Mandarin Eclipsing Cantonese

When someone talks about cultural genocide, it automatically means crazy? Oh year! Fine!

Time for you to go back in your cage. Go on boy, in you go.

裏

九方is more popular now because 倉頡 is too complicated to learn.

You're welcome.

Looks like 九方 is a very efficient method. Thanks.

No, the link I provided is 九方.

i don't know about 五筆 because I use 倉頡 all the time. 五筆 is usually used in China and it allows Mainland Cantonese to input accurate Cantonese characters.

Hi gregregre

Is that "Cangjie input method"? Which do you think is faster, 五笔 or 仓颉？

倉頡是拼形不拼聲的。

Taiwanese don't use Cangjie anymore.

Only HK people are still using it. But more people use 九方, which also inputs characters using strokes.

http://www.y1.hk/q9/index.htm

no, that is (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) Taiwanese way of input.

倉 = 人戈日口

頡= 土口一月金

Hi gregregre

I guess you usually use bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) for inputting Chinese characters, just like “ㄘㄤㄐㄧㄝ” (仓颉).

OK, thanks for reminding. I seldom write 倉頡 in English.

Hi gregregre

Sorry for being picky. It's "cangjie (input method)" (仓颉), but not "canjie".

HK people use係 (verb to be )while Mainland Cantonese use 系.

The same thing goes to the Cantonese negation word, 唔/吾. HK people usually uses 唔 while Mainland Cantonese used 吾.

The difference is thought to be because Mainland Cantonese use Mandarin pinyin to type words while HKer use Canjie.

諗 isn't 唸

Let me qualify what I said directly above. My co-worker was going to work in Sham Shui Po and spoke with Chow Yun Fat and it was thought that he was going to see his mother.

oh..and Chow Yun Fat's mother was living there a few years ago. Not sure if she is still there or if she is still alive.

thanks for having a look, wow.! Sham shui po ...That is where I met my wife.

Anyway, even with that video in mind, most people in my company would still prefer that I speak Cantonese. They really don't want to bother with English.

yeah, it's pretty funny. hkboy, why are you learning Cantonese, though?

(I don't live in Hong Kong right now; I'm in Shanghai)

I suppose the accent a lot of Cantonese learners have makes a lot of people think they can't really speak the language well enough to have a conversation. In that respect, at least, Cantonese is pretty unforgiving. And it's (I feel) mainly the issue of finding the easiest way out. If you are trying to communicate, people just want to use the easiest way.

That said, anywhere on HK Island is probably a bad place (to find Cantonese people with no English). Shamshuipo or Kwun Tong on the other hand, you might have more luck.

You can't click on the link I posted and see it. I guess I'm too stupid to work it out. Anyway, the video is pretty funny. It kind of says a lot about my life here learning Cantonese.

dlszho, do you live in HK? In my tiny little area here, most HK people don't really like to speak Mandarin, but they like for us to learn it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18YX8zAbmeU

dlszho,

Thanks so much for all the information.

dlszho, thanks for the great information!

@changye

白话 is usually not used to refer to Cantonese (in HK at least); I have heard, however, that in the Cantonese-speaking parts of Guangxi province, this term is used, as Cantonese is sometimes used as a lingua franca among different tribal communities (in the past).

@tvan

Also, above you said, "I really feel written Chinese 'belongs' as much to HK people as Mandarin speakers..." Out of curiosity, did you mean HK people or Cantonese people?

I meant HK people because I can't really speak for Cantonese people in Guangdong province, since their education was most probably in Mandarin.

I said that really to illustrate what most HK people feel: that even though written texts are 'done' in standard Chinese--which in effect is a different language in terms of grammar and vocabulary--most people don't FEEL that at all. That fact that this standard Chinese texts can be pronounced in Cantonese (each character having a Cantonese pronunciation) means that this hybrid level of language is not considered 'alien' or 'foreign' at all.

Incidentally, this situation where people pronounced standard written Chinese in their own dialects was probably very prevalent in China before the rise of universal Mandarin education. Classical Chinese/wenyan was, after all, learnt everywhere; with the rise of baihua/modern written Chinese, what in effect happened in dialect areas is that baihua replaced Classical Chinese.

