Long-short (romanization)

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The long-short romanization system is a romanization system for Wu Chinese. It was designed to accommodate the two most widely spoken Northern Wu dialects, the Shanghai dialect and the Suzhou dialect. The system is called "Long-short" (长短音 in Chinese) because the system distinguishes between long vowels, which are written with two vowels, and short vowels, which are written with one. In some dialects, the short vowels are pronounced with a following glottal stop, making the distinction between short and long vowels more important.

Because the phonology of Wu Chinese is highly comparable with that of Middle Chinese, the romanization system has needed to incorporate a wider range of sounds compared to Mandarin Chinese or Cantonese. One notable example involves the use of the "muddy voice", which means that Wu Chinese is one of the few Chinese dialects which can distinguish between voiced, voiceless and aspirated consonants. Because most dialects only distinguish between unaspirated and aspirated, the romanization systems used for those dialects use the same convention (writing, for example, the unaspirated [p] as "b" and the aspirated [pʰ] as p), but this format is incompatible with Wu Chinese, so the long-short romanization uses an "h" to show aspiration (so that [pʰ] is written "ph").

Contents 1 Initials and Finals 1.1 Initials 1.2 Finals 1.2.1 Long vowels 1.2.2 Short Vowels 1.2.3 Syllabic consonants 1.2.4 Null Finals 1.3 Tones 1.4 Example sentences

[edit] Initials and Finals

In Wu Chinese, like in other varieties of Chinese, all syllables are divided into initials (an initial consonant) and finals (the vowel, glide and syllable coda), as well as having an inherent tone.

[edit] Initials

See also: Chart of Wu initials (in Chinese)

		Labial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m m	n n	ɲ gn	ŋ ng
Plosive	voiceless	p p	t t		k k	ʔ *
	aspirated	pʰ ph	tʰ th		kʰ kh
	slack voice	b̥ b	d̥ d		ɡ̊ g
Affricate	voiceless		ts tz	tɕ c
	aspirated		tsʰ ts	tɕʰ ch
	slack voice		(d̥z̥) dz	d̥ʑ̊ dj
Fricative	voiceless	f f	s s	ɕ x		h h
	slack voice	v̥ v	z̥ z	ʑ̊ j
Approximant			l l			ɦ r

* /ʔɲ/ is written "kn", /ʔn/, /ʔm/ and /ʔl/ are written with a preceding apostrophe (such as ’n) and is not written if it is the only initial consonant. ’um, ’un and ’ung are used for /ʔn̩/, /ʔm̩/ and /ʔŋ̩/ respectively.

/ɦj/ and /ɦɥ/ are both written as "y" and /ɦw/ is written as "w". /j/, /ɥ/ and /w/ are otherwise considered as part of the final.

The consonants s, z, tz and ts become alveolo-palatal in the Shanghai dialect when they are written before "i". They always remain dental in the Suzhou dialect.

[edit] Finals

See also: List of Wu finals (in Chinese)

[edit] Long vowels

[edit] Short Vowels

[edit] Syllabic consonants

Northern Wu has seven syllabic consonants, three of which are glottalized.

	Unglottalized				Glottalized
Dialect	um	un	ung	ul	`um	`un	`ung
Shanghai	m̩	n̩	ŋ̩	r̩/əɫ	ʔm̩	ʔn̩	ʔŋ̩
Suzhou	m̩	n̩	ŋ̩	əɹ	ʔm̩	ʔn̩	ʔŋ̩

[edit] Null Finals

Similar to other Chinese dialects, Wu features "null finals", which occurs after non-palatal fricatives, and are pronounced like syllabic consonants.

Dialect	zi	zu	si	su	tsi	tsu	tshi	tshu
Shanghai	zɿ/dzɿ		sɿ		tsɿ		tsʰɿ
Suzhou	zɿ	zɥ	sɿ	sɥ	tsɿ	tsɥ	tsʰɿ	tsʰɥ

[edit] Tones

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The Shanghai dialect has five tones, while the Suzhou dialect has mostly retained the Middle Chinese tone system, except that it now only has one Shang tone, with the other merging with the Yin Qu tone.

[edit] Example sentences

搿能家好孛相法子个游戏值得收藏。

Genenkaa haubesianfatsi ge yeushii zete seuzån.

A game this fun is worthy of keeping.

阿拉现在主要个问题就是哪能去解决搿只拼音个事体。勒勒搿前头，阿拉呒没别个花头个。

Ala yeezei tsuiauge vendii zieu zi naanen chii ciaacue getså phinin ge zithii. Leile ge zieedeu, ala umme biege hoodeu ge.

Our key concern now is how to solve the romanization problem. Before solving that, we have no other options.