Fluent foreigners spread the word on dialects

Deeper look

Argentine Federico Demarco, a postgraduate linguistics student at Shanghai University, is traveling even further along the path of understanding dialects in Shanghai.

The first Argentine to pass HSK 6, the Chinese-language proficiency test's highest level, Demarco is researching a dialect spoken in Shanghai's Jinshan district.

Married to a woman from Shanghai, Demarco became fluent in the main Shanghai dialect while living abroad with his wife.

When he relocated to Shanghai in 2018, his curiosity and passion for Chinese dialects drove him to explore variants beyond the city's urban center. His enthusiasm led him to uncover the lesser-known dialect spoken in Jinshan, which is located an hour from downtown Shanghai.

Partnering with Jinshan resident Feng Xuanxin four years ago, Demarco began documenting the dialect's nuances through field research in rural villages. The pair made audio recordings and notes of pronunciations of words, vocabulary and cultural traditions. "We want to preserve the dialect before local knowledge disappears," Demarco said.

However, finding speakers of the dialect is becoming difficult as younger generations have shifted to speaking Mandarin, he said.

With his South American looks, locals are always surprised when Demarco speaks near-perfect Jinshan dialect. He also posts videos on Douyin, which have attracted hundreds of thousands of views, explaining different aspects of the dialect.

For the past four years, Demarco has taken long car trips to and from Jinshan on a regular basis to conduct interviews and make recordings.

He is intrigued by the structure of the Jinshan dialect. For instance, dialects spoken in Zhujing, Fengjing, and Xingta towns have eight tones, while dialects spoken in other areas of Jinshan have seven, and Shanghainese has just five. "Languages are my passion. I hope that these unique dialects can be passed on," he said.

The pair are planning to turn their research into a book on the Jinshan dialect.

Demarco is also a co-founder of an online free dictionary for the Wu dialect, one of the main dialects spoken south of the Yangtze River.