A short history of written Wu, Part I

Abstract

Abstract In two articles published in the 1920s, Hu Shi argued that China’s vernacular literature movement should encompass not only literature written in Mandarin but also other regional languages in China, and suggested that Wu, particularly Suzhounese, was the regional language most likely to achieve what he described as “independence” (独立) as a literary language. Beginning in the late Ming dynasty with Feng Menglong’s Mountain Songs collection, this study traces the literary journey of Suzhounese as used in various types of written texts such as Kun opera scripts, tanci novels, fiction, and Wu song texts into the early 20th century. This study argues that while written Suzhounese never achieved full independence as a literary language, and could now be said to have gone into decline, its more than 300-year history deserves more attention than it normally receives in histories of the Chinese literary tradition. This is not only because of the scale of its use and its degree of social influence, but also because the memory of this substantial literary tradition lives on and gives greater legitimacy to use of written Wu – particularly Shanghainese – in contemporary print culture in China.