The Hangzhounese, Hangzhou Dialect or Rhangzei Rhwa (simplified Chinese: 杭州话; traditional Chinese: 杭州話; pinyin: hángzhōuhuà), is spoken in the city of Hangzhou and its immediate suburbs, but excluding areas further away from Hangzhou such as Xiāoshān (蕭山) and Yúháng (余杭) (both originally county-level cities and now the districts within Hangzhou City). The number of speakers of the Hangzhounese has been estimated to be about 1.2 to 1.5 million. It belongs to the Wu language family, which in turn constitutes one of the Sinitic language families. Hangzhounese is of immense interest to Chinese historical phonologists and dialectologists because phonologically, it exhibits extensive similarities with the other Wu languages; however, grammatically and lexically, it shows many Mandarin tendencies. (Simmons 1995)
Read more about Hangzhou Dialect: Classification, Vocabulary, History, Examples
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