@daniel70

Yes, in effect. About 10% of the total words uttered are replaced by the Cantonese equivalent in newscasts. The actual number of different words replaced is usually quite small--words meaning "is/are," "at," "here," "there," "and," the pronouns etc---but very commonly used.

For newspapers, standard written Chinese is almost always used for the main factual articles--with quotations in Cantonese, if the speaker spoke Cantonese. In quite a few columns, however, the writers choose to use Cantonese (conversely, some writers use a style that mixes standard Chinese and classical Chinese).

好 is not, I think, used in classical Chinese that way. On the other hand, the use of 至 to mean 'the utmost' or 'absolutely' is from classical Chinese (e.g. 至平 zi3 peng4 'absolutely cheap').

As an aside: the development of Cantonese-specific characters also has something to do with the legal system in HK. The Basic Law of HK mentions 'Chinese' and 'English' as the two offical languages--and in HK 'Chinese' meant Cantonese. In order to transcribe court proceedings absolutely faithfully, the HK government has had to codify Cantonese characters and even to release the character set (for computers).

So all this time I've been learning classical Chinese ... wah, ngoh jan haih hou ging!! (wow, I really am amazing) ... I thought I was learning to swear like jau yun faat. So 飲 (yam) is drink in classical Chinese too! Do you know whether the word 好 is used in classical Chinese the way 很 used in modern Chinese ... to indicate degree ... e.g. colloquial Cantonese will say 好好食, but mandarin will say 很好吃 (not the best example, but my vocab is limited)?

The same is true for "to drink", by the way. 饮 vs. 喝.

Hi daniel70

You are right. Cantonese words/usages "食" (sihk, eat) and "系" (hai, be) are both originated in middle Chinese. "食" is also used in modern Chinese (Mandarin), but it can't be used as a single verb "eat" anymore.

Modern Chinese 食 (shi)

Middle Chinese　食 (zhiok) with voiced consonant

Cantonese　食 (sihk)

Japanese　食 (siku)

Korean　食 (sik)

Modern Chinese 系 (xi)

Middle Chinese 系 (hei) with voiced consonant

Cantonese　系 (hai)

Japanese　系 (kei)

Korean　系 (ke/kei) modern/middle Korean

As you can see, only the sounds in modern Chinese are very different from others.

... so those characters from classical Chinese are the same as the words used in colloquial Cantonese - haih (shi4) and sihk (chi1) ? I always assumed that colloquial Cantonese would have been moving in the opposite direction, that is, away from classical Chinese -- if that makes any sense ...

Hi tvan

"系" (= 是) is mainly used in classical Mandarin. Cantonese preserves some old words and usages, as well as old pronunciations, which are ariginated in classical Mandarin. For example, Cantonese use "食" (eat, a verb) instead of "吃" (eat) used in modern Mandarin. The same is true for Japanese.

diszho, is it fair to say that the newscasters essentially read standard written Chinese with approximately 10% of the words replaced with a Cantonese variant? In other words, do they use the same sentence structure as standard written Chinese, and avoid the sentence structures spoken on the street? Also, from what you, and tvan have suggested, I take it that the newspapers use standard written Chinese, but that some of the words are replaced ... can you give me a sense of what proportion of the characters might be different from a similar article in a Beijing newspaper and how close the sentence structures are to one another.

@diszho, When reading (or more likely failing to comprehend) a Hong Kong article, the most common difference to me seems to be the use of the stative verb 係. I previously thought of this as being the Cantonese equivalent of 是, since it's commonly used that way. However, when I checked Nciku for the character definition, it appears that Mandarin also uses 係 (or 系 for you mainlanders). But it seems much more pervasive in written Cantonese. Is that true? I'm guessing this has some 聞言 roots as well.

Also, above you said, "I really feel written Chinese 'belongs' as much to HK people as Mandarin speakers..." Out of curiosity, did you mean HK people or Cantonese people?

Hi diszho

Many thanks for your specific information on written Cantonese, which is not easy to find in books. I think the history of written colloquial Chinese (白话文) is very interesting.

