How alive are other Chinese dialects?

[rezaf]

When (and how) did they start writing in Mandarin and reading in Cantonese? I guess it would be almost impossible with something like Shanghainese.

[anonymoose]

I guess it would be almost impossible with something like Shanghainese.

There's a video somewhere on the net with Song Qingling doing exactly that.

[rezaf]

Some day they might standardize the characters used for writing Shanghainese but directly reading a Mandarin text in Shanghainese seriously won't make sense. So is it like they created a new form of Cantonese that can be written like Mandarin?

[Takeshi]

I'm not sure how much sense Mandarin read in Cantonese makes. I generally hear that nobody every speaks like that, but some people say formal speeches may be more mandarin influenced. I have no clue when and how they started; that's what I'm wondering too.

[chiuyan]

When students in Hong Kong learn to read and write Chinese, they are essentially learning Mandarin, only using the Cantonese pronunciation of those words. Most of the words that exist in Mandarin exist in Cantonese too, so they all have a Cantonese pronunciation even if their meaning is a little different (for example, Cantonese does not use the word 他 to mean him, they use 佢, but the word 他 still exists in compound words like 其他 so it still has a Cantonese pronuciation). The grammar and vocabularly can be very different from spoken/written Cantonese, so if one were to walk around Hong Kong speaking like they write, they would be very difficult to understand :-)

Of course these children are really learning standard written Chinese, which is not exactly the same as Mandarin, but it is very close. This is a relatively new change for Hong Kong. Before the New Cultural Movement (新文化運動) took place in China around 1920 everybody wrote in Classical Chinese, not vernacular PuTongHua, and in Hong Kong Classical Chinese was still used in some contexts up until the 1970s, but by then chidren were no longer learning Classical Chinese in schools, but something closer to present day PuTongHua.

This is also one of the reasons it is relatively easy for Cantonese speakers to learn Mandarin, but not the other way around. Except for pronunciation difficulties nearly all Cantonese speakers already know Mandarin, they just don't know how to pronounce it :-)

[yellowpower]

@chiuyan

was wondering about TVB chinese news and documentaries...the subtitles in chinese to me appears mostly standardised Mandarin but read in Cantonese, except for the occasional use of Cantonese grammar in some sentneces. Can you share your thoughts. This is not the everyday colloquial speech of Hong Kongers that you hear but it can be considered the formal Cantonese right?

What about the Cantonese used in the TV serials? Heard that in the past many classical texts were originally read aloud in dialects and Cantonese was the most popular. Any examples of Cantonese lingo that has left its mark on Mandarin.

Thanks...

[jkhsu]

Some day they might standardize the characters used for writing Shanghainese but directly reading a Mandarin text in Shanghainese seriously won't make sense.

It seems like from this old thread, that it can be done. Although there are Shanghainese words that are not in written Mandarin, you can technically read a Mandarin text in Shanghainese and Shanghainese people would understand it.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/12586-reading-chinese-using-shanghainese-pronunciation/

[rezaf]

It seems like from this old thread, that it can be done.

Ask them to read the exact pronunciation of the Mandarin text and don't change the characters to modify it for Shanghainese and then it wouldn't make sense. I have done it a few times but they always change the characters while they are reading the text. Even in the recording provided by parasite that girl didn't pronounce everything character by character. Although I agree if it is read character by character in Shanghainese people would still be able to understand some parts and would probably take it as a joke.

[Altair]

Of course these children are really learning standard written Chinese, which is not exactly the same as Mandarin, but it is very close. This is a relatively new change for Hong Kong. Before the New Cultural Movement (新文化運動) took place in China around 1920 everybody wrote in Classical Chinese, not vernacular PuTongHua, and in Hong Kong Classical Chinese was still used in some contexts up until the 1970s, but by then chidren were no longer learning Classical Chinese in schools, but something closer to present day PuTongHua.

