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Wu (Chinese: 吳方言/吴方言; pinyin: Wú fāngyán Wu dialect; Chinese: 吳語/吴语; pinyin: Wú yǔ Wu language) is one of the major divisions of the Chinese language. It is spoken in most of Zhejiang province, the municipality of Shanghai, southern Jiangsu province, as well as smaller parts of Anhui, Jiangxi, and Fujian provinces. Major Wu dialects include those of Shanghai, Suzhou, Wenzhou, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, Yongkang, and Quzhou. As of 1991, there are 87 million speakers of Wu Chinese, making it the second largest form of Chinese after Mandarin (which has 800 million speakers).

Among speakers of other Chinese varieties, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is even a special term used to describe the quality of Wu speech: 吳儂軟語/吴侬软语 wúnóngruǎnyǔ. The actual source of this impression is harder to place. It is likely a combination of many factors. Among speakers of Wu, for example, Shanghainese is considered softer and mellower than the variant spoken in Ningbo, although some Wu speakers still insist that Suzhou dialect is more pleasant and beautiful than both dialects of Shanghai and Ningbo.

Like all other varieties of Chinese, there is plenty of dispute as to whether Wu is a language or a dialect. See Identification of the varieties of Chinese for the issues surrounding this dispute.

The modern Wu language can be traced back to the ancient Wu and Yue peoples centred around what is now southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang. The Japanese Go-on (呉音) pronunciation of Chinese characters (obtained from the Wu Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms period) is from the same region of China where Wu is spoken today.

Nevertheless, just like most other Chinese dialects, modern Wu stems mainly out of Middle Chinese. Although Wu is the earliest dialect separating from the Ancient Northern Chinese, and thus keeps many ancient characteristics, it was being influenced by northern Chinese of different times throughout its development. This was due to the geographical closeness to north China and also to the high rate of education in this region. During the time between Ming Dynasty and early Republican era, the main characteristics of modern Wu have been formed and the Suzhou dialect became a central influential dialect that many dialectologists use this dialect to cite the examples of Wu dialect.

After the Taiping Revolution at the end of Qing dynasty, since most of the other Wu-speaking regions were largely destroyed by the war, Shanghai became an important city in this region and immigrants mainly from the Wu-speaking regions started their new lives there. This largely changed the language of Shanghai, thus making it a language island compared to its suburb area. In the first half of the 20th century, before Mandarin was strongly promoted to the Wu-speaking region, Shanghainese in a degree played the role as a regional lingua franca and, gradually, replacing the influence from Suzhou dialect.

After the founding of People's Republic of China, strong promotion of Mandarin in the Wu Speaking region largely influenced the development of this language. Wu was gradually ruled out of most of the modern media and schools. Public organisations are required to use Mandarin in them. With the influx of migrants consisting mostly non Wu-speaking population and the nearly total mandarinisation of public media and organisations, as well as the radical Mandarin promotion measures, more and more children of Wu descent cannot speak Wu anymore, even within their families. Instead, Mandarin becomes their mother tongue.

Many people have noticed this trend and thus call for the protection of this language. More and more TV programs in Wu appear although they are mostly comedies rather than formal programs.

The modern Wu spoken area is roughly a heritage of the See language tree of the Chinese dialects starting from 1500 BC, and Wu's position relative to them.

According to Yan (2006), Wu is divided into six dialect areas:

• Taihu(太湖): Spoken over much of southern part of Jiangsu province, including Suzhou ,Wuxi and Changzhou; municipality of Shanghai; and northern part of Zhejiang province, including Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Ningbo, Huzhou, and Jiaxing. This group makes up the largest population among all Wu speakers. The subdialects of this region are, in a large degree, mutually intelligible among each other.

• Taizhou(台州): Spoken in and around Taizhou, Zhejiang province. Taizhou Wu is among the southern dialects the closest to Taihu Wu, also known as North Wu, and can communicate with speakers of Taihu Wu.

• Oujiang(甌江/瓯江)/Dong'ou(東甌片/东瓯片): Spoken in and around Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. This dialect is the most distinctive and mutually unintelligible among all the Wu dialects. Some dialectologists even treated it as a dialect separate from the rest of Wu dialect.

• Wuzhou(婺州): Spoken in and around Jinhua, Zhejiang province. Like Taizhou Wu dialect, it is mutually intelligible with Taihu Wu dialect at least in some degree.