I have a book titled 《汉语白话发展史》, but it's been just sitting on a bookshelf in my study...... as an ornament, hehe. This thread and your comments really tempted me to read it!

Incidentally, I heard before that Cantonese people sometimes call their native language "白话". Is this true?

hmm. not coming through. well, whatever....

At school in Hong Kong, we were taught Standard Written Chinese. I remember primary school teachers telling us that we have to say things one way and write them another, unlike in Beijing. So in other words, the written Chinese we learnt was basically written Mandarin, with a few (very minor) differences in vocabulary and style. But we pronounced this written style in Cantonese, not Mandarin! I guess you could call it formal written Cantonese; in most HK people's minds, this is just 'written Chinese.' 

For example:

in written Chinese (and 'formal written Cantonese'):

老師想我們在這

Hi daniel

Probably written Cantonese has some kinds of style, such as formal written Cantonese and informal one. The more informal, the more indigenous Cantonese words are used, which automatically means "more difficult for outsiders to read".

Pardon me. I get a bit annoyed by those Cantonese language myths.

Hi gregregre

Please read my comment again a bit more carefully. I think we are in the same (or similar) camp. Below is your remark about Cantonese I found in your comment posted in this thread.

> The "formal written Cantonese" isn't Cantonese at all. It is just written Mandarin, which is called "standard Chinese". People aren't allowed to write in Cantonese grammar.

Go pick a Cantonese grammar book before you claim that Cantonese and Mandarin have same grammars.

I've seen young Cantonese speakers care about the language, and I've seen older Cantonese speakers that didn't care. I think I agree with the idea that if the path towards wealth is shown to be Mandarin, then Cantonese has got problems.

It sounds like for the Cantonese speakers that care, a more effective call to arms would be to give the majority of the locals lower on the economic totem pole financial incentives that help them succeed with Cantonese, rather than the cultural genocide argument on the use of Mandarin. I'm not a linguist, or a cultural anthropologist, but that's what appeared to happen in sub-saharan Africa and South America during European colonialization, as well as British colonialization of Hong Kong. English, Spanish, Portuguese and others are the languages of the rulers and local elites.

@simonpeteron, I know some Guangzhou residents who, though not poor, are by no means noveau riche.

They also talk about "defending" Cantonese. What seems to inspire the talk is the large amount of immigrant workers in Guangdong.

I don't know, it seems to me like everyone in the country speaks a regional and, often, a local dialect. Also,the article is very US-centric in that if focuses on Cantonese. What about 闽南方言，湘方言，客家话，四川话, ad nauseum?

The blue-collars want to get rich and see Mandarin as the road to riches. The well-to-do already got rich and most likely used Mandarin to get there. I'm guessing the ones who'd want to preserve the language would be the old money, conservative cantonese speakers with deep pockets.

I'm just guessing, though.

Yeah, that's what I've casually observed as well. If the Cantonese speakers in China are willing to part with the language, then it very well maybe on the way out after a few centuries. I wonder also what the economic component looks like; if the well-to-do Cantonese speakers care about Cantonese, but predominatly blue-collar Cantonese do not.

From what I've seen, it's predominately people who don't have Cantonese as a mother tongue, and people who do have it as a mother tongue, but don't live in China (including Hong Kong). Cantonese speakers in China, both young and old, seem to feel little attachment to the language, though there is some pride amongst some of the younger speakers.

It would be interesting to know whos fighting the "Defense of Cantonese" fight; predominately older Cantonese speakers, or predominately younger Cantonese speakers.

or evolution. :)

One thing I've noticed as I've started to learn Cantonese is that Cantonese learners are fiercely protective of the language (while native speakers are not). There are aggressive feelings as soon as someone calls it a "dialect" and news of Mandarin or English being used instead of Cantonese is called things like "cultural genocide".

