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Talk:History of the Cossacks

Old talk
This article will be increased. The Cossacks as well. But of course in Cossacks could be a short summarise of their history.User:Yeti 20:34, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Maybe this page should also talk about the importance of Cossacks to Ukrainian national identity. Along with their language, their historical memory of the relative self-rule of the Cossacks is an important component of their national construction. So in addition to the as yet unwritten section on Cossacks in Russia today, we should definitely talk about Ukraine. --Iceager 02:39, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The following piece removed from article.

Origin myths
''The Cossacks allegedly began as a non-exclusive ethnic group which grew out of various Hun and Turko-Mongol equestrian pastoralists. From them derives the Kazakh term Cossack meaning "wanderer/adventurer" Though the Kazakhs mostly adopted Islam, Orthodox Christianity soon became the representative religion of the the Cossack "ethnicity". Similarly Slavic replaced Turkic as the necessary communication base. In legend, outlaws from all across Europe made their way to the steppes of the Ukraine to enjoy the freedom of cossack life.''

Truth mixed with guesswork. Mikkalai 02:15, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Shouldn't this be merged and redirected into Cossack? - Arthur George Carrick 20:34, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * 'Yes!' It also needs sources adding. Ewjw 10:11, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Forget it. Big articles are being split, not merged. But there is a piece of wisdom, indeed: the contents of both must be carefully reshuffled. mikka (t) 01:45, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

If there's a lot of shuffling to do, it may be easier to merge, mix, and then extract the history article while leaving behind a summary of it. —Michael Z. 2005-12-6 02:06 Z

I don't think it should be merged. It was obviously split so that the main Cossack article wouldn't be oversized and bloated. Add sources and let it be.--KrossTalk 04:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that merge is needed, just more expantion. Even ifwe merge them now, we would had to split them again eventually.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC) Cazacii- sunt tyragetii din antichitate, din marea familie a traco-getilor, care traiau pe teritoriul Daciei, pana in nordul Marii Negre. Tyragetii, adica getii de pe Tiras=Nistru. Ei locuiau intre Nistru si Don. Sunt cunoscuti in evul mediu, in vremea voievodatelor si al Moldovei, ca si cazacii- moldoveni, prieteni si ajutor al lui Stefan cel Mare si despre care, Sobieski, regele Poloniei, spunea, in urma unui razboi cu Stefan cel Mare: nu ma lupt cu cazacii, pentruca sunt moldoveni. Asta este originea lor, sunt getii din nordul Marii negre, nume generic de moldoveni, dar care traind aproape de slavi, limba lor s-a slavizat. Au fost vecnic independenti, nu se socotesc rusi, slavi, tatari sau alte etnii. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.80.17.0 (talk) 13:08, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

World War 2
Is this a joke? No sources, no bibliography, apears to be a cut and paste from an article. -- Kuban kazak 17:55, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

This article should not be merged with History of Cossacks, because History of Cossacks puts very little emphasis on Ukrainian Cossacks, who are really the most popular and most refferred to as "cossacks".
 * Well expand the article, and being a cossack I find that quite insulting considerign that a) Ukrainian cossacks don't exist anymore. b) All of the Zaporozhian cossacks migrated to the Kuban c)Being a successor of them, we call ourselves RUSSIAN. And in western press Cossacks are more often portraid as Russian right monarchist groups. -- Kuban kazak 01:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Being the son of a Kuban Cossack that fought with Vlasov during the war I heard a different side to the story. Unfortunately most of the members are gone now including a famous writer of Cossack history in Windsor, Ontario. We need more participation from the inheritors of the Cossack life to fill in the gaps that are missing. alexchem- sept 21, 2006

Origins of Cossacks --- Wasili Glaskow
Who is Wasili Glaskow? Does he work at any university or academic institution? Is he a professional historian. You can find only one pocketbook written by him on the Amazon.com. His "conclusions" about the origins of Cossacks sounds like fiction of Russian and Ukrainian nationalists. Can anybody tell me who is this scholar? --133.41.4.46 19:10, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * His books were published in 60s, so too old to be able to google anything. But they were not self-published but by Robert Speller & Sons, a reputable publishing house. Also, the book is abailable in libraries, including the Library of Congress, see . I found him occastionally cited in modern books. Also note that his theory is purposefully cited as a non-mainstream one but with "Some authors..." preface which presents things properly. Theories exist but they are not universally accepted. If you want people to discuss things with you, log in to your account and use ONE and only one account. --Irpen 19:37, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

1)I have only one account. No relation to Oleksiy or whatever. Do not offense.
 * If you have "only one account". Care to use it. You don't even now. --Irpen 05:52, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

2) Library of Congress has many non-academic books. Its not an arguement. I just want to know is Wasili Glaskow an academic scholar or not? Did he have any other publications (even in Russian), presentations and so on.
 * I don't know. He was writing in 60s. However, there are references to him even in modern academic publications. --Irpen 05:52, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

3) Never heard about "Robert Speller & Sons, a reputable publishing house". Do you have any idea where I can get the information about it.
 * If you google around a little, you will see plenty of books, often cited too, published by RS&S but all of them in mid-century. Probably they are not around anymore. But from the books published at its time, this seems a pretty reputable publisher.

4)"Some authors" tells nothing. It is beter to call the thing by proper name: "non-mainstream author".
 * With this I agree. If this theory is indeed out of the mainstream, we can present it as such. I will check how exactly is he cited in other works.

5)I think the best way is to present theories about the Cossacks' origins by dividing them into two passeges: the mainstream (traditional Soviet and Western) and non-mainstream (stuff like "all steppe people were Cossacks' ancectors" etc.).

Any suggestions? 133.41.4.46 18:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)--Alex Kov 04:06, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

 * See above, --Irpen 05:52, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Cossacks and Jews?
Rather than writing an entirely new note, I (Cgingold) will simply re-post the comments on this subject from Talk:Cossack:

As a Jew (by birth rather than religion, of which I have none) I was astounded to see so little (only one fleeting reference) about the Cossack brutality toward Jews. I have a great deal of respect for the democratic aspects of Cossack society, but their role, under various regimes, in suppressing the democratic aspirations of other groups (including Jews) should have been described in more detail. I might add that, in the past, one of the most insulting things that a Jew could say about a person would be to call him a Cossack. Too Old 22:06, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

 * In the context of the 15th-18th centuries, the Jews often served as middlemen between the oppressive landlords and the peasants, often working as tax collectors or some such jobs. This was not their choice, the laws forbade them from owning property and the Jews certainly did not create this system, they just survived in it.  But when peasants and cossacks revolted, this frequently made the Jews a target of assault and they suffered significant casualties.  You are correct that a heading belongs on this subject. Faustian 22:40, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

 * I too was astonished to find only a single fleeting reference to this subject in both this article and Cossack. I haven't gone through the edit history, but I would not be surprised if there was material dealing with this subject that was removed at some point. In any event, the article is seriously defective without a section devoted to this issue. I hope it will be rectified sooner rather than later. Cgingold 12:52, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Statements and Citations
It seems that most of the "Early History" section was written by one author and one or two references. I have put citation tags for at least a month on many paragraphs, and none have been added. I tried to find some, but could not, probably because the citations are the only sources that state the given information. If there are no objections, I will re-write the early sections, with more in-line citations. Thanks, Horlo (talk) 09:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

"Cossacs" (Kozaki) were Slavs
Kozaki were and are Slavs. Stop with occultism. The term derives from the "goat-ers". Why are "historians" and "Linguists" always stealing slavic elements, cultural, mythological characters and proclaiming them as "non slavic"? Even Perun was proclaimed as "non Slavic"

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Gothic origins
is attempting to add information on the gothic background of the cossacks. He is, I believe, attempting to use "" as his reference. I opened this section so we could discuss it here.---- Work permit (talk) 17:18, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I believe you are correct as to the paper the user is referencing. I also agree that you are correct in reverting the additions: the content contended to be there simply isn't there. Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:34, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I even offered to help on the user talk page User_talk:Trevoorijk. I filled out a citation and asked for the page numbers to complete it.  The editor was never been heard from again, never made another contribution.---- Work permit (talk) 01:40, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:History of the Cossacks


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Broad Universe

Broad Universe is a United States-based, all volunteer organization with the primary goal of promoting science fiction, fantasy, and horror written by women. Writers, editors, publishers, reviewers, artists, and fans are invited to join them. "Broad-minded" men are welcome to participate. The organization originated in a panel discussion at WisCon, the feminist science fiction convention in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2000.

Broad Universe created the Rapid Fire Reading with a small group of member authors who each read an excerpt from their work no more than 5 minutes long. This has been very popular at conventions. It gives more authors an opportunity to read and it gives the audience a taste of fantastic fiction from several authors instead of just one.

Broad Universe buys dealer's tables at various conventions (genre related or publishers, librarians and other conventions of use to the members.) One member benefit is the sale of their books at 0% commission by Broad Universe volunteers at conventions.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Broad Universe


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Into the Void (Nine Inch Nails song)

"Into the Void" is a song by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails from their third studio album, The Fragile, released in 1999. It is the album's third single and saw release early 2000. A music video was directed by Walter Stern and Jeff Richter.

