Long-short (romanization)

The long-short romanization system (Chinese: 长短音; pinyin: Chángduǎn yīn) is a romanization system for northern Wu dialects, particularly the Shanghai dialect and the Suzhou dialect. The system is called "Long-short" 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.

A distinctive characteristic of Wu dialects is their retention of the Middle Chinese "muddy voice" initials, so that Wu is one of the few Chinese dialect groups with a three-way distinction between voiced, voiceless and aspirated consonants. Because other Chinese varieties such as Mandarin and Cantonese distinguish only between unaspirated and aspirated initials, romanization systems used for those dialects use the convention of writing, for example, the unaspirated [p] as "b" and the aspirated [pʰ] as "p". However this format is insufficient for the thrree-way distinction preserved by Wu, so the long-short romanization uses an "h" to show aspiration (so that [pʰ] is written "ph").

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.

Initials

		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			f 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 /ʔm̩/, /ʔn̩/ 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.

Finals

See also:

Long vowels

Dialect	aa	ae	au	ee	ei	eu	ii	iu/ü	oe	oo	ou
Shanghai	aː	eː	oː	iː	eⁱ	ɤᵚ	iː	yː	øː	ʊː	ɯᵝː
Suzhou	ɑː	ɛː	æː	ɪː	ɛː	øʏ	iː	yː	ɵː	ʊː	oʊ ~ β̩/v̩
Dialect	iaa	iae	iau	iee	iei	ieu			ioe
Shanghai	jaː	jeː	joː	iː	jeⁱ	jɤᵚ			jøː
Suzhou	jɑː	ɪː	jæː	ɪː	ɪː	ʏː			jɵː
Dialect	uaa	uae			uei				uoe
Shanghai	waː	weː			weⁱ				wøː
Suzhou	wɑː	wɛː			wɛː				wɵː

Short Vowels

	Vowels with following glottal stops				Vowels with following nasals
Dialect	å/ah	a	e	o	ån/ahn	an	en	on
Shanghai	aʔ	aʔ	əʔ	oʔ	ãː	ãː	ən	oŋ
Suzhou	ɑʔ	aʔ	əʔ	oʔ	ɑ̃ː	ãː	ən	oŋ
Dialect	iå/iah	ia	ie	io	iån/iahn	ian	in	ion
Shanghai	jaʔ	jaʔ	eʔ	joʔ	jãː	jãː	eɲ	joŋ
Suzhou	jɑʔ	jaʔ	jəʔ	joʔ	jɑ̃ː	jãː	ɪn	joŋ
Dialect		ua	ue	üe	uån/uahn	uan	uen	ün
Shanghai		waʔ	wəʔ	øʔ	wãː	wãː	wən	øɲ
Suzhou		waʔ	wəʔ	ɥəʔ	wɑ̃ː	wãː	wən	ʏn

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	ɚ	ʔm̩	ʔn̩	ʔŋ̩
Suzhou	m̩	n̩	ŋ̩	l̩	ʔm̩	ʔn̩	ʔŋ̩

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	zʮ	sɿ	sʮ	tsɿ	tsʮ	tsʰɿ	tsʰʮ

Tones

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.