哈哈我还是可以听懂 I can understand most of it. I speak Ningboese, both Ng dialect

[yux.tn.]

I've actually been to Taizhou before and also to a nearby city called Linyi

seriously Zhejiang has so many small cities that are entrepreneurial and creative...its so much better than north China

[Achenjan]

Understood almost 100% as a Shanghainese Wu Chinese speaker

[ReiKakariki]

Put subtitles and transliteration of this idiom

[tsunderenekokun]

I can tell she’s also speaking mandarin here

[陈芹-yj]

dialect around Taizhou is so understandable from a prospective of a Northern Wu dialect speaker, I hardly concentrate to listen and understand what she's taliking about.

[whuge]

I can totally understand without subtitle😊

[km]

This lady is so beautiful! Hello from Moscow, by the way

[felipebranchesi]

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