Was there any specific reason why Hong Kong did not follow the mainland and use the Putonghua pronunciation as well as the grammar?

[calibre2001]

Hi, I'm quoting off somebody from a cantonese learning forum that might be of interest.

http://zh-yue.wikipe...%8F%8A%E7%AC%AC

My understanding of the Standard Written Chinese (SWC) situation is like this:

Prior to the 1919 new culture movement, the whole China was adopting Classical Chinese in writing. However, during the late Qing period, Guangdong had already started to develop its own saam kap dai (三及第) style.

With the outbreak of the new culture movement, vernacular Chinese (白話文) spread all over China and gradually developed into the modern SWC. Today mainland China has embraced SWC in full, but fused with some odd English syntactical structures.

In HK, saam kap dai style has continued to develop with a strong element of vernacular Chinese based on Beijing dialect. It is now better known as Hongkong-style Chinese. The government, however, did not give up Classical Chinese until the early 1980s when all government publications were converted to SWC with a strong saam kap dai element.

Some examples of HK-style Chinese which I have collected over the years:

去過會所用膳 (SWC: 去會所用過膳)

警方經已掌握資料 (SWC: 警方已經掌握了資料)

陳婉嫻參選新界東 (SWC: 陳婉嫻在新界東參選)

民主派譴責政府,委任制乃分豬肉 (乃 is Classical Chinese; 分豬肉 is Cantonese) – from Apple Daily, Jan 20,1999, page A18

What is "their grammar"? Standard written Chinese is Cantonese's written grammar, too. Why do you think it exclusively belongs to them?

I too believe that Standard Written Chinese does not belong exclusively to the Mandarin speakers. Having worked in the Chinese language field for my whole career with the British colonial government spanning some three decades, I find out that the kind of written Chinese adopted by both the government and private sectors in both the past and present is actually the kind of writing usually called saam kap dai (三及第) – a mixture of literary Chinese, classical Chinese, and Cantonese.

Mandarin speakers often call our saam kap dai writing as Hongkong-style Chinese (港式中文). There are Cantonese grammar and terminology in our writing, much to the chagrin of the Mainlanders. In our public libraries, there are a lot of books devoted to the study of Hongkong-style Chinese.

Spoken Mandarin is undoubtedly closer to Standard Written Chinese, but Hong Kong has never been using the Mandarin grammar without reservation. An hour ago, I happened to see this poster inside a public washroom: 請勿將廢物拋進尿槽內. In standard Chinese, it would be sth like 不要把廢物拋進小便池內.

[chiuyan]

@yellowpower

was wondering about TVB chinese news and documentaries...the subtitles in chinese to me appears mostly standardised Mandarin but read in Cantonese, except for the occasional use of Cantonese grammar in some sentneces. Can you share your thoughts. This is not the everyday colloquial speech of Hong Kongers that you hear but it can be considered the formal Cantonese right?

Nearly all HK TV is subtitled using standard Chinese, so it reads alot like Mandarin. Some older movies and some children's programs have written Cantonese subs (Kung Fu Panda, for example), but this is rare.

News reporters certainly use a more sophisticated language than average, but I would say they are still definitely speaking Cantonese (for example they would not say 他不是 (ta1 bat1 si6) instead of 佢唔係 (keui5 m4 haai6)). And the level of sophistication depends on what is being reported on. Entertainment reporters use a very colloquial language and reports about politics or something are more sophisticated. I must admit though, that I am not a native speaker, so I might be measuring sophistication by the amount of vocabularly I do not understand :-)

Heard that in the past many classical texts were originally read aloud in dialects and Cantonese was the most popular.

I think this is just because Cantonese (and other southern dialects) preserve more of the ending consonant sounds from Classical and Middle Chinese that Mandarin has lost. So poetry or something that no longer rhymes in Mandarin still rhymes in Cantonese.

Any examples of Cantonese lingo that has left its mark on Mandarin.