Release and reception
"Into the Void" was released as a single only in Australia on 10 January 2000. It peaked at #72 on the ARIA singles chart. This Australian release lacks a halo number, making it the only commercial Nine Inch Nails release with that distinction. (The Capital G single was released to Europe as a non-halo'ed 9" vinyl in June 2007.) However, a two-track promotional CD for "Into the Void", released only in the United States, was incorrectly identified as Halo Sixteen. As it was not an international release and was only sold in Australia, it is considered a rare release for NIN memorabilia collectors.

The version of "The Perfect Drug" included on this single is slightly longer than the one released on the Lost Highway soundtrack. It fades out at the end instead of ending abruptly. It is the same version found on the "We're in This Together Pt. 3" single. This track and all of the other tracks on this disc can be found on other halos.

"Into the Void" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, but lost to "Again" by Lenny Kravitz.

Music video
A music video for the song was directed by Walter Stern and Jeff Richter. An alternate version of the video was later released. The video begins with a series of macrophotographic close-ups of Trent Reznor, including his eyes, hair, and mouth. The video concludes with the Nine Inch Nails band performing the song in a red room and eventually destroying their equipment and the set itself. Into the Void was nominated for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards Breakthrough Video award, but lost out to Björk's All Is Full of Love, directed by Chris Cunningham.

In other media
During Tennocon 2023, the song was used in a cinematic teaser trailer for an upcoming update to the video game Warframe.

title: Into the Void (Nine Inch Nails song)


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London Irish

London Irish RFC is a professional rugby union club, currently in administration, which competed in the Premiership, the top division of English rugby union. The club had also competed in the Anglo-Welsh Cup, the European Champions Cup and European Challenge Cup. While playing in the Championship in 2016–17 and 2018–19, it also played in the British and Irish Cup and RFU Championship Cup. The club played home games at the Madejski Stadium in Reading, Berkshire for twenty years, before moving for the 2020–21 season to the Gtech Community Stadium in Brentford, West London.

In the 2022–23 season, London Irish encountered financial difficulty and were issued a winding-up order by HMRC over an unpaid tax demand. To avoid suspension from the Premiership, the RFU issued a deadline for the club to provide financial assurances that they could continue paying players and staff. London Irish missed this deadline and were consequently excluded from competing in 2023–24 season – not only in the Premiership but in all professional tiers of Rugby Union in England.

The club was founded in 1898 following the creation of London Scottish and London Welsh for the same reason, allowing Irishmen the chance to play rugby with fellow countrymen in the English capital.

London Irish won their only major trophy, the Powergen Cup, in 2002 and reached the 2009 Premiership final, losing 10–9 to Leicester Tigers. In the 2007–08 season, the team came close to a place in the Heineken Cup Final, losing out to Stade Toulousain 15–21 in the semi-final.

Formation and Early Years
London Irish was the last club to be formed in England by working and student exiles from the home countries, following London Scottish in 1878 and London Welsh in 1885. The first game took place on 1 October 1898 against the former Hammersmith club at Herne Hill Athletic Ground, with London Irish winning 8–3. The team that season benefited from the early recruitment of vet and Irish international Louis Magee. He became essential in the early years of the club along with club captain R.S Dyas in putting the team on the map and having regular fixtures between other London-based teams.

War and Conflict
The turn of the new century was a great time for London Irish with the club firmly solidified in the London club roster but these would be some of the last years of normality for the team. With the commencement of World War I, many of the players enlisted with Irish Battalions in their homeland for deployment in mainland Europe. In 1916, following the Easter Rising, a number of remaining players and members returned to Ireland to fight in the independence struggle; many did not return. It is unknown exactly how many with a connection to the club were lost. Following the formation of the Irish Free State in 1923, some of those who fought in Europe and/or Ireland returned to the club, which saw an overhaul of the organisation over the remainder of the decade, reviving the team and its influence for a new beginning.

In the years that followed, Irish made strides in playing competition outside of Greater London with matches against teams such as Leicester and Cardiff. This, however, was short-lived with the commencement of World War II and players and members again being dispersed across the continent, many of whom elected not to return following the end of the war. Nine of the players who participated in the 1938–39 season died in the conflict. The club's then playing ground located in Sunbury-on-Thames was acquired by Ministry for Agriculture to be used as a site to grow food for the war-torn capital. Because of the state of the playing field after the war, games were temporarily held at Rectory Field in Blackheath.

Post-war Years
The post-war era got off to a rocky beginning. Player numbers weren't what they used to be as former members elected not to move back to London and this made it difficult to front a starting XV. The year that followed saw the Winter of 1946, one of the coldest winters on record in the United Kingdom. Rectory Field was frozen for most the winter meaning Irish missed matches in the season. Things picked up with the arrival of a new captain, Des O'Brien, and a number of other key players and in 1948 London Irish celebrated their 50th anniversary with the most successful season yet for the club.

In the 1950s the club thrived, fielding teams most weeks, and in 1951 they became the first club to host touring Italian team Roma. On 9 September 1959, Irish returned to Sunbury and had a place to call home, which was dubbed The Avenue. They achieved a record-breaking season, remaining unbeaten.

Results in the 1960s were mixed, with many good wins but also a number of defeats. Fixtures improved and the club played against many famous teams, which changed the attitude of the training and playing and, in the 70s, London Irish became a force to be reckoned with, finishing first in the London Division of the Rugby Football Union in the 1976–77 season. Pre-season tours became popular and in 1977, the London Irish made history in South Africa when they became the first touring side to play a host of mixed-race teams.

Professional era
Since the professional era began in August 1995, London Irish has only lifted one piece of major silverware, winning the Powergen Cup in 2002 in a match against Northampton at Twickenham that saw the club win 38–7. Some 75,000 people attended the match, seeing the Exiles win in what is regarded as one of the most successful days in the club's history. London Irish enjoyed success in Europe in 2005–06 when they reached the final of the Challenge Cup, only to be defeated by Gloucester 36–34 at Twickenham.

In 2013, Irish were taken over by a consortium led by Mick Crossan, executive chairman of Powerday, a London-based recycling and waste management firm. Powerday would go on to be one of the club's main sponsors.

In early May 2023, the RFU sought clarification from London Irish about why the club's players and staff had not yet been paid for April 2023. On May 15, the RFU gave the club a May 30 deadline to sell the club to new owners, and indicated the club would be suspended from the Premiership if they were not satisfied the club had sufficient funding. Two weeks later, the RFU extended the deadline until June 6.

On 2 June 2023, London Irish received winding up petitions from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) over an unpaid tax bill believed to be up to £1 million, which saw them forced out of business.

Academy
London Irish managed their own academy, with players such as Tom Homer, Nick Kennedy, Topsy Ojo, Anthony Watson, brothers Delon and Guy Armitage, Alex Corbisiero and Jonathan Joseph having gone on to play for the senior side and be internationally capped. Ojo retired at the end of the 2018–19 season having made 301 appearances for the club.

Stadium
From the 2020–21 season, London Irish played at the Gtech Community Stadium, in Brentford, Greater London. The stadium is owned by Brentford F.C. who also play their home games there. The ground is a 17,250-capacity all-seater stadium that opened in 2020.

Prior to 2020, London Irish played at the Madejski Stadium in Reading, Berkshire for twenty seasons between 2000 and March 2020 when the 2019–20 season was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to delays owing to the pandemic, Brentford Stadium was running behind its scheduled opening date. Irish made the decision to play their remaining games when possible at Harlequin's Twickenham Stoop as they could not return to Reading. The Exiles had previously played at The Stoop in the 1999–2000 season before moving to the Madejski Stadium.

The largest crowd for a London Irish match was for a game against London Wasps on 15 March 2008 during the 2007–08 season. The crowd of 23,790 was also the highest attendance for a regular season Premiership Rugby match until December 2008.

On 12 March 2016, London Irish played their first home Premiership match abroad, and also the first-ever Premiership match outside England, when they travelled to the United States to face Saracens at the New York Red Bulls' Red Bull Arena in the New York metropolitan area.

On 15 August 2016, the club announced its intention to return to London and that it was in formal discussions with Hounslow London Borough Council to play at Brentford's new stadium. On 10 February 2017, the club confirmed that the council had approved its application to use the stadium for rugby, effectively allowing it to move into the new stadium from its opening season. This was later confirmed.

The club's training ground and offices were located at the Hazelwood Centre, which is located in the west of the city in Sunbury-on-Thames. The facility was opened in 2014 following the closure of The Avenue and is also used by NFL teams during the NFL International Series as a training facility.

London Irish Amateur Rugby Football Club
The club also hosts London Irish Amateur RFC (a separate legal entity) for non-professionals to allow them to improve in rugby. The team plays at the location of London Irish's training ground and offices, Hazelwood in Sunbury. Some players such as Justin Bishop and Kieran Campbell have gone through the ranks to play for the London Irish professional team.

Digger
Digger is an Irish wolfhound and the official mascot of London Irish.

In 2003, Digger won the "Best Mascot" award in Premiership Rugby at the Premier Rugby Marketing Awards.

