User Comments - go_manly
go_manly
Posted on: Getting to Know CPod Teacher Helen (and exciting content news)!
March 15, 2010 at 8:54 PM"The Cantonese speakers I know claim to understand mandarin."
Isn't that because all young Cantonese speakers have LEARNED some Mandarin, not because Mandarin is innately intelligible to Cantonese speakers?
I wonder how many native Mandarin speakers understand Cantonese. When judging whether two languages are mutually-intelligible, you can't taint the judgement by asking people who have already learned the other language.
Could a Mandarin speaker who has never learned Cantonese have a conversation with a Cantonese speaker who has never learned Mandarin?
Posted on: Getting to Know CPod Teacher Helen (and exciting content news)!
March 15, 2010 at 1:34 PMIf Mandarin and Cantonese ARE mutually intelligible, my point is clearly moot. No-one has answered that one yet though.
Posted on: Getting to Know CPod Teacher Helen (and exciting content news)!
March 15, 2010 at 1:09 PMIt probably makes no difference at all. Doesn't mean I shouldn't have a bee in my bonnet though! Writing is only a means of recording the language - it is not the language itself. The converse of the Mandarin-Cantonese situation is Serbian-Croatian. My understanding is that they speak an almost identical language, but they use different scripts. Croatian uses our alphabet, while Serbian uses the Cyrillic alphabet. The only reason they would claim to speak different languages, as pointed out by changye, is politics. Linguists classify them as the same language, and the different scripts doesn't alter that. If there was no common script in Chinese, would people still claim that Mandarin and Cantonese were the same language? Moreover, if Mandarin and Cantonese had acquired a phonetic alphabet 1000 years ago, and the differences in spelling today reflected the different spoken languages, would they still be the same language?
Posted on: Getting to Know CPod Teacher Helen (and exciting content news)!
March 15, 2010 at 7:30 AMBased on what source?
Posted on: Getting to Know CPod Teacher Helen (and exciting content news)!
March 15, 2010 at 4:37 AMI think the question is - WHO gets to define what a language is, and what a dialect is. I go with the expert definition - that of the linguists. Definitions designed to serve government policy mean little to me.
Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Inner Mongolia
March 15, 2010 at 3:57 AMThanks again for that - very useful stuff. Perhaps those words should be used in lessons.
Posted on: Getting to Know CPod Teacher Helen (and exciting content news)!
March 15, 2010 at 3:47 AMI'm sorry, but you are wrong.
Definition from yourdictionary.com:
"...dialects are regarded as being, to some degree, mutually intelligible while languages are not mutually intelligible".
Posted on: Happiness Candy
March 15, 2010 at 2:27 AMbump 2 for CPod
Posted on: Hungry Traveler: Inner Mongolia
March 15, 2010 at 2:25 AMbump for CPod
Posted on: Getting to Know CPod Teacher Helen (and exciting content news)!
March 16, 2010 at 8:47 PMI don't think I've ever actually heard someone use 'sheila' except on TV, or in jest. Men are 'blokes', although its not used much as 'guys' caught on in the last few decades. Its one of the few Americanisms I prefer - 'blokes' and 'sheilas' sounds rather crass.