Correlations in the Pronunciation of Sino-Japanese Lexical Items in Shanghainese and Japanese

Abstract

This study investigates the phonetic relationships between Shanghainese, a major Wu-branch dialect of Chinese, and Japanese on’yomi (Sino-Japanese) readings, assessing whether historical Wu Chinese influences yield closer phonological parallels with Japanese than modern Mandarin. The researcher elicited pronunciations for 379 shared Sino-Japanese lexical items from three native Shanghainese speakers (from Pudong and Zabei) and three native Japanese speakers (from Kanto and the Fukuoka prefecture), using Mandarin as an intermediary control. IPA transcriptions of each token were compared via Levenshtein distance to quantify structural similarity, alongside qualitative analyses of segmental patterns. The results reveal an average normalized phonetic resemblance of 29.14%, higher than the 19.6% previously reported for Mandarin-Japanese phonetic resemblance, suggesting that Shanghainese retains greater phonological affinity to Japanese over Mandarin. Key convergences include voicing patterns conditioned by Shanghainese tone versus Japanese pitch accent, systematic deaffrication and alveolarization of retroflex consonants, and parallel adaptations of labiodentals and laterals in Japanese. On the other hand, phonological divergences arise in nasal codas and vowel sequences, which are affected by coda constraints and phonotactic shifts. These findings exhibit the impact of medieval Wu Chinese on Japanese on’yomi and provide insights on Sino-Xenic contact phenomena. Future work should expand to other Wu dialects and focus exclusively on Go-on readings to refine our understanding of historical sound correspondences.