Mandarin or Chinese?

[WestTexas]

From Wikipedia article on Wu Chinese:

Grammar

The pronoun systems of many Wu dialects is complex when it comes to personal and demonstrative pronouns. For example, the first person plural pronoun differs when it is inclusive (including the hearer) and when it is exclusive (excluding the hearer, such as "me and him/her/them not you"). Wu employs six demonstratives, three of which are used to refer to close objects, and three of which are used for farther objects.[citation needed] In terms of word order, Wu uses SVO (like Mandarin), but unlike Mandarin, it also has a high occurrence of SOV and in some cases OSV[41][42]

In terms of phonology, tone sandhi is extremely complex, and helps parse multisyllabic words and idiomatic phrases. In some cases, indirect objects are distinguished from direct objects by a voiced/voiceless distinction.[citation needed]

In most cases, classifiers take the place of genitive particles and articles – a quality shared with Cantonese – as shown by the following examples[...]

Wu dialects vary in the different ways they use to determine different pronouns, third and second person pronouns are affixed with [to?] as a suffix in Suzhou dialect, First person pronouns are affixed with 伲, third person pronouns are affixed with [lA53>44], and second person pronouns are affixed with [nʌ 23] in Shanghainese. Third and first person pronouns are affixed with [la], and second pronouns are represented with [na] in Haiyan dialect.[43]

[end]

Right, there are no differences besides pronunciation.

[malanting]

物件 is not a random word, this is a very old Chinese word, older than 东西

Are you talking about what we pronounce as "me si" then, again, I think it's 物事, not 物件.

[WestTexas]

If a serious linguist call Shanghainese a language, so be it.

My friend has a PhD in linguistics and says that Chinese forms a language family and is not a language in and of itself. Not making this up. The designation of a 'Chinese' language is politically motivated.

[roddy]

Sad news folks - I've just heard that Hofmann's head has exploded, taking out a large part of the US Western seaboard.

[malanting]

The designation of a 'Chinese' language is politically motivated.

Whatever, the same can be said about those who claim otherwise. It was not for political purpose that I started the topic anyway.

[imron]

What I was trying to say, however, is that how weird it reads and sounds if you repeatedly say "Mandarin" instead of "Chinese"

In English, depending on the context, it's not really weird at all.

As for Chinese-forums vs Mandarin-forums, Chinese can refer not just to the language but also to things related to China - Chinese paintings, Chinese visas, Chinese holidays. Not to mention the site also discusses non-Mandarin Chinese. Mandarin-forums would by definition have a much smaller scope than what we have here at Chinese-forums, hence the reason it is Chinese-forums

[Guest realmayo]

Also consider Korean: their word for train station, for instance, is an old Chinese character meaning the place where you change horses (something like that anyway) but it's got a Korean pronunciation and a usage which is different from Mandarin.

[L-F-J]

Whatever, the same can be said about those who claim otherwise. It was not for political purpose that I started the topic anyway.

You do seem to be avoiding certain things pointed out here that clearly counter your position. That's definitely a political trait.

[外国赤佬]

The situation with Mandarin and Wu is actually very similar to Russian and Ukrainian. The Ukrainians speak both, but the Russians only speak Russian. During the Soviet era there was actually some talk to re-classify Ukrainian as a dialect of Russian (the languages are very similar and a person that only speaks Russian can still understand at least 60-70% of what is being said, i.e. the languages are much more mutually intelligible than Mandarin and Wu). But, thankfully, this wasn't done.

This is exactly the same. A huge country like the Soviet Union or PRC, of course, fears separatism and will go to any lengths in the pursuit of "unity". This is why the local languages were classified as "dialects" and people are now pretty much shamed for speaking them in public.

[malanting]

L-F-J

You do seem to be avoiding certain things pointed out here that clearly counter your position. That's definitely a political trait.

Far from that, Don't you see I've already surrendered?

If a serious linguist call Shanghainese a language, so be it.

realmayo

Also consider Korean: their word for train station, for instance, is an old Chinese character meaning the place where you change horses (something like that anyway) but it's got a Korean pronunciation and a usage which is different from Mandarin.

Yes 역 is for 驿. But the Korean language is so different from Chinese( they say "I dinner had" rather than "I had dinner".)

서울역에 갔다 becomes 서울驿에 갔다 at most.

[roddy]

The Korean language is so different from which Chinese?

[外国赤佬]

Also consider Korean: their word for train station, for instance, is an old Chinese character meaning the place where you change horses (something like that anyway) but it's got a Korean pronunciation and a usage which is different from Mandarin.

It's 驛. Also used in Japanese (新字体：駅). It could be that it was imposed during the Japanese occupation (the Koreans had a very poor infrastructure prior to it), but I'm not sure.

[malanting]

people are now pretty much shamed for speaking them in public.

That's not true. Nobody is shamed for speaking the local dialect. People are encouraged to speak Mandarin only because it will be easier for non-locals to understand.

Then again, how do you differentiate a language from a dialect?

[malanting]

The Korean language is so different from which Chinese?

Nobody would put the object before the verb.

[imron]

The Korean language is so different from which Chinese?

Who's on first, what's on second, I don't know's on third.

[malanting]

Just found this from Baidupedia's 方言 entry.

　　一些

语言学者认为，所谓“方言”和“语言”的区别基本上是任意的，遭到其他很多语言学者反对，并提出种种不同的判断标准，这些不同的判准却常常会产生不一致的结论。一般来说，所有的方言实际上都可以被称作或视作语言（相互之间关系亲缘较近的语言可以互称为对方的方言，而相互之间亲缘关系遥远，在形成和发展历史上相关性较小的语言则不可互称为对方的方言。）

　　在实际操作中，个别语言之所以为“方言”，通常是由于以下的原因：

　　缺少适当的，语言未达到准确描述的程度；语言使用者没有属于自己的；这些语言受到歧视； 同一民族(或国家)拥有多个语言系统。以下对语言学者几种比较常用的“方言与语言比较”的判别方式进行讨论，并进一步指出这些判准在实际应用上的困难。在一些情况之下，对于语言和方言的界定，已不仅是语言学层面上的问题了。

　　注意：“所谓“方言”和“语言”的区别基本上是任意的”，指的是，一种语言（口音），如济南话，可以称其为一种方言，同时也可以称其为一种语言，而不可理解为，任何一种语言，可以称作另一种语言的方言，判定一种语言是否另一种语言的方言，要从语系归属，语法，同源词等多方面考量，同时兼顾一些政治等其他因素。

[roddy]

Bet this kid would be shamed if he spoke anything other than standard Mandarin.

Right, I am absolutely going to start working now. Have fun! I thought you'd surrendered, Malanting...

[malanting]

Note:

This thread was split from one of my earlier reply posts. Out of context, it would seem that I'm academic about this. But I was replying to tell the original OP (who posted his video and the Chinese script) that 我喜欢说中文 is enough, there's no need in saying 我喜欢说普通话 (it turned out the OP chose 普通话 over 中文 only because he was asked to do so by the organizers.)

[malanting]

Bet http://accu.cqu.edu....017750.jpg]this kid[/url] would be shamed if he spoke anything other than standard Mandarin.

A TV news presenter would be shamed if she spoke anything other than Received Pronunciation.

[外国赤佬]

发音=/=语言

We're going in circles here.

认输吧