On 23 April 2006, Digger ran the London Marathon raising money for spinal research. He finished the marathon in a time of 6 hours 39 minutes 31 seconds.

Others
Digger was joined by his cousin, Duggie, from the 2006–07 season. Much taller and much slower, Duggie has proved popular with younger children attending matchdays. As well as the mascot characters, there is also a real Irish wolfhound, Mr Doyle, who also attends the home games. Prior to Mr Doyle, his great uncle, Jumbo, attended home games before his retirement.

Rivalries
London Irish have rivalries in the Greater London area, mainly with Harlequins and Saracens, with whom they are now, thanks to Irish moving back to West London, able to have local derbies. Gtech Community Stadium's location makes it less than two miles to the Twickenham Stoop. They also maintain a friendly rivalry with fellow exiles London Scottish.

Season summaries
Gold background denotes champions Silver background denotes runners-up Pink background denotes relegated

* Finished first in pool but did not progress to the quarter-final. Their place was taken by Brive

Major Honours

 * Premiership Rugby
 * Runners–Up: (1) 2008–09
 * RFU Championship
 * Champions: (2) 2016–17, 2018–19
 * European Challenge Cup
 * Runners–Up: (1) 2005–06
 * Premiership Rugby Cup
 * Champions: (1) 2001–02
 * Runners–Up: (3) 1979–80, 2021–22, 2022–23
 * Surrey Cup
 * Champions: (4) 1980–81, 1981–82, 1985–86, 1986–87
 * Premiership Rugby Sevens Series
 * Champions: (1) 2012

Friendly

 * Middlesex Sevens
 * Champions: (1) 2009
 * Cunningham Duncombe Series
 * Champions: (1) 2016

Rugby World Cup
The following are players who have represented their countries at the Rugby World Cup whilst being registered with London Irish:

title: London Irish


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Gullfoss

Gullfoss ("Golden Falls"; ) is a waterfall located in the canyon of the Hvítá river in southwest Iceland.

History and description

The Hvítá river flows southward, and about a kilometre above the falls it turns sharply to the west and flows down into a wide curved three-step "staircase" and then abruptly plunges in two stages (11 m, and 21 m) into a crevice 32 m deep. The crevice, about 20 m wide and 2.5 km in length, extends perpendicular to the flow of the river. The average amount of water running down the waterfall is 141 m3 per second in the summer and 80 m3 per second in the winter. The highest flood measured was 2000 m3 per second.

During the first half of the 20th century and some years into the late 20th century, there was much speculation about using Gullfoss to generate electricity. During this period, the waterfall was rented indirectly by its owners, Tómas Tómasson and Halldór Halldórsson, to foreign investors. However, the investors' attempts were unsuccessful, partly due to lack of money. The waterfall was later sold to the state of Iceland, and is now protected.

Sigríður Tómasdóttir, the daughter of Tómas Tómasson, was determined to preserve the waterfall's condition and even threatened to throw herself down. Although it is widely believed, the very popular story that Sigríður saved the waterfall from exploitation is untrue. A stone memorial to Sigriður, located above the falls, depicts her profile.

Gullfoss is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Iceland. Together with Þingvellir and the geysers of Haukadalur, Gullfoss forms part of the Golden Circle, a popular day excursion for tourists in Iceland.

In popular culture
Gullfoss appears on the cover of the album Porcupine by the British band Echo and the Bunnymen. Additionally, the falls are referenced in the novella The Odd Saga of the American and a Curious Icelandic Flock; during a dinner, Snorri expresses a preference for Gullfoss, while Dr. Gustafsson favors Glymur. Gullfoss features in the music video for the single "Heaven" by the band Live. Gullfoss appears briefly in a sub-plot of the TV series Vikings, and one character kills herself by diving into it.

Gullfoss appears in the penultimate episode of the thirty-fourth season of the American reality competition The Amazing Race.

title: Gullfoss


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We're in This Together (Nine Inch Nails song)

"We're in This Together" is a song by industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails released in 1999. It is the 15th official Nine Inch Nails release and is a single for the album The Fragile. It was released as a three-disc single (also known as a "triple single").

Background
According to The Fragile contributor Keith Hillebrandt, "the whole song started from something [Reznor] actually played at the end of another track ... he wrote it up into an entirely new song".

The lyrics seem to be inspired by David Bowie's song "‘Heroes’" from the same-named 1977 album, such as with the line "You're the queen and I'm the king" and describing two people trying to fight against an ominous and seemingly unstoppable force. Bowie, who is recognized as one of Reznor's greatest influences, is given a special thanks credit in the liner notes of The Fragile.

MTV's Gil Kaufman described the song as "a seven-minute-plus cathartic pop song with somewhat hopeful lyrics over a plodding hip-hop beat, walls of distorted guitars and an eerie slasher-film cricket sound".

Both "10 Miles High" and "The New Flesh" originally appeared on the vinyl version of The Fragile.

The song was featured in the first official teaser trailer for Marvel Studios film The Avengers.

The song peaked at #21 on the US Mainstream Rock Billboard. Despite being one of the band's most popular songs, the band has only played it live five times, all during the Performance 2007 Tour.

Music video
The song's music video was directed by Mark Pellington and released on August 27, 1999. An extended version of the video has since surfaced. Trent Reznor and a large group of black-clothed men are seen running down empty streets, onto a train, and into a field. There are also shots of several elderly people, and a brief scene with a young woman.

The video was filmed in Guadalajara and in the dry lake of Sayula.

Release and reception
"We're in This Together" was released on a three-part single, which was only available in Europe and Japan; it was not released in the United States. Two radio promos (the first with the album mix and radio edit of the song, the second with just a unique short edit of the song) were released in America as Halo 15 as well.

AllMusic critic Christian Huey has reviewed the single release, describing the title track as a "strong song" and "different turn for him emotionally" while stating that "this adrenaline-infused, white noise territory was mined to even better effect on "Wish." Huey also criticized the three part single release, particularly referring to the orange disk as "the least substantial and the most redundant of the bunch" and "a tired repackaging of material." Spin reviewer Ann Powers referred to the song as "a sweet pop tune encased within the armor of industrial rock."

The track was listed as number 19 on Spin's list of "The 69 Best Alternative Rock Songs of 1999." Critic Christopher R. Weingarten has stated: "Though the anthemic chorus borders on “hit single,” the song still grinds with crunchy noise, whining guitars and a trash-can-sounding snare drum."

Personnel

 * Trent Reznor – writing, performance, and production
 * Jerome Dillon - chorus drums
 * Alan Moulder – production, engineering, mixing
 * Porter Ricks – remixing
 * Danny Lohner – remixing on "Complications of the Flesh"
 * David Carson – design and photography


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Chinese bronze inscriptions

Chinese bronze inscriptions, also commonly referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on ritual bronzes such as zhōng bells and dǐng tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty (2nd millennium BC) to the Zhou dynasty (11th–3rd century BC) and even later. Early bronze inscriptions were almost always cast (that is, the writing was done with a stylus in the wet clay of the piece-mold from which the bronze was then cast), while later inscriptions were often engraved after the bronze was cast. The bronze inscriptions are one of the earliest scripts in the Chinese family of scripts, preceded by the oracle bone script.

Terminology
For the early Western Zhou to early Warring States period, the bulk of writing which has been unearthed has been in the form of bronze inscriptions. As a result, it is common to refer to the variety of scripts of this period as "bronze script", even though there is no single such script. The term usually includes bronze inscriptions of the preceding Shang dynasty as well. However, there are great differences between the highly pictorial Shang emblem (aka "identificational") characters on bronzes (see "ox" clan insignia above), typical Shang bronze graphs, writing on bronzes from the middle of the Zhou dynasty, and that on late Zhou to Qin, Han and subsequent period bronzes. Furthermore, starting in the Spring and Autumn period, the writing in each region gradually evolved in different directions, such that the script styles in the Warring States of Chu, Qin and the eastern regions, for instance, were strikingly divergent. In addition, artistic scripts also emerged in the late Spring and Autumn to early Warring States, such as Bird Script (鳥書 niǎoshū), also called Bird Seal Script (niǎozhuàn 鳥篆), and Worm Script (chóngshū 蟲書).

Inscribed bronzes

Of the abundant Chinese ritual bronze artifacts extant today, about 12,000 have inscriptions. These have been periodically unearthed ever since their creation, and have been systematically collected and studied since at least the Song dynasty. The inscriptions tend to grow in length over time, from only one to six or so characters for the earlier Shang examples, to forty or so characters in the longest, late-Shang case, and frequently a hundred or more on Zhou bronzes, with the longest up to around 500.

In general, characters on ancient Chinese bronze inscriptions were arranged in vertical columns, written top to bottom, in a fashion thought to have been influenced by bamboo books, which are believed to have been the main medium for writing in the Shang and Zhou dynasties. The very narrow, vertical bamboo slats of these books were not suitable for writing wide characters, and so a number of graphs were rotated 90 degrees; this style then carried over to the Shang and Zhou oracle bones and bronzes. Examples: [[Image:Chinese characters from bronzes rotated 90 degrees.svg|left|thumb|450px|Examples of bronze inscription graphs rotated 270°: From left:

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Of the 12,000 inscribed bronzes extant today, roughly 3,000 date from the Shang dynasty, 6,000 from the Zhou dynasty, and the final 3,000 from the Qin and Han dynasties.

