中國十大最難懂方言 溫州話居首
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.
溫州，這個以百萬富翁以及工廠產品從鈕釦到燈泡無所不包而聞名的城市，現在又以當地難懂的方言出了名。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.
根據微博上流行的一個名爲“中國十大最難懂方言”的帖子，地處浙江省的這個商業城市拔得頭籌。'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.
帖子的作者寫道：天不怕地不怕，就怕溫州人說鬼話。
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.
這位未具名作者寫道：據說在抗日戰爭中，八路軍部隊相互之間聯繫由於保密需要，都是派兩個溫州人，進行電話或者步話機聯繫，而日本的情報部門，總也翻譯不出發音極爲複雜的溫州話；可以說當時的溫州人就像美國大片中的風語者一樣。電影《風語者》講述的是二戰期間美國士兵利用納瓦霍語傳遞情報，以防日本人監聽的故事。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.
廣東話不出意外地被排在第二。作者說：廣東話可以說現在是流傳廣泛，很多人都會說幾句簡單的廣東話，但是我把廣東話排名第二的原因是，廣東話不只有自己獨特的發言，還有自己的文字，而且在廣州的公交車上都是先用廣東話再用普通話進行報站的，有些廣東人包括香港人甚至聽不懂普通話，這足以說明廣東話和普通話的差別之大。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.
廣東話在中國南方的地位一直是個情感問題，甚至還於2010年在廣東引發了抗議活動，抗議的導火索是當地政府計劃將部分電視節目改用普通話播出。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.
和溫州話一樣屬於吳方言語系的蘇州話排名第三。吳指的是包括浙江省、上海市和江蘇省部分地方在內的地區。據該帖子的作者稱，蘇州話有種古意和書卷氣，蘇州女孩子說蘇州話時更爲溫軟動聽。這也不足爲奇，因爲蘇州歷來都是文化中心，也是盛產美女的地方。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.
和蘇州話並列第三的是福建省的閩南話。很多臺灣人和東南亞華僑也說閩南話。該帖稱，估計沒有語言天賦的人，就是在福建待上一輩子可能都聽不懂閩南話。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.
像中國這樣一個幅員遼闊、語言多樣的國家，判斷某種方言的難懂程度存在一定爭議。該帖子引來大量網友回帖，對費解的中國語言吐槽。'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.
一位微博用戶說，武漢和咸寧相距不到100公里，但卻聽不懂對方的方言，但他聽500公里之外的恩施的方言卻沒有問題。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.
其他用戶質疑作者是否漏掉了其他也應上榜的方言，其中包括海南島的方言。海南方言也屬於閩南方言，但據說其他說閩南話的人卻聽不懂海南方言。The full list:
整個排名：1. Wenzhou dialect
1. 溫州話2. Cantonese
2. 廣東話3. Suzhou and Minnan dialects
3. 蘇州話和閩南話4. Shanghainese
4. 上海話5. Shaanxi dialect
5. 陝西話6. Changsha dialect
6. 長沙話7. Sichuan dialect
7. 四川話8. Shandong dialect
8. 山東話9. Tianjin dialect
9. 天津話10. Northeast dialect
10. 東北話
