The history and present situation of Changzhou dialect.

Changzhou dialect belongs to a branch of Taihu Lake in Wuyu District. From the phonetic point of view, the ancient voiced initial system is completely preserved. There are seven tones. In ancient times, the four tones were divided into two tones, yin and yang, provided that the initial consonants were clear and the yang tones were not divided. Changzhou dialect is the same as Wu dialect, and some words have different pronunciations.

In modern Wu dialect and Changzhou dialect, Zhao Yuanren divided Changzhou dialect into street dialect and gentry dialect. Gossip is the language of ordinary citizens, and gentry dialect is the language of a few officials and gentry in southeast villages and towns. With the development of history and social changes. At that time, the unpretentious local accent gained the orthodox position of Changzhou dialect, while the accents of a few old officials and gentry were considered to have some local accent.

"Lao 3" in Changzhou dialect is a frequently used auxiliary word, which is often attached to nouns, verbs and adjectives in spoken language. Such as men (husbands), women (wives), young men (children), young men (boys) and so on. There are also many "going", such as our own (ourselves), our family (us), our family (you) and our family (dab). Some metaphors are unique, such as "hou6lou2ya6cen6". In the thirty-seventh year of the Republic of China (1948), Zhang Lian 'an wrote dialects and incorporated proverbs from Changzhou dialect into couplets, which was quite lively and interesting. Four words such as "joint bone, dig up the flesh to mend the sore", five words such as "dung on the Buddha's head, simmering loach in the pen tube", six words such as "shaving your head and taking a bath when you are hungry, burning incense when you are poor in fortune telling", seven words such as "old tofu is tender, blind girl is entangled in her feet", and eight words such as "catching turtles in a jar, adding fuel to the fire, adding insult to injury".

Since liberation, Changzhou has more and more frequent contacts with other places, and there is a tendency to approach Mandarin in pronunciation. Many young people can't distinguish sharp group sounds.