I do not speak much Mandarin and have never lived in a Mandarin speaking city, so I cannot comment much on this. In Malaysia however (where Mandarin was not very popular until recently) I think you see many influences of the southern dialects. Things like 好食 instead of 好吃 in restaurant advertisements, people still saying 講 instead of 説, or Namewee's new album having the title 好好嘢 even though his music is entirely in Mandarin and he doesn't speak any Cantonese.

[chiuyan]

@Altair

Of course these children are really learning standard written Chinese, which is not exactly the same as Mandarin, but it is very close. This is a relatively new change for Hong Kong. Before the New Cultural Movement (新文化運動) took place in China around 1920 everybody wrote in Classical Chinese, not vernacular PuTongHua, and in Hong Kong Classical Chinese was still used in some contexts up until the 1970s, but by then chidren were no longer learning Classical Chinese in schools, but something closer to present day PuTongHua.

Was there any specific reason why Hong Kong did not follow the mainland and use the Putonghua pronunciation as well as the grammar?

I say people are essentially learning Mandarin just because standard written Chinese is so close to Mandarin that you essentially are learning a new language (all the vocab and grammar just not the pronunciation).

People, however, do not look at it this way. To them they are simply learning how to write the language that they already speak--Chinese, so of course they do not need to learn any new pronunciations since they already speak it This is one of the things that makes Chinese so unique as a language as that even though throughout history these very diverse people with very diverse spoken languages could still communicate via this shared written language that they all just considered Chinese.

This is a bit of a weird concept for Westerners, since we pretty much always write the same way we speak (although historically this was not always true), but for Cantonese people that is just simply the way the language works :-)

[Takeshi]

Wow, thanks very interesting. Now I really want to learn saam kap dai.

I'm learning Classical Chinese, Cantonese, and Mandarin all separately, you think one day when I'm done with all of them I can just sit down and right saam kap dai?

EDIT: I guess it's something like this: you have what you want to convey in Cantonese in your head, and you use Cantonese writing for as much of it as you can without using any low-class looking characters, and substitute those words with classical chinese instead. If you can't substitute with classical because nobody would know those words (or you don't know the words) or it would be a weird way to say it, then substitute with mandarin. (Just my theory, someone comment on it.)

At least that's how I write Cantonese now though XD

[yellowpower]

does anyone know if there are any reading materials/dictionaries that explain popular common expressions/cheng-yu style sayings from different dialects?

Thanks

[rezaf]

Bigger dictionaries usually contain many expressions from dialects. For example you can easily find something like 拆烂污 in most dictionaries and usually there is a 方言 or 吴语 sign in front of it.

[Michaelyus]

I guess it's something like this: you have what you want to convey in Cantonese in your head' date=' and you use Cantonese writing for as much of it as you can without using any low-class looking characters, and substitute those words with classical chinese instead. If you can't substitute with classical because nobody would know those words (or you don't know the words) or it would be a weird way to say it, then substitute with mandarin. (Just my theory, someone comment on it.)

At least that's how I write Cantonese now though XD

[/quote']

That sounds like an interesting and possibly verifiable hypothesis. Thesis proposal: an analysis of the 'levels' of the 三及等 in <insert descriptor here> Cantonese texts. Hmmm...

I've always found the phenomenon of reading formally (including standard written Chinese) in Cantonese an interesting one; as a 'native' Mandarin speaker, it is this type of 'Cantonese' that comes most readily to my mind when I try speaking it.

I'm not sure if Hokkien speakers or indeed writers of Hokkien (in whichever orthography, although I'm sure that will have an effect anyway) have similar influences on their formal language discourse. I get the impression that when reading standard written Chinese articles aloud, they will pronounce 的 as "ê" rather than "tek" (romanisation: POJ) much more readily than Cantonese speakers using "ge3" to replace "dik1". I think it's down to the greater prevalence and acceptance of the 文白异读 phenomenon in Hokkien compared to Cantonese.