 Richard VanNess Simmons, a professor of Chinese at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA, claims that the Hangzhou dialect, rather than being Wu as it was classified by Yuen Ren Chao, is a Mandarin variant closely related to Jianghuai Mandarin.Hangzhou dialect is still classified under Wu.Chao had developed a "Common Wu Syllabary" for the Wu dialects.