Suzhou rap sounds like it has a French accent
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From Chas Belov:
Google Translate says that this song is in Suzhou topolect (it actually says "dialect" but thanks to you I know better). But I had to recognize a few words before I could convince myself it wasn't in French (which I also don't know). Later in the song it sounds more Chinese, but the rapper never really loses that French sound. Am I imagining things?
【苏州方言RAP】红中 Zyh 《三十三》PROD BY XVIBE
If you want to check your hearing, here's the title and most frequently repeated phrase:
MSM sānshísān
Shanghai 1se-zeq8-1se
三十三
"33"
Suzhounese (sou1 tseu1 ghe2 gho6 蘇州閒話) is the variety of Sinitic traditionally spoken in the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu, China. Suzhounese is a topolect of the Wu group of the Sinitic family of languages, and was traditionally considered the prestige variety of Wu. The Wu group has a total of 83,000,000 speakers. Among them, Suzhounese is close to Shanghainese and other Wu topolects in the region. Suzhounese has a large vowel inventory and it is relatively conservative in initials by preserving voiced consonants from Middle Sinitic. (source, with supplements)
The Wu varieties, especially that of Suzhou, are traditionally perceived as soft in the ears of speakers of both Wu and non-Wu languages, leading to the idiom "the tender speech of Wu" (wúnóngruǎnyǔ吴侬软语; 吳儂軟語). (Wikipedia)
Does that remind you of Parisian French?
All languages have a genius. Although far apart, it's conceivable that two completely unrelated tongues may possess certain similarities due to environmental or other circumstances. Conversely, two cognate languages that are physically close to each other may sound very different as a result of diverse criteria. Think of the tremendous linguistic variation of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. And people are always telling me how different Swabian is from other types of German. Here's an interesting example:
In 2009, the word Muggeseggele (a Swabian idiom), meaning the scrotum of a housefly, was voted in a readers' survey by Stuttgarter Nachrichten, the largest newspaper in Stuttgart, as the most beautiful Swabian word, well ahead of any other term.[8] The expression is used in an ironic way to describe a small unit of measure and is deemed appropriate to use in front of small children (compare Bubenspitzle). German broadcaster SWR's children's website, Kindernetz, explained the meaning of Muggeseggele in their Swabian dictionary in the Swabian-based TV series Ein Fall für B.A.R.Z.
I once owned a dictionary of Schwäbisch, and it was quite entertaining just to read through it.
Selected readings
- "Topolect: a Four-Body Problem" (7/18/24) — focus on Wu topolect and it Suzhounese variety; with a valuable bibliography for topolect studies
- "Yibin, Sichuanese, Cantonese, Mandarin…; topolect, dialect, language" (4/15/18)
- "Chinese-English rap" (2/3/16)
Victor Mair said,
February 22, 2025 @ 5:27 pm
From Alan Kennedy:
The Swabian expression muggeseggele reminds me of the Hungarian expression lepka fing, meaning something that is lighter than air, and translates as "butterfly farts." I find that to be almost poetic.
Julian said,
February 22, 2025 @ 5:59 pm
Once in a bike shop I was discussing with the wizened old mechanic the difference between an old style 27 inch wheel and a modern "700" wheel ( which actually has a bead seat diameter of 622mm)
He said: " the difference between them is only a bee's dick, but it's still enough to make them not interchangeable."
Julian said,
February 22, 2025 @ 6:02 pm
I probably would not have thought "sounds French" on my own initiative, but once primed it did remind me of Plastic Bertrand.
Maybe something to to with the intersection of rap style with a language that doesn't have a strong syllable stress?
Coby said,
February 22, 2025 @ 6:20 pm
Consider these pairs of languages that are regarded as, historically, the same language, but sound VERY different: Bulgarian and Macedonian, Danish and Norwegian, Portuguese and Galician. In each case, the second language of the pair sounds much more like a third, neighboring but distinct, language (Serbian, Swedish and Spanish, respectively).
Chas Belov said,
February 22, 2025 @ 7:46 pm
Thank you for your insights. I do remember a friend who spoke English, Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Mandarin telling me Cantonese is so loud that it always sounds like they're fighting even when they're not, while Shanghainese is so soft it never sounds like they're fighting even when they are.
@Julian: Full disclosure that I'm not an expert in Chinese hiphop – for that, you might want to check out the Dongting series on hiphop in China – but I've heard quite a bit of Chinese hiphop in various topolects and this is the only song I've had this particular reaction to.
Chas Belov said,
February 22, 2025 @ 7:49 pm
Also thinking I occasionally need to listen to the lyrics to tell whether a particular song is in Japanese or Spanish.
Peter B. Golden said,
February 22, 2025 @ 7:55 pm
My wife, a native of Shanghai, spent part of the war years (WWII) in Suzhou (Suzi in Shanghai topolect). There were many family friends from there. The topolect is intelligible to Shanghainese speakers but is noted for its "softness" sounding more "feminine."
@ Chas Belov, the old saying was that two Suzhou people arguing sounded more affectionate than two Cantonese making love.
Chas Belov said,
February 22, 2025 @ 9:49 pm
@Peter B. Golden: ROFL re the old saying.
@Julian: Thinking about it, and noting that rock, not hiphop, is my first love in music, when I first started encountering hiphop in French and Mandarin, it just sounded wrong to me. I theorized that languages which were strong in final consonant stops, such as Korean or Cantonese, would be needed for good hiphop. Fortunately, I have been proven wrong over the years, or else my increased familiarity of Mandarin hiphop has led to it growing on me.