Shang bronze inscriptions
Inscriptions on Shang bronzes are of a fairly uniform style, making it possible to discuss a "Shang bronze script", although great differences still exist between typical characters and certain instances of clan names or emblems. Like early period oracle bone script, the structures and orientations of individual graphs varied greatly in the Shang bronze inscriptions, such that one may find a particular character written differently each time rather than in a standardized way (see the many examples of "tiger" graph to the lower left). As in the oracle bone script, characters could be written facing left or right, turned 90 degrees, and sometimes even flipped vertically, generally with no change in meaning. For instance, and  both represent the modern character xū 戌 (the 11th Earthly Branch), while  and  are both hóu 侯 "marquis". This was true of normal as well as extra complex identificational graphs, such as the hǔ 虎 "tiger" clan emblem at right, which was turned 90 degrees clockwise on its bronze.

These inscriptions are almost all cast (as opposed to engraved), and are relatively short and simple. Some were mainly to identify the name of a clan or other name, while typical inscriptions include the maker's clan name and the posthumous title of the ancestor who is commemorated by the making and use of the vessel. These inscriptions, especially those late period examples identifying a name, are typically executed in a script of highly pictographic flavor, which preserves the formal, complex Shang writing as would have primarily been written on bamboo or wood books, as opposed to the concurrent simplified, linearized and more rectilinear form of writing as seen on the oracle bones.

A few Shang inscriptions have been found which were brush-written on pottery, stone, jade or bone artifacts, and there are also some bone engravings on non-divination matters written in a complex, highly pictographic style; the structure and style of the bronze inscriptions is consistent with these.

The soft clay of the piece-molds used to produce the Shang to early Zhou bronzes was suitable for preserving most of the complexity of the brush-written characters on such books and other media, whereas the hard, bony surface of the oracle bones was difficult to engrave, spurring significant simplification and conversion to rectilinearity. Furthermore, some of the characters on the Shang bronzes may have been more complex than normal due to particularly conservative usage in this ritual medium, or when recording identificational inscriptions (clan or personal names); some scholars instead attribute this to purely decorative considerations. Shang bronze script may thus be considered a formal script, similar to but sometimes even more complex than the unattested daily Shang script on bamboo and wood books and other media, yet far more complex than the Shang script on the oracle bones.

Western Zhou
Western Zhou dynasty characters (as exemplified by bronze inscriptions of that time) basically continue from the Shang writing system; that is, early W. Zhou forms resemble Shang bronze forms (both such as clan names, and typical writing), without any clear or sudden distinction. They are, like their Shang predecessors in all media, often irregular in shape and size, and the structures and details often vary from one piece of writing to the next, and even within the same piece. Although most are not pictographs in function, the early Western Zhou bronze inscriptions have been described as more pictographic in flavor than those of subsequent periods. During the Western Zhou, many graphs begin to show signs of simplification and linearization (the changing of rounded elements into squared ones, solid elements into short line segments, and thick, variable-width lines into thin ones of uniform width), with the result being a decrease in pictographic quality, as depicted in the chart below. Some flexibility in orientation of graphs (rotation and reversibility) continues in the Western Zhou, but this becomes increasingly scarce throughout the Zhou dynasty. The graphs start to become slightly more uniform in structure, size and arrangement by the time of the third Zhou sovereign, King Kāng, and after the ninth, King Yì, this trend becomes more obvious.

Some have used the problematic term "large seal" (大篆 dàzhuàn) to refer to the script of this period. This term dates back to the Han dynasty, when (small) seal script and clerical script were both in use. It thus became necessary to distinguish between the two, as well as any earlier script forms which were still accessible in the form of books and inscriptions, so the terms "large seal" (大篆 dàzhuàn) and "small seal" (小篆 xiǎozhuàn, aka 秦篆 Qín zhuàn) came into being. However, since the term "large seal" is variously used to describe zhòuwén (籀文) examples from the ca. 800 BC Shizhoupian compendium, or inscriptions on both late W. Zhou bronze inscriptions and the Stone Drums of Qin, or all forms (including oracle bone script) predating small seal, the term is best avoided entirely.

Spring and Autumn
By the beginning of the Eastern Zhou, in the Spring and Autumn period, many graphs are fully linearized, as seen in the chart above; additionally, curved lines are straightened, and disconnected lines are often connected, with the result of greater convenience in writing, but a marked decrease in pictographic quality.

In the Eastern Zhou, the various states initially continued using the same forms as in the late Western Zhou. However, regional forms then began to diverge stylistically as early as the Spring and Autumn period, with the forms in the state of Qin remaining more conservative. At this time, seals and minted coins, both probably primarily of bronze, were already in use, according to traditional documents, but none of the extant seals have yet been indisputably dated to that period.

By the mid to late Spring and Autumn period, artistic derivative scripts with vertically elongated forms appeared on bronzes, especially in the eastern and southern states, and remained in use into the Warring States period (see detail of inscription from the Warring States Tomb of Marquis Yĭ of Zēng below left). In the same areas, in the late Spring and Autumn to early Warring States, scripts which embellished basic structures with decorative forms such as birds or worms also appeared. These are known as Bird Script (niǎoshū 鳥書) and Worm Script (chóngshū 蟲書), and collectively as Bird-worm scripts, (niǎochóngshū 鳥蟲書; see Bronze sword of King Gōujiàn to right); however, these were primarily decorative forms for inscriptions on bronzes and other items, and not scripts in daily use. Some bronzes of the period were incised in a rough, casual manner, with graph structures often differing somewhat from typical ones. It is thought that these reflected the popular (vulgar) writing of the time which coexisted with the formal script.

Warring States period
Seals have been found from the Warring States period, mostly cast in bronze, and minted bronze coins from this period are also numerous. These form an additional, valuable resource for the study of Chinese bronze inscriptions. It is also from this period that the first surviving bamboo and silk manuscripts have been uncovered.

In the early Warring States period, typical bronze inscriptions were similar in content and length to those in the late Western Zhou to Spring and Autumn period. One of the most famous sets of bronzes ever discovered dates to the early Warring States: a large set of biānzhōng bells from the tomb of Marquis Yĭ of the state of Zēng, unearthed in 1978. The total length of the inscriptions on this set was almost 2,800 characters.

In the mid to late Warring States period, the average length of inscriptions decreased greatly. Many, especially on weapons, recorded only the date, maker and so on, in contrast with earlier narrative contents. Beginning at this time, such inscriptions were typically engraved onto the already cast bronzes, rather than being written into the wet clay of piece-molds as had been the earlier practice. The engraving was often roughly and hastily executed.

In Warring States period bronze inscriptions, trends from the late Spring and Autumn period continue, such as the use of artistically embellished scripts (e.g., Bird and Insect Scripts) on decorated bronze items. In daily writing, which was not embellished in this manner, the typical script continued evolving in different directions in various regions, and this divergence was accelerated by both a lack of central political control as well as the spread of writing outside of the nobility. In the state of Qin, which was somewhat culturally isolated from the other states, and which was positioned on the old Zhou homeland, the script became more uniform and stylistically symmetrical, rather than changing much structurally. Change in the script was slow, so it remained more similar to the typical late Western Zhou script as found on bronzes of that period and the Shizhoupian compendium of ca. 800 BC. As a result, it was not until around the middle of the Warring States period that popular (aka common or vulgar) writing gained momentum in Qin, and even then, the vulgar forms remained somewhat similar to traditional forms, changing primarily in terms of becoming more rectilinear. Traditional forms in Qin remained in use as well, so that two forms of writing coexisted. The traditional forms in Qin evolved slowly during the Eastern Zhou, gradually becoming what is now called (small) seal script during that period, without any clear dividing line (it is not the case, as is commonly believed, that small seal script was a sudden invention by Li Si in the Qin dynasty ). Meanwhile, the Qin vulgar writing evolved into early clerical (or proto-clerical) in the late Warring States to Qin dynasty period, which would then evolve further into the clerical script used in the Han through the Wei-Jin periods.

Meanwhile, in the eastern states, vulgar forms had become popular sooner; they also differed more radically from and more completely displaced the traditional forms. These eastern scripts, which also varied somewhat by state or region, were later misunderstood by Xu Shen, author of the Han dynasty etymological dictionary Shuowen Jiezi, who thought they predated the Warring States Qin forms, and thus labeled them gǔwén (古文), or "ancient script".