• Chuqu(處衢/处衢): Spoken in and around Lishui and Quzhou in Zhejiang as well as in Shangrao County and Yushan County in Jiangxi province.

• Xuanzhou(宣州): Spoken in and around Xuancheng, Anhui province. This part of Wu is becoming less spoken since the campaign started by Taiping Revolution and is being slowly replaced by the immigrants' mandarin dialect from the north of Yangtse river.

According to Yan (2006), The Wu dialects are notable among Chinese languages in having kept voiced plosives and fricatives from Middle Chinese, such as /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, /v/, etc.; and maintaining the three-way contrast of Middle Chinese stops and affricates, e.g /p, pˈ, b/, /tɕ tɕˈ, dʑ/. Regarding tones, the Wu dialects may have from 5 tones (Shanghai dialect), to 10 or more tones (Wujiang).

See Suzhou dialect, Hangzhou dialect, and Shanghai dialect for examples of Wu phonology.

Wu's pronoun system is complex when it comes to personal and demonstrative pronouns. For example, the first person plural pronoun differs when it is inclusive (including the hearer) and when it is exclusive (excluding the hearer, such as "me and him/her/them not you").

In terms of word order, there is a relatively high occurrence of Subject-Object-Verb sentences.

In terms of phonology, Tone sandhi is also extremely complex, and helps parse multisyllabic words and idiomatic phrases. In some cases, indirect objects are distinguished from direct objects by a voiced/voiceless distinction.

Yan,M.M. (2006). Introduction to Chinese Dialectology. Muenchen: LINCOM EUROPA

• Shanghainese Wu Dictionary - Search in Mandarin, Shanghai, IPA, or English
• Classification of Wu Dialects - By James Campbell
• Tones in Wu Dialects - Compiled by James Campbell
• Wu Chinese Online Association(Simplified Chinese) - Aimed at modernization of Wu Chinese, including basics of Wu, Wu romanization scheme, pronunciation dictionaries of different dialects, Wu input method development, Wu research literatures, written Wu experiment, Wu orthography, a discussion forum etc.
• The elegant language in Jiangnan area (江南雅音话吴语)(Simplified Chinese) - Excellent reference on Wu Chinese, including tones of the sub-dialects.

• Globalization, National Culture and the Search for Identity: A Chinese Dilemma (1st Quarter of 2006, Media Development) - A comprehensive article, written by Wu Mei and Guo Zhenzhi of World Association for Christian Communication, related to the struggle for national cultural unity by current Chinese Communist national government while desperately fighting for preservation on Chinese regional cultures that have been the precious roots of all Han Chinese people (including Hangzhou Wu dialect). Excellent for anyone doing research on Chinese language linguistic, anthropology on Chinese culture, international business, foreign languages, global studies, and translation/interpretation.
• Modernisation a Threat to Dialects in China - An excellent article originally from Straits Times Interactive through YTL Community website, it provides an insight of Chinese dialects, both major and minor, losing their speakers to Standard Mandarin due to greater mobility and interaction. Excellent for anyone doing research on Chinese language linguistic, anthropology on Chinese culture, international business, foreign languages, global studies, and translation/interpretation.
• Middlebury Expands Study Abroad Horizons - An excellent article including a section on future exchange programs in learning Chinese language in Hangzhou (plus colorful, positive impression on the beautiful Hangzhou dialect, too). (Requires registration of online account before viewing)
• Mind your language (from The Standard, Hong Kong) - This newspaper article provides a deep insight on the danger of decline in the usage of dialects, including Wu dialects, other than the rising star of Standard Mandarin. It also mentions an exception where some grassroots’ organizations and, sometimes, larger institutions, are the force behind the preservation of their dialects. Another excellent article for research on Chinese language linguistic, anthropology on Chinese culture, international business, foreign languages, global studies, and translation/interpretation.
• China: Dialect use on TV worries Beijing (originally from Straits Times Interactive, Singapore and posted on AsiaMedia Media News Daily from UCLA) - Article on the use of dialects other than standard Mandarin in China where strict media censorship is high.
• Standard or Local Chinese - TV Programs in Dialect (from Radio86.co.uk) - Another article on the use of dialects other than standard Mandarin in China.