Someone said there are four versions of Cantonese. There's the formal written Cantonese, which is basically the same thing as written Mandarin. Then there's colloquial written Cantonese, which is incomprehensible to a Mandarin reader (but I suspect that's largely because Cantonese uses different characters for what are essentially the same words, like "to be", despite them being used exactly the same). Then there's the spoken formal Cantonese, which is what you get when you read the first one aloud. Nobody actually speaks this way, but it's used in certain occasions, like news readings. Then there's colloquial spoken Cantonese, which is the way the language is usually spoken.

It is important to remember that formal Cantonese is quite different from colloquial Cantonese. My _impression_ is that formal Cantonese is more similar to Mandarin than the colloquial variety. Perhaps formal Cantonese is much more similar to older Chinese than colloquial Cantonese. Because of its separation from the written form, colloquial Cantonese changes very quickly.

As an aside, for me Mandarin and Cantonese are so similar, that almost every sentence I start in Mandarin, ends in Cantonese. I'm a bit like the bilingual illiterate in the Pet Shop Boys music video, I speak both dialects very poorly.

@tvan, I have found Cantonese speakers to be very intolerant of anyone daring to try to speak Cantonese ... If you don't get it perfect, they "don't understand" you, and do whatever they can to make you feel stupid. I've come to expect it. The linguistic snobbery extends beyond the saaiyahn (west person) to nephews, nieces, and grandchildren. My wife's generation (born in Hawaii to recent Hong Kong immigrants) were affectionately referred to as local mountain pigs (I don't recall the Cantonese version) -- well, the girls were, at least.

Around Boston, I'm hearing a lot more Mandarin in the suburbs, but plenty of Cantonese in Chinatown.

Just last week, I had a shopkeeper in San Francisco's Richmond district pretend not to understand me because I asked for "Bǎi Cài, not Bok Choy. Cantonese and linguistic snobbery are alive and well here it seems.

In fact, previously in San Francisco many of Chinatown's current residents looked down on anyone who didn't speak 台山話 （pronounced toisan in the their patois), with special disdain reserved for other Cantonese speakers.

"文言" (classical written Chinese) worked the same way as Latin, and this is one of the reasons there are a lot of words commonly used in Mandarin and Chinese "dialects" now. If it were not for 文言，languages/dialects in the Chinese language family would have been more different from each other.

Haha, you're right! I never realized how apt my comparison was!

"Cantonese is the Chinese equivalent of German"

I understand the sense in which you meant this, but it is also true in another sense. English branched off (not from German, but from one of German's "great uncles"), and then was "contaminated" by Latin, and other languages. It then became the predominant European language.

Considering changye's last post (can you play the bugle changye?), it seems that English and German are to West European languages what Mandarin and Cantonese respectively are to Chinese languages.

Does anyone know how the other Chinese languages fit in? In particular the Wu languages, which are supposedly more widely spoken than Cantonese.

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Cantonese sure sounds very different from Mandarin. Cantonese is the Chinese equivalent of German. Whatever you say, it sounds like you're declaring war.

That said, I was very surprised when I started learning Cantonese by how extremely similar it is to Mandarin. I'd been listening to the "It's a LANGUAGE not a DIALECT" rants for years. Now that I'm learning it, I can't shake the feeling of "This is just Mandarin with different pronounciation" (or "Mandarin is just Cantonese with different pronounciation"). Maybe the differences show themselves later on. Or maybe Pimsleur and Teach Yourself are teaching Mandarin with Cantonese pronounciation (Standard Chinese ...), but I don't think that's the case.

I also heard the same story before. Some scholars insist that Mandarin and Cantonese have the same substratum language, which is also the base language of Thai and Zhuang yu (壮语). Cantonese is very different from modern Mandarin, partly because Mandarin was heavily affected by northern ethnic languages.

Go_manly: That was exactly my thought.

有趣

With regard to the claim that Cantonese is 'older':

The two languages are supposed to be derived from a common source, so it seems meaningless to talk about which one is older. In fact, I think the idea of talking about the age of ANY language is meaningless - every language derives from some other language, and this process goes back to the year dot.

Of more interest is the relationship of each language to the parent language. And from what I've read, Cantonese is closer than Mandarin to their predecessor.

I hope this was in the voice of Frankenstein - at least in my head, you sounded like him :)