Computer encoding
It has been anticipated that bronze script will some day be encoded in Unicode, very likely in Plane 3 (the Tertiary Ideographic Plane, or TIP); however, no codepoints have yet been allocated or officially proposed for it (unlike the seal and oracle bone scripts, which both have ranges of codepoints tentatively blocked out within the TIP).

title: Chinese bronze inscriptions


text:
Wu Chinese

Wu (Wu romanization and IPA:ngu ngei [ŋu²³³.ŋə̰i²¹⁴], wu6 gniu6 [] (Shanghainese), ghou2 gniu6 [] (Suzhounese), Mandarin Wúyǔ []) is a major group of Sinitic languages spoken primarily in Shanghai, Zhejiang Province, and the part of Jiangsu Province south of the Yangtze River, which makes up the cultural region of Wu. Speakers of various Wu languages sometimes labelled their mother tongue as Shanghainese when introduced to foreigners. The Suzhou dialect was the prestige dialect of Wu as of the 19th century, but had been replaced in status by Shanghainese by the turn of the 20th century. The languages of Northern Wu are mutually intelligible with each other, while those of Southern Wu are not.

Historical linguists view Wu of great significance because it distinguished itself from other varieties of Chinese by preserving the voiced initials of the ancient Middle Chinese and by preserving the checked tone as a glottal stop. The phonological divergence between Wu and other Chinese is significant, for instance, the phrase "Shanghainese language" is pronounced as [  ] in Shanghainese and  in Beijing Mandarin. Wu and the Suzhou dialect in particular is perceived as soft in the ears of Mandarin speakers; hence there is the idiom "the tender speech of Wu".

The decline of Wu began from around 1986, when students were banned from speaking "uncivilized dialects" during class, a term used by the State Language Commission to refer to all Chinese languages other than Standard Chinese. In 1992, students in Shanghai were banned from speaking Wu at all times on campuses. Since the late 2000s, Wu mostly survived in kitchens and theatres, as a "kitchen language" among the elderly housewives and as a theatrical language in folk Yue opera, Shanghai opera and Pingtan. As of now, Wu has no official status, no legal protection and there is no officially sanctioned romanization.

Names
Speakers of Wu varieties are mostly unaware of this term for their speech, since the term "Wu" is a relatively recent classificatory imposition on what are less clearly defined and highly heterogeneous natural forms. Saying someone "speaks Wu" is therefore akin to saying someone "speaks a Romance language"; it is not a particularly defined entity like Standard Mandarin or Hochdeutsch.

Most speakers are only vaguely aware of their local variety's affinities with other similarly classified varieties, and will generally only refer to their local Wu variety rather than to the dialect family as a whole. This is typically done by affixing 話 ('speech') to a location's endonym. For example, 溫州話 is used for Wenzhounese. Affixing 閒話' is also common, and more typical of the Taihu division, as in 嘉興閒話 (ka-shin ghae-o) for the Jiaxing dialect.

 * Wu
 * Shanghainese ; Suzhounese ; Wuxinese ; 'Wu language'

The formal name and standard reference in dialectology literature.

 * Wuyue language

A poetic and historical name, highlighting the roots of the language in antiquity, specifically the culture of the Wu and Yue states during the Warring States period.
 * Goetian, derived from the Japanese spelling of Wuyue (吳越; Gō-etsu), is among the alternative names listed by Ethnologue.

 * Wu topolect

A derogatory and self-deprecating yet common name that belittles the status of Wu languages as a "dialect" of a singular "Chinese language", usually used by academics in state-administered universities.

 * Jiang–Zhe speech

A non-standard name meaning 'the speech of Jiangsu and Zhejiang', occasionally used to highlight the fact that the language is spoken across two provinces.

 * Jiangnan speech

A non-standard, uncommon name linking the language to the cultural region of Jiangnan. This is not to be confused with the Jiangnan Industrial Groups Koiné spoken in Xiangtan, which is classified as a variety of Mandarin.

History
Wu Chinese is the most ancient of the six major southern Chinese varieties, tracing its origin to more than 3,000 years ago, when the Zhou princes Taibo and Zhongyong migrated from the Guanzhong region in modern Shaanxi to the Wuxi–Suzhou area of the Jiangnan region, where they established the state of Wu. The northern language they brought formed the foundation of Wu Chinese. By the Six Dynasties era, Wu had already been developing for a millennium and differed considerably from the northern speech. When large numbers of northern Chinese migrated to Jiangnan following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, they discovered great discrepancies between the two varieties of Chinese. This is recorded in contemporary texts such as the Shi Shuo Xin Yu. The Japanese Go-on (呉音) readings of Chinese characters (obtained from the Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period) are from the ancient Wu Chinese of this period. However, as Wu Chinese has been under strong influence from the north throughout history, many of its ancient features have been lost. The language of today is largely descendant from the Middle Chinese of the Sui–Tang era (6–8th centuries), as is true of most contemporary Chinese languages, with Min Chinese languages being notable exceptions. However, many of the ancient Wu features have been preserved in Min, as the latter began its life as the Old Wu spoken by migrants to Fujian during the century that marked the transition from the late Han dynasty to the Three Kingdoms and the Western Jin.

Substrate influences
Wu is considered the most ancient southern Chinese variety, since the Jiangnan region was the first area settled that was non-contiguous with the northern Chinese states. Proto-Min or Old Wu–Min is also the language from which the Min dialects evolved as the populace migrated farther south, so some knowledge of this language would not only offer insight into the development of these dialects and Sino-Tibetan but also into the indigenous languages of the region, knowledge of which would also be invaluable towards establishing the phylogeny of related Asian languages and towards reconstructing them.

According to traditional history, Taibo of Wu settled in the area during the Shang dynasty, bringing along a large section of the population and Chinese administrative practices to form the state of Wu. The state of Wu might have been ruled by a Chinese minority along with sinified Yue peoples, and the bulk of the population would have remained Yue until later migrations and absorption into the greater Chinese populace (though many likely fled south as well). Many have wondered about what effect the Yue people's language may have had on the dialect spoken there, since, for example, names and other social practices in the state of Yue are markedly different from the rest of Chinese civilization.

Bernhard Karlgren, on the other hand, noted that the Tang koiné was adopted by most speakers in China (except for those in Fujian) with only slight remnants of "vulgar" speech from pre-Tang times, which he believed were preserved among the lower classes, albeit this makes many presumptions about Tang China's class structure and sociolinguistic situation. Most linguists today refer to these remnants as dialectal strata or substrata. In many ways, the koiné can be considered the language from which Wu varieties evolved, with the earlier language leaving behind a pre-Tang dialectal stratum which itself may have included a substratum from the Yue languages.

Western dialectologists have found a small handful of words that appear to be part of an Austroasiatic substratum in Wu and Min languages. Mandarin Chinese also possesses some words of Austroasiatic origin, such as the original name of the Yangtze River, 江 (jiāng; Old Chinese *krung, cf. Old Vietnamese *krong), which has evolved into the general word for 'river'. Min languages, which were less affected by the koiné, appear to possess an Austroasiatic substratum, such as a Min word for 'shaman' or 'spirit healer', such as in Jian'ou Min toŋ³ which appears to be cognate with Vietnamese ʔdoŋ², Mon doŋ, and Santali dōŋ, which all have meanings similar to the Min word. However, Laurent Sagart points out that the resemblance between the Min word for 'shaman' or 'spirit healer' and the Vietnamese term with the same meaning is likely coincidental.

The most notable examples are the word for "person" in some Wu varieties as *nong, usually written as  in Chinese, and the word for 'wet' in many Wu and Min dialects, with a  initial which seemingly shows no relation to the Chinese word   but cognate with Vietnamese. Min languages notably retain the bilabial nasal coda for this word. However, Sagart shows that the Min words for 'wet', 'duckweed', and 'small salted fish', which seem to be cognates with Vietnamese, , , are either East Asian areal words if not Chinese words in disguise ('duckweed', 'wet'), and long shots ('salted fish').

Li Hui identifies 126 Tai-Kadai cognates in Maqiao Wu dialect spoken in the suburbs of Shanghai out of more than a thousand lexical items surveyed. According to the author, these cognates are likely traces of "old Yue language" (古越語).

Analysis of the Song of the Yue Boatman, a song in the Yue language transcribed by a Chinese official in Chinese characters, clearly points to a Tai language rather than an Austroasiatic one. Chinese discussion of Wenzhounese often mentions the Tai affinities the dialect possesses. The Zhuang languages in Guangxi and western Guangdong, for example, are also Tai, so it would appear that Tai populated southern China before the Chinese expansion. The term Yue was applied indiscriminately to any non-Chinese in the area that the Chinese encountered. The impact of these languages still appears to be fairly minimal overall.

Though Sino-Tibetan, Tai–Kadai, Austronesian and Austroasiatic are mostly considered to be unrelated to each other, Sagart has proposed some possible phylogenetic affinities. Specifically, Tai–Kadai and Sino-Tibetan could possibly both belong to the Sino-Austronesian language family (not to be confused with Austroasiatic) due to a scattering of cognates between their ancestral forms, and there is also some, albeit much more tenuous, evidence to suggest that Austroasiatic should also be included, however his views are but one among competing hypotheses about the phylogeny of these languages, see the Sino-Austronesian languages article for some further detail.

It does appear that Wu varieties have had non-Sinitic influences, and many contain words cognate with those of other languages in various strata. These words however are few and far between, and Wu on the whole is most strongly influenced by Tang Chinese rather than any other linguistic influence.

Migrations
As early as the time of Guo Pu (276–324), speakers easily perceived differences between dialects in different parts of China including the area where Wu varieties are spoken today.

