中国十大最难懂方言 温州话居首

A city best known for its millionaires and factories churning out everything from buttons to lightbulbs is now better known in China for its unintelligible dialect.

温州，这个以百万富翁以及工厂产品从纽扣到灯泡无所不包而闻名的城市，现在又以当地难懂的方言出了名。

That's according to a post titled 'China's Top 10 Most Difficult Dialects' -- known as fang yan in Mandarin -- that's been trending on Weibo, China's microblogging service. Wenzhou, the free-wheeling commercial metropolis in Zhejiang province, took the crown.

根据微博上流行的一个名为“中国十大最难懂方言”的帖子，地处浙江省的这个商业城市拔得头筹。

'Even if you're not afraid of the sky or the earth, you're afraid of the Wenzhou devil-language,' wrote the author of the top 10 list.

帖子的作者写道：天不怕地不怕，就怕温州人说鬼话。

The author, who posted the list anonymously, writes that the Wenzhou dialect is so notoriously difficult that during the war against Japan, the Chinese Communist Party's Eighth Route Army used Wenzhou speakers to relay messages by foot or by phone so that Japanese intelligence officers would not be able to understand them. The author likens Wenzhou people to characters in Hollywood movie 'Windtalkers,' which featured U.S. soldiers who used the Navajo language as a code to prevent the Japanese from listening in during World War II.

这位未具名作者写道：据说在抗日战争中，八路军部队相互之间联系由于保密需要，都是派两个温州人，进行电话或者步话机联系，而日本的情报部门，总也翻译不出发音极为复杂的温州话；可以说当时的温州人就像美国大片中的风语者一样。电影《风语者》讲述的是二战期间美国士兵利用纳瓦霍语传递情报，以防日本人监听的故事。

Cantonese comes in at an unsurprising second place. The post notes that while Cantonese is 'trendy' and many people can say at least a few words of it, the fact that it has its own written characters -- and that in Guangzhou public announcements, Cantonese is often broadcast before Mandarin -- highlight the huge gulf between the two languages. Such a gap also continues to persist in Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese control in 1997 but continues to operate using Cantonese. 'Some people in Hong Kong can't even understand Mandarin,' the author adds.

广东话不出意外地被排在第二。作者说：广东话可以说现在是流传广泛，很多人都会说几句简单的广东话，但是我把广东话排名第二的原因是，广东话不只有自己独特的发言，还有自己的文字，而且在广州的公交车上都是先用广东话再用普通话进行报站的，有些广东人包括香港人甚至听不懂普通话，这足以说明广东话和普通话的差别之大。

The status of Cantonese in southern China has been an emotional issue, even sparking protests in Guangdong in 2010 following a plan by the government to switch some television programs to Mandarin.

广东话在中国南方的地位一直是个情感问题，甚至还于2010年在广东引发了抗议活动，抗议的导火索是当地政府计划将部分电视节目改用普通话播出。

In addition to the Wenzhou dialect, another linguistically related tongue of the wu family from the city of Suzhou comes in in the top three. Wu denotes the region which includes Zhejiang, Shanghai and parts of Jiangsu province. According to the post's author, the Suzhou dialect has an air of 'bookishness' and sounds especially mellifluous when spoken by Suzhou women -- and no wonder, as the city is known throughout history for being a center of culture, while its women are celebrated as among the most beautiful in China.

和温州话一样属于吴方言语系的苏州话排名第三。吴指的是包括浙江省、上海市和江苏省部分地方在内的地区。据该帖子的作者称，苏州话有种古意和书卷气，苏州女孩子说苏州话时更为温软动听。这也不足为奇，因为苏州历来都是文化中心，也是盛产美女的地方。

Suzhou shares third place with southern Fujian province's Minnan dialect, also widely spoken in Taiwan and among diaspora populations in Southeast Asia. 'If one doesn't have a talent for languages, one could live their entire life in Fujian and still not understand Minnan,' says the post.

和苏州话并列第三的是福建省的闽南话。很多台湾人和东南亚华侨也说闽南话。该帖称，估计没有语言天赋的人，就是在福建待上一辈子可能都听不懂闽南话。

In a country as large and linguistically diverse as China, how easy or difficult a particular dialect is a contentious issue. The author's post prompted a storm of replies on the puzzling nature of the country's languages.

像中国这样一个幅员辽阔、语言多样的国家，判断某种方言的难懂程度存在一定争议。该帖子引来大量网友回帖，对费解的中国语言吐槽。

'The distance between Wuhan and Xianning is less than 100 kilometers, but the dialects are mutually unintelligible. Yet I have no problems understanding the dialect in Enshi, which is 500 kilometers away,' wrote one Weibo user.

一位微博用户说，武汉和咸宁相距不到100公里，但却听不懂对方的方言，但他听500公里之外的恩施的方言却没有问题。

Other users questioned whether the author of the post had missed other dialects also worthy of being listed, including that spoken on Hainan island, China's southernmost province, where the dialect is part of the Minnan family of dialects but said to be incomprehensible to other Minnan speakers.

其他用户质疑作者是否漏掉了其他也应上榜的方言，其中包括海南岛的方言。海南方言也属于闽南方言，但据说其他说闽南话的人却听不懂海南方言。

The full list:

整个排名：

1. Wenzhou dialect

1. 温州话

2. Cantonese

2. 广东话

3. Suzhou and Minnan dialects

3. 苏州话和闽南话

4. Shanghainese

4. 上海话

5. Shaanxi dialect

5. 陕西话

6. Changsha dialect

6. 长沙话

7. Sichuan dialect

7. 四川话

8. Shandong dialect

8. 山东话

9. Tianjin dialect

9. 天津话

10. Northeast dialect

10. 东北话