Shanghainese

The Shanghai language or Shanghainese (上海閒話) is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai and the surrounding region.

Considered part of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages and similar to other Wu Chinese dialects, Shanghainese is not easily understandable by Mandarin and Cantonese speakers. 

In the 1890s, due to Shanghai’s blossoming economy, Shanghainese had become an increasingly growing dialect of Wu Chinese. It continued to grow into the 1930s. In 1950, Mandarin became the official language of China.

With approximately 14 million speakers, Shanghainese contains only two tones (high and low) where Mandarin (which is what makes the Mandarin language extremely difficult) contains four different tones. Unlike Shanghainese, both Mandarin and Cantonese are both tonal contour languages where the distinguishing feature of the tones is their shifts in pitch such as rising, falling, dipping, or level. For example, if you say ma with the first tone, it means “mother” but if you say ma with the fourth tone, it means “horse”.

From 1992, Shanghainese use was discouraged in schools and so many children native to Shanghai can no longer speak Shanghainese. Shanghai's emergence as a cosmopolitan city further promoted Mandarin as the official language of business and services.

It is now thought that very few people under 60 years old can speak the original Shanghai dialect and many attempts are being made to preserve the language. Professor Qian Nairong is promoting the Shanghainese language and he has recently reminded people that, "the popularization of Mandarin doesn’t equal the ban of dialects. It doesn’t make Mandarin a more civilized language either. Promoting dialects is not a narrow-minded localism, as it has been labeled by some netizens.”

Here are some Shanghainese phrases (from Omniglot);

English	上海闲话 (Shanghainese)
Welcome	欢迎 (hueugnin)
Hello	侬好 (nong23 hao34) 大家好！(dâka-hô!) - hello everybody 饭吃过伐？ (ve23 qik3 gu5 va1?) - "have you eaten?" (common greeting)
How are you? Reply	侬好伐? (nong23 hao34 va?) 侬过得还好伐？ (non kûteq re-hôva?)
	我蛮好，谢谢 (ngû mhehô, jâja) 蛮好。侬呢？ (me51 hao34. nong2 nak4?)
Long time no see	长远勿看见侬 (ssang2 yyu4 vak2 koe5 ji3 nong1)
What's your name? My name is ...	请问尊姓大名？ (chînmen tzenxin-dâmin) 请问侬信啥？ (chînmen nong2 xin sa?)
	我信 ... (ngû xin ...) 我叫 ... (ngû ciô ..