CNNGo has an article on Qian Nairong. He’s the go-to guy for Shanghainese. If you don’t know who he is by now, you haven’t been paying attention. It’s called Word wizard: The man bringing Shanghainese back to the people. From the article:

Professor Qian Nairong (钱乃荣) might appear to be like any other mild-mannered professor. But get him talking about his passion, Shanghainese, and it becomes obvious why he has become one of the city’s newest social heroes. His projects to promote the use of Shanghainese have made him a local legend: a comprehensive Shanghai dialect dictionary and a, excuse us, the, Shanghainese input method — think pinyin for Shanghai dialect. Not just for lingaphiles, these books are saving Shanghai’s native tongue, getting more and more Shanghai residents using their local language.

Thanks to Xindanwei’s Liu Yan for bringing this to my attention. Good timing considering I not three days prior bought copies of all of his books on the subject I didn’t already own.