Shanghainese dictionary

[eion_padraig]

Hey all,

I was perusing through a local bookstore on Fuzhou Rd (Not the Foreign Languages bookstore) and I saw a Shanghainese dictionary. It had English and Chinese characters (simplified) for definitions and it seemed to use international pronunciation for the Shanghainese. I wrote down the book number and the title, but forgot it at home. I'll post that tomorrow. It was a yellow book, five inches by 4 inches. I didn't look at it too closely as I'm only interested in learning enough Shanghainese to make locals think I know more than I do, helpful for bargaining and whatnot.

It also mentioned they were putting together other dialects dictionaries and listed Beijing as one. I thought that was a bit strange.

Eion

[ala]

Hey all' date='

I didn't look at it too closely as I'm only interested in learning enough Shanghainese to make locals think I know more than I do, helpful for bargaining and whatnot.[/quote']

Ha, that means you have to be fluent. Or you can just "en" and "ei" your way though, and shake your head when in the negative. Make sure you go "mmm....." when you are considering, but the price is too high.

it seemed to use international pronunciation for the Shanghainese.

Yeah, most Shanghainese romanizations are based off IPA, which is problematic because most Chinese are accustomed to the anti-IPA hanyu pinyin system. But Shanghainese has a problem with hanyu pinyin, since it has so many voiced intials and vowels. There's also the problem of the glottal stop (a question mark like symbol ? in IPA).

The tone marks (34, 53, 3, 5, 13) in the Shanghainese dictionaries are usually thrown out the window in speech, since tone sandhi neutralizes everything. At the most, you just have to memorize the tone (out of two possible choices: 34 or 53) for the first syllable of a word or idiomatic phrase. Tones are a piece of cake in Shanghainese (if you speak a language that has voiced initials like English).

Two tones (to memorize) for normal lengthed voiceless (t, k, p, t', s, sh, etc) syllables:

34 = flat pitch. Pronounce the vowel twice (the first up, second down). 线, 死 shii = shi (up) + i (down). In English first pronounce question "There's sheep?" without the -p, then pronounce the "ea" in "easy" immediately.

53 = down pitch. Very similar to pitch in English "pea" "kay" "she" or "say". 批，開，西，三

Three other tones relate automatically to syllable structure (hence no need to memorize these tones):

13 <-- all normal lengthed voiced syllables (d, g, b, z, etc) have this pitch. Similar to the pitch in English "day" or "bay." 台，被

3 <-- all short, voiced (d, g, b, z, etc) syllables have this pitch. Very similar to English "dip" or "buck". 碟，白

5 <-- all short, voiceless (t, k, p, t', s, sh, etc) syllables have this pitch. Very similar to the pitch in English "pit", "ship" or "tuck". 筆，锡，特

Tone sandhi is exhibited for polysyllabic words or phrases. After the first syllable, all tones in remaining syllables are typically neutralized.

[eion_padraig]

Darn you linguists! I've decided not to learn the dialect on principle, but if I wanted to learn, that would've been helpful.

I did think it was funny that the English was very poorly edited though. That always leaves a bad impression in a language book.

Anyway, the info for the book is:

ISBN 7-313-03364-8 18.00 yuan

汉英上海口语词典

A Chinese - English Shanghai Dialect Dictionary

[ala]

I did think it was funny that the English was very poorly edited though. That always leaves a bad impression in a language book.

ISBN 7-313-03364-8 18.00 yuan

Haha... what do you expect? It's only 2 bucks and 15 cents. And no sales tax.

[taibeihong]

Ala,

OK, so two tones for voiceless consonants, and fixed tones for voiceless consonants + glottal stop, voiced consonants and voiced consonants with glottal stop. That makes it fairly easy for most shanghainese syllables. BUt... what happens to l, m, n, r and ng? I have a book with tapes, "xueshuo shanghaihua", and in the tone examples, nasal and liquid initials would seem to be able to appear both in high-falling, mid-rising and low-rising pitches! and when they end in a glottal stop, they also appear in low-short and high-short contours. Is there an easy way to handle tones with them?

[ala]

BUt... what happens to l, m, n, r and ng? I have a book with tapes, "xueshuo shanghaihua", and in the tone examples, nasal and liquid initials would seem to be able to appear both in high-falling, mid-rising and low-rising pitches! and when they end in a glottal stop, they also appear in low-short and high-short contours. Is there an easy way to handle tones with them?

Yeah. Separate the l,m,n,ng,(w) into two classes (breathy voiced, and initial glottal stop = voiceless). Voiced will have low register (12). Those with a voiceless initial glottal stop preceding the sonorants will have a falling tone (53). All short syllables for the liquids and nasals (m,n, l..) are voiced and have a low register (2). (See the two main exceptions to this at the bottom of my post).

Textbooks usually distinguish them like this:

12 voiced: 毛、年、来、外 = mho (mo), nhi (gni), lhei (lei), ngha (nga)

53 glottal stop initial: 猫、粘、拉、吘 = mo (qmo), ni (qni), la (qla), ng (qng, nk)

short syllable liquids and nasals 没、日、立、 辣 all have low register (2).

So either you spell them with a voiced "h" to represent the breathy voiced group (low register). Or you use "q" to represent the glottal stop preceding the nasal and liquid consonants (falling). The q- system, I wrote in parenthesis; the typical h (voiced h)- system outside of parenthesis. Others use accent marks to distinguish them (usually on the falling tone for those with the glottal stop initial).

The exceptions:

美 does not have the voiced h nor an initial glottal stop, it does not have a falling tone nor a voiced register. It is 34 and very unique.

挖 is also sonorant voiced consonant (waq), but it has a high register (5). This is not an exception if you ignore the semi-vowel --> uaq.

So your textbook is right that they are possible (mid-rising; high short). Except, they are rare exceptions probably taken from Mandarin. 美 used to be pronounced predictably as voiced mi (12).

[taibeihong]

Ala! That was VERY useful. How do you know all this? what's your background? Is there a bibliography you can recommend for learning about shanghainese? (it can be in ENglish, or Chinese, or even German, Russian, Italian or SPanish) Is there a particular site where they could be ordered on-line? I enjoyed working in SHanghai, and hope I'll be sent there to work again, and having a knowledge of Shanghainese would be very useful in getting sent back there. Being so linguistically minded, knowing the phonetic and grammar details of languages always help me learn them a lot better.

[Samantha00544]

When I was bron, I listened to and spoke Shanghainese.This language is very funny as many words will have different even contrary meaning with different tone.Give you one word to do translation:蚕吐丝答答滴

[ala]

Yeah! Shanghainese is very context based. Say the same phrase in a happy tone, and it means one thing; say it with a different attitude, slower or faster, louder or quieter, it means something completely different.

There's also a lot of illogical grammar like: 勿要太开心俄 = 很开心。The way you say it and the 俄 is so crucial... because if you say it wrong then it just means 别太开心.

[geek_frappa]

is this a good site for shanghaiese?!

http://www.linguasinica.com/Shanghai/default.html

[ala]

is this a good site for shanghaiese?!

http://www.linguasinica.com/Shanghai/default.html

It's ok.. it's pretty old school though in terms of pronunciation and usage. 呢 is written as ni, when it is pronounced /nE/ or /ne/ today. And no one still says: 交关谢谢侬 (thank you very much). The romanization is also very strange, sh is used for /z/, ai is used for /E/, j is used for pinyin z /ts/. The word for "Yes" 哎 is written as Hai when it is actually pronounced as /curved-hE/ or /E/. So it tries really hard to conform to former and bygone pronunciations. The recordings do well in presenting some accurate Shanghainese (albeit of a different era).