SHANGHAI, where locals once felt superior to outsiders because of their peculiar dialects, is now trying to prevent its own voice from going extinct.

    A video series created to introduce and promote the Shanghai dialect has attracted 400,000 clicks online, as it tries to help prevent the regional language from becoming extinct.

    Producer Gu Yibo was inspired to make the six-part series after an embarrassing four-generation family gathering during the Spring Festival last year. The 39-year-old became aware that his son could only speak Mandarin and could not communicate with his 94-year-old great-grandmother. Gu had to translate for them.

    Thinking of how he could get his son interested in the Shanghai dialect, Gu dubbed over the voice of the “Talking Tom” cat, a popular character on a smartphone game app. The six-part series was born, attracting online followers.

    Shanghai University linguist Qian Nairong said the regional language belongs to the branch of Wu dialects under the Chinese language system. Other branches include Hakka, the North, Hunan, Fujian, Canton and Jiangxi.

    With rapid social development in recent years, an increasing number of migrants with different dialects can be found all over China. Most people are encouraged to speak Mandarin to each other, threatening the existence of regional dialects.

    Qian and his team developed character input software using the Shanghai dialect in 2008, in an attempt to save the regional language by using technology.

    Some language experts are worried that dialects will become extinct in the Internet era, as most people type characters with unified pinyin, which is based on Mandarin.

    Chen Shengxiang, 73, is one of the worriers. He spent a year compiling a 100,000-character Shanghai dialect dictionary, which includes more than 2,000 entries and their corresponding Mandarin expressions.

    Gu said Chen’s dictionary was a vital tool for his video series, adding that experts like Chen are becoming rare. “We should not only keep their words, but also record their voices,” Gu said.

    To better preserve China’s dialects, the State Language Commission is building an audio database for the country’s languages. Elsewhere, governments of Shanghai and other cities have been promoting the teaching of dialects in kindergartens. Shanghai’s Pudong New District Government also opened a Q&A section for learning on its microblog at Twitter-like weibo.com. (Xinhua)