According to records of the Eastern Jin, the earliest known dialect of Nanjing was an ancient Wu dialect. After the Wu Hu uprising and the Disaster of Yongjia in 311, the Jin Emperor and many northern Chinese fled south, establishing the new capital Jiankang in what is modern-day Nanjing. The lower Yangtze region became heavily inundated by settlers from Northern China, mostly coming from what is now northern Jiangsu province and Shandong province, with smaller numbers of settlers coming from the Central Plains. From the 4th to the 5th century, Northern people moved into Wu areas, adding characteristics to the lexicon of Northern Wu, traces of which can still be found in Northern Wu varieties today.

One prominent historical speaker of the Wu dialect was Emperor Yangdi of the Sui dynasty and his Empress Xiao. Emperor Xuan of Western Liang, a member of Emperor Wu of Liang's court, was Empress Xiao's grandfather and he most likely learned the Wu dialect at Jiankang.

After the Taiping Rebellion at the end of the Qing dynasty, in which the Wu-speaking region was devastated by war, Shanghai was inundated with migrants from other parts of the Wu-speaking area. This greatly affected the variety of Shanghai, bringing, for example, influence from the Ningbo dialect to a dialect which, at least within the walled city of Shanghai, was almost identical to the Suzhou dialect. As a result of the population boom, in the first half of the 20th century, Shanghainese became almost a lingua franca within the region, eclipsing the status of the Suzhou variety. However, due to its pastiche of features from different languages, it is rarely used to infer historical information about the Wu group and is less representative of Wu than the Suzhou variety.

Written sources
There are few written sources of study for Wu, and research is generally concentrated on modern speech forms rather than texts. Written Chinese has always been in the classical form, so Wu speakers would have written in this classical form and read it in a literary form of their dialect based on the phonetic distinctions outlined in rhyme dictionaries. Therefore, no text in classical Chinese from the region would give a clear notion about the actual speech of the writer, although there may have been cleverly disguised puns based on local pronunciations that are lost on modern readers or other dialect speakers. Yue opera, for example, is performed in the Shaoxing dialect, however the register is more literary than oral.

There are still a number of primary documents available, but they do not always give a clear sense of the dialects' historical pronunciation. They do often offer insight into lexical differences. Most of the sources for diachronic Wu study lie in the folk literature of the region. Since the average person was illiterate and the literate were often traditionalists who possibly perceived their local form of Chinese as a degenerated version of a classical ideal, very little was recorded, although local vocabulary often sneaks into written records.

A "ballad–narrative" (說晿詞話) known as "The Story of Xue Rengui Crossing the Sea and Pacifying Liao" (薛仁貴跨海征遼故事), which is about the Tang dynasty hero Xue Rengui, is believed to have been written in the Suzhou dialect of Wu.

The main sources of study are from the Ming and Qing period, since the dialectal differences were not as obvious until Ming times, and lie in historical folk songs, tanci (a kind of ballad or lyric poem), local records, legendary stories, baihua novels, educational material produced for the region, notes which have survived among individuals' effects, the linguistic descriptions made by foreigners (primarily by missionaries), and the Bibles translated into Wu dialects. These all give glimpses into the past, but except for the bibles, are not so useful for phonological studies. They are, however, of tremendous importance for diachronic studies of vocabulary and to a lesser extent grammar and syntax.

The diachronic study of written Ming and Qing Wu, the time when the dialects began to take on wholly unique features, can be placed into three stages: the Early Period, the Middle Period, and the Late Period.

The "Early Period" begins at the end of the Ming dynasty to the beginning of the Qing in the 17th century, when the first documents showing distinctly Wu characteristics appear. The representative work from this period is the collection of folk songs gathered by Feng Menglong entitled "Shan Ge" 山歌. The majority of early period documents record the Wu varieties of southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang, so any discussion in this section is primarily relevant to Northern Wu or the Taihu division. Along with some other legends and works, the following list contains many of the documents that are either written in Wu or contain parts where dialects are used.

 * San Yan 三言, a trilogy of collected stories compiled by Feng Menglong
 * Er Pai 二拍, two short story collections by Ling Mengchu
 * Xing Shi Yan 型世言, a novella recorded by Lu Renlong 陸人龍
 * Huan Sha Ji 浣紗記, an opera by Liang Chenyu 梁辰魚
 * Mo Hanzhai dingben chuanqi 墨憨齋定本傳奇, Feng Menglong
 * Qing zhong pu 清忠譜
 * Doupeng xianhua 豆棚閒話, early Qing baihua novel
 * Guzhang jue chen 鼓掌絕塵, late Ming novel collection
 * Bo zhong lian 缽中蓮

These works contain a small handful of unique grammatical features, some of which are not found in contemporary Mandarin, classical Chinese, or in contemporary Wu varieties. They do contain many of the unique features present in contemporary Wu such as pronouns, but clearly indicate that not all of the earlier unique features of these Wu dialects were carried into the present. These works also possess a number of characters uniquely formed to express features not found in the classical language and used some common characters as phonetic loans (see Chinese character classification) to express other uniquely Wu vocabulary.

During the Ming dynasty, Wu speakers moved into Jianghuai Mandarin speaking regions, influencing the Tairu and Tongtai dialects of Jianghuai. During the time between the Ming dynasty and early Republican era, the main characteristics of modern Wu were formed. The Suzhou dialect became the most influential, and many dialectologists use it in citing examples of Wu.

The "Middle Period" took place in the middle of the Qing dynasty in the 18th century. Representative works from this section include the operas (especially kunqu operas) by Qian Decang (錢德蒼) in the collection 綴白裘, and the legends written by Shen Qifeng or what are known as "沈氏四種", as well as huge numbers of tanci (彈詞) ballads. Many of the common phenomena found in the Shan Ge are not present in works from this period, but we see the production of many new words and new means of using words.

The "Late Period" lasts from late Qing to Republican China, in the 19th and 20th centuries. The representative works from this period are Wu vernacular novels (蘇白小說 or 吳語小說) such as The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai and The Nine-tailed Turtle. Other works include:

 * Haitian Hongxue Ji 海天鴻雪記
 * The Nine-tailed Fox 九尾狐
 * Officialdom Unmasked 官場現形記
 * Wuge Jiaji 吳哥甲集
 * He Dian 何典

Wu-speaking writers who wrote in vernacular Mandarin often left traces of their native varieties in their works, as can be found in Guanchang Xianxing Ji and Fubao Zatan (负曝闲谈).

Another source from this period is from the work of the missionary Joseph Edkins, who gathered large amounts of data and published several educational works on Shanghainese as well as a Bible in Shanghainese and a few other major Wu varieties.

Works in this period also saw an explosion of new vocabulary in Wu dialects to describe their changing world. This clearly reflects the great social changes which were occurring during the time.

There are currently three works available on the topic:
 * 明清吴语和现代方言研究 (Ming and Qing Wu and Modern Dialect Research) by Shi Rujie (石汝杰)
 * 明清文学中的吴语词研究 (Studies of Wu words found in Ming and Qing literature) by Chu Bannong (褚半农)
 * 明清吴语词典 (Dictionary of Ming and Qing Wu) edited by Shi Rujie (石汝杰)

Post-1949
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the strong promotion of Mandarin in the Wu-speaking region yet again influenced the development of Wu Chinese. Wu was gradually excluded from most modern media and schools. Public organizations were required to use Mandarin. With the influx of a migrant non-Wu-speaking population, the near total conversion of public media and organizations to the exclusive use of Mandarin as well as radical Mandarin promotion measures, the modernization and standardization of or literacy in Wu languages became improbable and left them more prone to Mandarinization. The promotion measures, which at present mostly consist of signs like the one pictured, are primarily aimed at limiting the usage of local dialects in conducting public or administrative affairs, although it, like the smoking ban, is commonly violated and it is not so uncommon to hear people speaking local dialects in a government office or a bank. The usage of local dialects in all other spheres is officially tolerated. Standardization of dialects, however, may be perceived as a precursor to possible regionalism, so this, too, would most likely be deterred. On the other hand, few speakers consider their dialect important enough to be written or standardized. To most speakers, dialects are in essence a wholly oral phenomenon.

It is not uncommon to encounter children who grew up with a regional variant of Mandarin as their parent tongue with little or no fluency in a Wu variety at all. However, this is primarily when parents are speakers of different languages and communicate in Mandarin and more rarely due to the parents' attitudes towards using language or dialect, which most associate with the warmth of home and family life. Many people have noticed this trend and thus call for the preservation and documentation of not only Wu but all Chinese varieties. The first major attempt was the Linguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects, which surveyed 2,791 locations across the nation, including 121 Wu locations (a step up from the two locations in PKU's earlier surveys), and led to the formation of an elaborate database including digital recordings of all locations; however, this database is not available to the general public. The atlas's editor, Cao Zhiyun, considers many of these languages "endangered" and has introduced the term 濒危方言 ('languages in danger') or 'endangered dialects' into the Chinese language to raise people's attention to the issue, while others try to draw attention to how the dialects fall under the scope of UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage and as such deserve to be preserved and respected.

