Can Shanghainese be written?

Shanghainese is a dialect of Wu spoken by about 14 million people in Shanghai. There are also many Shanghainese speakers in Hong Kong. There is no standard written form of Shanghainese and it rarely appears in writing.

Is Shanghainese the same as Chinese?

Since Shanghai is in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the official language of the city is standard Mandarin Chinese, also known as Putonghua. However, the traditional language of the Shanghai region is Shanghainese, which is a dialect of Wu Chinese which is not mutually intelligible with Mandarin Chinese.

Do Mandarin and Cantonese use the same writing system?

Because both dialects share the same origin and have the same base characters, they have almost written the same way. When it comes to writing the characters, Mandarin is written using simplified characters as set by the Chinese government in the 1950s. Cantonese, on the other hand, is still written traditionally.

Does written Cantonese exist?

Written Cantonese is the written form of Cantonese, the most complete written form of Chinese after that for Mandarin Chinese and Classical Chinese. Written vernacular Chinese first appeared in the 17th century and a written form of Mandarin became standard throughout China in the early 20th century.

Can mandarin speakers understand written Cantonese?

No, they are completely different languages. Although Cantonese and Mandarin have many similarities, they are not mutually intelligible. This means that, presuming one has no significant exposure or training, a speaker of Mandarin will understand little to nothing of Cantonese and vice-versa.

How similar is Shanghainese to Mandarin?

But, Shanghainese only shares 29\% lexical similarity with Mandarin to be precise, that is, 71\% of the words are different, including a lot of basic, everyday words – enough that with the pronunciation and tone differences Chinese speakers outside the Wu language family will be unable to communicate at all.