Aside from the use of “chips” instead of “french fries” or “bloke” instead of “dude,” British English is relatively easy to understand once you know American English. 

But when it comes to Chinese, dialects are a whole different story. There are over two hundred types of spoken Chinese, many of which are completely different from one another. Most of us know the most popular ones. Mandarin, yes. Cantonese, of course. Wenzhounese…wait what-nese?

Wenzhounese is notoriously labeled as the most difficult Chinese dialect to learn, earning it the nickname “the devil’s tongue.” The more you hear it, the more understandable the moniker becomes. Wenzhounese boasts eight different tones, four more than Mandarin, each one capable of entirely altering the meaning of a word. Its unconventional system of grammar sends chills down the spine of anyone who attempts to tackle it. Wenzhounese also inherits a significant amount of its vocabulary from classical Chinese, dating back to the fifth century BCE, which has since been lost in most other dialects. 

Part of the challenge is that Wenzhounese is the most divergent dialect from Mandarin, the most widely-spoken form of Chinese. To most Mandarin speakers, Wenzhounese is completely unintelligible. It is so impossible to crack that it was used by China during WWII as military code against the Japanese. There is even a Chinese saying that goes, “天不怕，地不怕，就怕溫州人說溫州話” [Fear not the Heavens, fear not the Earth, but fear the Wenzhou person speaking Wenzhounese]. 

To the untrained ear, Wenzhounese may as well be an entirely different language. Some mistake it for something vaguely Southeast Asian, such as Thai. My dad, a native Wenzhounese speaker who passed down some of the dialect to me, recalls once being asked, “Is that Hebrew?” Wenzhounese was even featured in an episode of NBC’s drama Blindspot, used as a plot device when a Jane Doe character (played by a white actress) spoke the unidentified language. The clip from this episode subsequently took Chinese social media by storm. 

Unfortunately, today, the eclectic dialect is falling out of use in China. Most Wenzhounese speakers are members of the fading older generation, while young Wenzhounese people are abandoning their ancestral tongue because of its seeming “impracticality” in communicating with other Chinese citizens. Moreover, the Chinese government is currently making efforts to homogenize its official language. While these policies primarily target Mongolian and Tibetan languages, they have also put pressure on minority Chinese dialects, including Wenzhounese. The “Mandarin-ification” of other dialects sets a precedent that can facilitate the erosion of centuries of cultural history. 

To understand why Wenzhounese is so unusual, one must trace it back to its place of origin. This strange dialect hails from Wenzhou, a coastal city nestled in the Zhejiang province of southeast China. Even within its mother region, the dialect varies every few miles, with the same words being pronounced with different accents depending on the district. When a local from one corner of the city meets someone from another, the speech of their ancestors gives way to Mandarin, the bridge over the murky waters of local speech.

The geography of Wenzhou is as unforgiving as its language. From all sides, the city is hedged off by beautiful, but untraversable natural barriers. To the north, south, and west loom the formidable Yandang Mountains and the east opens into the vast East China Sea. This isolation from the rest of the country allowed its remarkable dialect to mutate over time from that of even its closest neighbors. 

In Zhejiang province, where Wenzhou is located, arose an ancient Chinese proverb, “山高皇帝远” [The mountains are high and the emperor is far away]. Indeed, for centuries, Wenzhou’s geographic obstacles made it remote from the heart of government authority and difficult to rule over. So, the Chinese government left this strange place to its own devices, contributing immensely to its special identity. For example, even during the height of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution — when much of China was being reshaped by the stern hand of Communist authority — a staggering ninety percent of Wenzhou businesses remained privately owned. In a country where the state controlled nearly every facet of life, Wenzhou’s independence was awe-inspiring. Today, the Wenzhounese remain known for their keen sense of entrepreneurship, even leading to their reputation in some circles as “东方的犹太人” [The Jewish of the Orient] because of their business savvy.

Isolation gave rise to a distinct culture and tight-knit community, but life in Wenzhou was not always easy. The city has long been a point of departure, one of the many reasons why the dialect is at risk today. For one, the rugged hills offered little to the farmer as the sparse, unyielding soil made survival in the countryside a daily struggle. For centuries, the people who could not eke out a living from the earth had to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Challenges remained even when people shifted away from agricultural lifestyles. Prior to 1949, Wenzhou was devoid of a single college or university. Higher education in metropolises such as Shanghai and Beijing drew people away from their hometown. 

Others traveled even further. During World War II, many Wenzhounese moved to European countries, where laborers were in high demand due to the wartime shortage. Emigration rose even more when China lifted outgoing restrictions in the late 1970s. In the 1980s and ’90s, Europe welcomed over 11,000 Wenzhounese immigrants each year. Wenzhounese enclaves particularly flourished in France and Italy, countries where the majority of Chinese residents are now Wenzhounese. For instance, in the small Tuscan city of Prato, Wenzhounese people constitute over fifteen percent of the entire population. Belleville, Paris is even home to a Little Wenzhou. 

In the mid-1980s, my dad’s family, like many others, left to start new lives overseas. Instead of landing in Europe, they immigrated to the United States and settled in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The majority of Wenzhounese people in the U.S. live in New York City, and in the last several decades, the Wenzhounese immigrant populations in Queens and Brooklyn have ballooned. In fact, in neighborhoods like Flushing, you can hear the dialect in passing every day. Today, over 130,000 Wenzhounese people live in our city. 

Although Wenzhounese is losing its foothold in China, the growth of Wenzhounese communities in the U.S. and Europe sparks some hope. The future of our unusual language, and thus the essence of being Wenzhounese, may well depend on the attitudes and convictions of immigrants in Western diaspora. Preservation will require active teaching from immigrant parents at home if there is any chance of survival long term, given the inevitable assimilation of their children and grandchildren into Western cultures and identities. Even more important is a sense of pride on the part of Wenzhounese people everywhere of their ancestry. I believe this pride still exists as I’ve witnessed on many occasions the joy of Wenzhounese people upon meeting each other for the first time — excitement that resembles the reunion of long lost family members. 

Admittedly, learning Wenzhounese may not hold much utility living in the U.S, but as globalization brings the corners of our world closer, we should not let this, or any other obscure language, fall by the wayside. A common tongue may be more convenient, but a linguistically diverse world is our entryway to curiosity and empathy for all cultures. 

Language is, after all, the glue that holds various communities together. It is a vessel for shared memories, intergenerational stories, the echoes of those who came before us. When different languages collide, opportunities arise for cross-cultural understanding of universal emotions through lessons that transcend linguistic barriers. We all have something to learn from tales that have been passed down for centuries: even ones from isolated, far-flung corners of the world.

“天不怕，地不怕，就怕溫州人說溫州話” [Fear not the Heavens, fear not the Earth, but fear the Wenzhou person speaking Wenzhounese].