More TV programs are appearing in Wu varieties and nearly every city/town has at least one show in their native variety. However, they are no longer permitted to air during primetime. They are generally more playful than serious and the majority of these shows, such as Hangzhou's 阿六头说新闻 "Old Liutou tells you the news", provide local or regional news in the dialect, but most are limited to fifteen minutes of airtime. Popular video sites such as Youku and Tudou also host a variety of user-uploaded audio and visual media in many Wu languages and dialects, most of which are dialectal TV shows, although some are user-created songs and the like. A number of popular books are also appearing to teach people how to speak the Shanghainese, Suzhou dialect and Wenzhounese but they are more playful and entertaining than serious attempts at promoting literacy or standardization.

Jianghuai Mandarin has replaced Wu as the language of multiple counties in Jiangsu. An example of this is Zaicheng Town in Lishui County; both Jianghuai and Wu languages were spoken in several towns in Lishui, with Wu being spoken by more people in more towns than Jianghuai. The Wu dialect is called "old Zaicheng Speech", while the Jianghuai dialect is called "new Zaicheng speech", with Wu languages being driven rapidly to extinction. Only use it to talk to relatives. The Jianghuai dialect has been present there for about a century, even though all of the surrounding are Wu speaking. Jianghuai was always confined inside the town itself until the 1960s; at present, it is overtaking Wu.

Number of speakers
Wu Chinese was once historically dominant north of the Yangtze River and most of what is now Anhui province during the Sui dynasty. Its strength in areas north of the Yangtze vastly declined from the late Tang dynasty until the late Ming dynasty, when the first characteristics of Early Modern Wu were formed. During the early Qing period, Wu speakers represented about 20% of the whole Chinese population. This percentage drastically declined after the Taiping Rebellion devastated the Wu-speaking region, and it was reduced to about 8% by 1984, when the total number of speakers was estimated to be 80 million.

Classification
Wu's place within the greater scope of Sinitic varieties is less easily typified than prototypically northern Chinese varieties such as Mandarin or prototypically southern Chinese varieties such as Cantonese. Its original classification, along with the other Sinitic varieties, was established in 1937 by Li Fang-Kuei, whose boundaries more or less have remained the same and were adopted by Yuan Jiahua in his influential 1961 dialect primer.

The sole basis of Li's classification was the evolution of Middle Chinese voiced stops. In the original sense, a Wu variety was by definition one which retained voiced initials. This definition is problematic considering the devoicing process which has begun in many southern Wu varieties that are surrounded by dialects which retain the ancestral voicing. The loss of voicing in a dialect does not entail that its other features will suddenly become dramatically different from the dialects it has had long historic ties with. It furthermore would place Old Xiang in this category. Therefore, more elaborate systems have developed, but they still mostly delineate the same regions. Regardless of the justification, the Wu region has been clearly outlined, and Li's boundary in some ways has remained the de facto standard.

In Jerry Norman's usage, Wu dialects can be considered "central dialects" or dialects that are clearly in a transition zone containing features that typify both northern and southern Chinese varieties.

Possible Kra–Dai substratum
Li Hui (2001) finds possible 126 Kra-Dai cognates in the Maqiao Wu dialect spoken in the suburbs of Shanghai, out of more than 1,000 lexical items surveyed. According to the author, these cognates are likely traces of the Old Yue language (古越語). The two tables below show lexical comparisons between the Maqiao Wu dialect and Kra-Dai languages as quoted from Li Hui (2001). He notes that, in Wu Chinese, final consonants such as -m, -ɯ, -i, ụ, etc. do not exist, and therefore, -m in the Maqiao dialect tends to become -ŋ, -n, or zero. In some cases, -m even becomes a final glottal stop.

Languages and dialects

Wu languages are spoken in most of Zhejiang province, the whole municipality of Shanghai, southern Jiangsu province, as well as smaller parts of Anhui and Jiangxi provinces. Many are located in the lower Yangtze valley.

Dialectologists traditionally establish linguistic boundaries based on several overlapping isoglosses of linguistic features. One of the critical historical factors for these boundaries lies in the movement of the population of speakers. This is often determined by the administrative boundaries established during imperial times. As such, imperial boundaries are essential for delineating one variety from another, and many varieties' isogloss clusters line up perfectly with the county boundaries established in imperial times, although some counties contain more than one variety and others may span several counties. Another factor that influences movement and transportation as well as the establishment of administrative boundaries is geography. Northernmost Zhejiang and Jiangsu are very flat, in the middle of a river delta, and as such are more uniform than the more mountainous regions farther south towards Fujian. The Taihu varieties, like Mandarin in the flat northern plains, are more homogeneous than Southern Wu, which has a significantly greater diversity of linguistic forms, and this is likely a direct result of geography. Coastal varieties also share more featural affinities, likely because the East China Sea provides a means of transportation. The same phenomenon can be seen with Min varieties.

Major groupings
Wu is divided into two major groups: Northern Wu and Southern Wu, which are only partially mutually intelligible. Individual words spoken in isolation may be comprehensible among these speakers, but the flowing discourse of everyday life mostly is not. There is another lesser group, Western Wu, synonymous with the Xuanzhou division, which has a larger influence from the surrounding Mandarin varieties than Northern Wu, making it typologically much different from the rest of Wu.

Southern Wu is well known among linguists and sinologists as being one of the most internally diverse among the Sinitic groups, with very little mutual intelligibility between varieties across subgroups. On the other hand, some Wu varieties like Wenzhounese have gained notoriety for their high incomprehensibility to both Wu and non-Wu speakers alike, so much so that Wenzhounese was used during the Second World War to avoid Japanese interception.

In the Language Atlas of China (1987), Wu was divided into six subgroups:

 * Taihu (i.e., Lake Tai region): Spoken over much of southern Jiangsu province, including Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, the southern part of Nantong, Jingjiang, and Danyang; the city of Shanghai; and the northern part of Zhejiang province, including Ningbo, Hangzhou, Huzhou, Shaoxing and Jiaxing. This group makes up the largest population among all Wu speakers. The local varieties of this region are mostly mutually intelligible among each other.
 * Shanghainese
 * Suzhou dialect
 * Ningbo dialect
 * Hangzhou dialect
 * Huzhou dialect
 * Wuxi dialect
 * Changzhou dialect
 * Jiangyin dialect
 * Qi–Hai dialect
 * Jinxiang dialect
 * Taizhou （台州）: Spoken in and around Taizhou, Zhejiang province. Taizhou Wu is among the southern varieties that are the closest to Taihu Wu, also known as North Wu, and speakers can communicate with speakers of Taihu Wu.
 * Taizhou dialect
 * Oujiang/Dong'ou (東甌／东瓯): Spoken in and around the city of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. This variety is the most distinctive and mutually unintelligible amongst all the Wu varieties. Some dialectologists even treat it as a variety separate from the rest of Wu and call it "Ou language" or 瓯语.
 * Wenzhounese
 * Yueqing dialect
 * Wuzhou (婺州): Spoken in and around Jinhua, Zhejiang province. Like Taizhou Wu, it is somewhat mutually intelligible with Taihu Wu.
 * Chu–Qu （處衢）: Spoken in and around Lishui and Quzhou in Zhejiang as well as in Shangrao County and Yushan County in Jiangxi province.
 * Quzhou dialect
 * Jiangshan dialect
 * Qingtian dialect
 * Xuanzhou （宣州）: Spoken in and around Xuancheng, Anhui province. This part of Wu is becoming less spoken since the campaign started by the Taiping Rebellion, and it is being slowly replaced by the immigrant Mandarin from north of the Yangtse river.

Southern Wu
Chinese dialectologist Cao Zhiyun has rearranged some of the divisions based on a larger corpus of data. According to Cao, Southern Wu can be divided into three broad divisions (note that he is using the pre-republican boundaries for the cited locations): This was later adopted by the second edition of Li's Language Atlas.
 * Jin–Qu, which contains twelve locations.
 * Jinhua Prefecture: Jinhua, Tangxi, Lanxi, Pujiang, Yiwu, Dongyang, Pan'an, Yongkang, and Wuyi
 * Quzhou Prefecture: Quzhou and Longyou
 * Lishui Prefecture: Jinyun
 * Shang–Li, which contains seventeen locations and has two subdivisions:
 * Shang–Shan, which contains six locations.
 * Shangrao prefecture, Jiangxi province: Shangrao, Guangfeng, Yushan
 * Quzhou prefecture: Kaihua, Changshan, Jiangshan
 * Lishui, which contains eleven locations.
 * Lishui Prefecture: Lishui, Suichang, Songyang, Xuanping County, Zhejiang (former county of Lishui, now belonging to Wuyi), Qingtian, Yunhe, Jingning She Autonomous County, Longquan, and Qingyuan
 * Wenzhou Prefecture: Taishun county
 * Nanping Prefecture in Fujian: Pucheng
 * Oujiang or Ou River, which contains eight locations.
 * Wenzhou prefecture: Wenzhou, Yongjia, Yueqing, Rui'an, Dongtou, Pingyang, Cangnan, and Wencheng (excluding the Min speaking regions of Pingyang and Cangnan).

