Suzhou dialect
Suzhou dialect (蘇州話; pinyin: su zhou hua) is a dialect of Wu, spoken in Suzhou, in the Jiangsu province of China.It is typical of the Wu dialects, being rich in vowels,and conservative in having a many initials, and has many similarities with the Shanghai accent.
| Labials | Dentals | Silibants | Palatals | Velars | Laryngeals | |
| Unvoiced Unaspirated Stops | p | t | ʦ | ʨ | k | (ʔ) |
| Unvoiced Aspirated Stops | pʰ | tʰ | ʦʰ | ʨʰ | kʰ | |
| Voiced Stops | b | d | ʥ | g | ||
| Nasals | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Unvoiced Fricatives | f | s | ɕ | h | ||
| Voiced Fricatives | v | z | ɦ | |||
| Liquids | l |
Suzhou dialect has a set of voiced initials and exhibits unvoiced unaspirated and aspirated stops, there are unvoiced and voiced fricatives sets. Moreover, palatized initials also feature.
| Vowels | Dipthongs | Tripthongs | Nasals | Glottals |
| m, ŋ, l | ||||
| ɿ | ||||
| ɥ | ||||
| i | iÃÂø, iɤ, io, iÃÂæ, iɒ | iÃÂøy | in, iŋ, ioŋ, iaŋ, iɒŋ | iəʔ, iɤʔ, ioʔ, iɔʔ, iaʔ, iɒʔ |
| y | yən | yɤʔ | ||
| u | uÃÂø, uE, uɒ | uən, uɒŋ, uaŋ | uɤʔ, uoʔ, uaʔ | |
| ɪ | ||||
| ÃÂø | ÃÂøy | |||
| ɤʔ | ||||
| o | oŋ | oʔ | ||
| əu | ən | əʔ | ||
| E | ||||
| ɔʔ | ||||
| ÃÂæ | ||||
| a | aŋ | aʔ | ||
| ɑ | ||||
| ɒ | ɒŋ | ɒʔ |
Suzhou has one tripthong rime, [ iÃÂøy ]. Unlike Shanghai, it has no nasalised rimes, although it does have a set of rimes which end in a nasal stop. Middle Chinese ru tone characters which end in [ -p -t -k ] end as a glottal stop [ -ʔ ] in Suzhou. Middle Chinese nasal endings [ -m ] have merged with rimes which end with [ -n ] in Suzhou. Middle Chinese [ -ŋ ] ending rimes have split into two types in Suzhou. Those which have a high fronted main vowel merge with [ -n ] ending rimes. Those which possess a palatising medial [ -i- ] and back main vowel, retain the [ -ŋ ] ending.
| Yin Ping | Yang Ping | Shang | Yin Qu | Yang Qu | Yin Ru | Yang Ru |
| 陰平 | 陽平 | 上聲 | 陰去 | 陽去 | 陰入 | 陽入 |
| 44 | 24 | 52 | 412 | 31 | 4 | 23 |
In Suzhou, part of the Middle Chinese Shang tone characters has merged with the modern yin qu tone.