Phonology
The Wu dialects are notable among Chinese varieties in having kept the "muddy" (voiced; whispery voiced word-initially) plosives and fricatives of Middle Chinese, such as etc., thus maintaining the three-way contrast of Middle Chinese stop consonants and affricates,, , etc. (For example, 「  」 , where other varieties have only .) Because Wu dialects never lost these voiced obstruents, the tone split of Middle Chinese may still be allophonic, and most dialects have three syllabic tones (though counted as eight in traditional descriptions). In Urban Shanghainese, some more tones have undergone merging, and thus can be analysed to only have two phonemic tones.

Wu varieties and Germanic languages have the largest vowel quality inventories in the world. The Jinhui dialect spoken in Shanghai's Fengxian District has 20 vowel qualities. Because of these different changes within Wu, which gives it its unique quality, it has also sometimes been called the "French of China".

For more details, see, , and.

Grammar
The pronoun systems of many Wu dialects are complex when it comes to personal and demonstrative pronouns. For example, Wu exhibits clusivity (having different forms of the first-person plural pronoun depending on whether or not the addressee is included). Wu employs six demonstratives, three of which are used to refer to close objects, and three of which are used for farther objects.

In terms of word order, Wu uses SVO (like Mandarin), but unlike Mandarin, it also has a high occurrence of SOV and in some cases OSV.

In terms of phonology, tone sandhi is extremely complex, and helps parse multisyllabic words and idiomatic phrases. In some cases, indirect objects are distinguished from direct objects by a voiced/voiceless distinction.

In most cases, classifiers take the place of genitive particles and articles – a quality shared with Cantonese – as shown by the following examples:

Plural pronouns
Wu dialects vary in the way they pluralize pronouns. In the Suzhou dialect, second- and third-person pronouns are suffixed with, while the first-person plural is a separate root, , from the singular. In Shanghainese, the first-person pronoun is suffixed with 伲, and third-person with (underlying ), but the second-person plural is a separate root,. In the Haiyan dialect, first- and third-person pronouns are pluralized with, but the second-person plural is a separate root.

Classifiers
All nouns could have just one classifier in Shanghainese.

Romanization
There are three major schools of romanization of Wu Chinese.

Vocabulary
Like other varieties of Southern Chinese, Wu Chinese retains some archaic vocabulary from Classical Chinese, Middle Chinese, and Old Chinese. For instance, for "to speak" or "speaking", Wu dialects, with the exception of Hangzhou dialect, use góng (Simplified Chinese: 讲; Traditional Chinese: 講), whereas Mandarin uses shuō (Simplified Chinese: 说; Traditional Chinese: 說). Furthermore, in Guangfeng and Yushan counties of Jiangxi province, 曰 ( or yuē) is generally preferred over its Mandarin counterpart. In Shangrao county of Jiangxi province, Simplified Chinese: 话 Traditional Chinese: 話 pinyin: huà/ is preferred over the spoken Mandarin version of the word for "to speak" or "speaking". For Wu dialects closer to Fuzhou such as Ningbonese, Jinhuanese, and Wenzhounese the word nóng (Simplified Chinese: 侬; Traditional Chinese: 儂) is used for "person" instead of rén/nin 人, similar to Min.

Examples
In Wu dialects, the morphology of the words are similar, but the characters are switched around. Not all Wu Chinese words exhibit this phenomenon, only some words in some dialects.

Colloquialisms
In Wu Chinese, there are colloquialisms that are traced back to ancestral Chinese varieties, such as Middle or Old Chinese. Many of those colloquialisms are cognates of other words found in other modern southern Chinese dialects, such as Gan, Xiang, or Min.

Mandarin equivalents and their pronunciation on Wu Chinese are in parentheses. All IPA transcriptions and examples listed below are from Shanghainese.
 * 「」  wok, cooking pot. The Mandarin equivalent term is also used, but both of them are synonyms and are thus interchangeable.
 * 「」  clothing. Found in other Chinese dialects. It is a reference to traditional Han Chinese clothing, where it consists of the upper garments 「」 and the lower garments 「」.

Literature
The genres of kunqu opera and tanci song, appearing in the Ming dynasty, were the first instances of the use of Wu dialect in literature. By the turn of the 20th century it was used in several novels that had prostitution as a subject. In many of these novels, Wu is mainly used as dialogue of prostitute characters. In one work, Shanghai Flowers by Han Bangqing, all of the dialogue is in Wu. Wu originally developed in genres related to oral performance. It was used in manners related to oral performance when it proliferated in written literature and it was widely used in fiction about prostitutes, a particular genre, and not in other genres. Donald B. Snow, author of Cantonese as Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular, compared the development of Wu in this manner to the patterns of Baihua and Japanese vernacular writing.

According to Jean Duval, author of "The Nine-Tailed Turtle: Pornography or 'fiction of exposure", at the time The Nine-tailed Turtle by Zhang Chunfan was published, it was one of the most popular novels written in the Wu dialect. Magnificent Dreams in Shanghai by Sun Jiazhen  was another example of a prostitute novel with Wu dialogue from the turn of the 20th century.

Snow wrote that Wu literature "achieved a certain degree of prominence" by 1910. After 1910 there had been no novels which were as popular as The Nine-tailed Turtle or the critical acclaim garnered by Shanghai Flowers. In the popular fiction of the early 20th century the usage of Wu remained in use in prostitute dialogue but, as asserted by Snow, "apparently" did not extend beyond that. In 1926 Hu Shih stated that of all of the Chinese dialects, within literature, Wu had the brightest future. Snow concluded that instead Wu dialect writing became "a transient phenomenon that died out not long after its growth gathered steam."

Snow argued that the primary reason was the increase of prestige and importance in Baihua, and that one other contributing reason was changing market factors since Shanghai's publishing industry, which grew, served all of China and not just Shanghai. Duval argued that many Chinese critics had a low opinion of Wu works, mainly originating from the eroticism within them, and that contributed to the decline in Wu literature.

Resources on Wu dialects
A BBS set up in 2004, in which topics such as phonology, grammar, orthography and romanization of Wu Chinese are widely talked about. The cultural and linguistic diversity within China is also a significant concerning of this forum. A website aimed at modernization of Wu Chinese, including basics of Wu, Wu romanization scheme, pronunciation dictionaries of different dialects, Wu input method development, Wu research literatures, written Wu experiment, Wu orthography, a discussion forum etc. References on Wu Chinese, including tones of the sub-dialects.
 * Wugniu.com
 * Wu Dictionary– Wu dictionary available in 8 dialects.
 * Wu Character Pronunciation Shows how character(s) are pronounced in Wu, data available for many dialects.
 * Wu Pronunciation Map How a character is pronounced in Wu depending on the region.
 * glossika.com
 * Shanghainese Wu Dictionary– Search in Mandarin, IPA, or
 * Classification of Wu Dialects – By James Campbell
 * Tones in Wu Dialects – Compiled by James Campbell
 * Tatoeba Project Tatoeba.org - Examples sentences in Shanghainese dialect, and in Suzhouan dialect.
 * Wu wordlist available through Kaipuleohone
 * Pronunciation dictionary - with audio from various Chinese cities.

Articles

 * Globalization, National Culture and the Search for Identity: A Chinese Dilemma (1st Quarter of 2006, Media Development) – A comprehensive article, written by Wu Mei and Guo Zhenzhi of World Association for Christian Communication, related to the struggle for national cultural unity by current Chinese Communist national government while desperately fighting for preservation on Chinese regional cultures that have been the precious roots of all Han Chinese people (including Hangzhou Wu dialect). Excellent for anyone doing research on Chinese language linguistic, anthropology on Chinese culture, international business, foreign languages, global studies, and translation/interpretation.
 * Modernisation a Threat to Dialects in China – An excellent article originally from Straits Times Interactive through YTL Community website, it provides an insight of Chinese dialects, both major and minor, losing their speakers to Standard Mandarin due to greater mobility and interaction. Excellent for anyone doing research on Chinese language linguistic, anthropology on Chinese culture, international business, foreign languages, global studies, and translation/interpretation.
 * Middlebury Expands Study Abroad Horizons – An excellent article including a section on future exchange programs in learning Chinese language in Hangzhou (plus colorful, positive impression on the Hangzhou dialect, too). Requires registration of online account before viewing.
 * Mind your language (from The Standard, Hong Kong) – This newspaper article provides a deep insight on the danger of decline in the usage of dialects, including Wu dialects, other than the rising star of Standard Mandarin. It also mentions an exception where some grassroots' organizations and, sometimes, larger institutions, are the force behind the preservation of their dialects. Another excellent article for research on Chinese language linguistics, anthropology on Chinese culture, international business, foreign languages, global studies, and translation/interpretation.
 * China: Dialect use on TV worries Beijing (originally from Straits Times Interactive, Singapore and posted on AsiaMedia Media News Daily from UCLA) – Article on the use of dialects other than standard Mandarin in China where strict media censorship is high.
 * Standard or Local Chinese – TV Programs in Dialect (from Radio86.co.uk) – Another article on the use of dialects other than standard Mandarin in China.

title: Wu Chinese