Thoughts on Cantonese?

[Leslie Frank]

On 12/15/2021 at 12:25 PM, Insectosaurus said:

Did Hawaii even pass 100,000 inhabitants before colonisation?

I wasn't thinking in terms of numbers--I feel any language used by a community is valid, and for the lack of better words, not worthy of decimation. But since you asked... ?
 

[The Kamehameha Schools, an educational organization for Native Hawaiian youth, place the 1778 population at around 300,000, but recent estimates used by sociologist David Swanson place them much higher, at around 683,000.]

 

["Historical accounts by missionaries and other Westerners who first arrived in the 1820s frequently predicted the complete eradication of the Hawaiian race from the planet by the early 20th century. Indeed, by 1920, the Native Hawaiian population had dwindled to just under 24,000, according to the U.S. Census."]

 

above excerpts from:

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/04/18/398578801/it-took-two-centuries-but-the-native-hawaii-ans-has-finally-bounced-back

 

 

Today's Hawaiian natives are showing 1.4 million strong.

 

Estimate from:

https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=3&lvlid=65

 

[Insectosaurus]

On 12/15/2021 at 10:14 PM, Leslie Frank said:

Today's Hawaiian natives are showing 1.4 million strong.

 

 

Weren't we discussing language? 24,000 native speakers in 2008 according to wikipedia. People of today identifying as native Hawaiians aren't more native than people of other ethnicities and it's a topic unrelated to language. 

 

On 12/15/2021 at 10:14 PM, Leslie Frank said:

I wasn't thinking in terms of numbers--I feel any language used by a community is valid, and for the lack of better words, not worthy of decimation

 

How fortunate then that no one suggested otherwise. Perhaps I misunderstood you, but the suggestion that Cantonese might be disappearing or dwindle, is by definition a quantitative statement.

[Leslie Frank]

On 12/15/2021 at 12:25 PM, Insectosaurus said:

Cantonese is a language spoken by almost 100 million people. Did Hawaii even pass 100,000 inhabitants before colonisation?

 

On 12/15/2021 at 2:59 PM, Insectosaurus said:

Weren't we discussing language? 24,000 native speakers in 2008 according to wikipedia. People of today identifying as native Hawaiians aren't more native than people of other ethnicities and it's a topic unrelated to language. 

 

I may be misunderstanding you, but I also don't think that the number of native speakers has any bearing to this current discussion of language, but since you brought up the question of if "Hawaii even pass[ed] 100,000 inhabitants before colonisation," I responded with information gathered from NPR (National Public Radio that originally replaced the National Educational Radio Network in the U.S. that now encompasses digital journalism and multimedia), and the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services, whose mission is to improve the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs that help eliminate health disparities.

 

On 12/15/2021 at 2:59 PM, Insectosaurus said:

On 12/15/2021 at 1:14 PM, Leslie Frank said:

I wasn't thinking in terms of numbers--I feel any language used by a community is valid, and for the lack of better words, not worthy of decimation

 

How fortunate then that no one suggested otherwise. Perhaps I misunderstood you, but the suggestion that Cantonese might be disappearing or dwindle, is by definition a quantitative statement.

 

I don't think anybody in this forum is suggesting the decimation of Cantonese, but the CCP is certainly wasting no time to do its part, as based on the following excerpts: 

 

[the Hong Kong government is pressured by Beijing to demolish Cantonese, a symbol of local culture and identity, so that Hong Kong may assimilate into mainland China.]

 

from:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1868102620983939

 

 

And in more recent news:

 

[The government plans to make use of Mandarin - the national language - virtually universal by 2035, including in rural areas and among ethnic minorities.

 

The move threatens regional dialects, such as Cantonese and Hokkien, and minority languages such as Tibetan, Mongolian and Uighur.

 

The policy is backed up by legal requirements for the language to be spoken as the official language of government agencies, in schools, news and publications, radio and film and on public television.

The promotion of the language over others has sparked occasional protest - including last year in the Inner Mongolia region where Mongolian was replaced by Mandarin as the language of instruction.

 

China's ruling Communist Party has denounced all such complaints as a form of separatism and repressed them ruthlessly.]

 

from:

https://news.sky.com/story/china-launches-campaign-to-get-85-of-citizens-speaking-mandarin-by-2025-12483901

 

 

These types of repressive actions are reprehensible whether to a populace in the billions, or in the hundreds, so in that sense, I wasn't thinking of the numbers as much as the act of aggression that could be better served welcoming and working with diversity instead of the tyranny of uniformity, although this is the reality we live in, that even to a degree, is alive and well in the good ole US of A.

 

 

[Leslie Frank]

On 12/15/2021 at 12:53 PM, Leslie Frank said:

I have another appointment with another client later today and if there's anything different from what I just wrote here, I'll give an update; otherwise, it'll be the same ole, same ole.

 

UPDATE: I spoke to three other clients, two other males and one female, all middle-aged, who gave pretty much the same info as the previous guy (except these Canto speaking clients came over from mainland China). Basically, they see the Canto characters in HK periodicals, HK ads or HK TV programming that may occasionally have Canto characters in the "script" [劇本], as one guy put it (so I'm guessing he means the subs and they must be old vids they are viewing in the States), such that they would then be able to see what the Canto characters look like as they hear it being spoken at the same time--words that they have been speaking all along since from when they could start talking.

 

I didn't want to take up much company time picking their brains, so I didn't dig deeper into their responses, and sometimes I asked leading questions, because in all cases, they laughed at my questions, flabbergasted that I even ask such questions that seem obvious to them, that they were at a loss as to how to answer sth that was too apparent for them to voice on their own.

 

The first guy in the previous post gave answers that were all completely his own; the others I asked later in the day, might start saying sth, then stop, at a loss to explain sth they never had to explain before, then I would sort of fill in the details and they would be like, yeah, that's how it really is, or some such thing. They all now live in the U.S., so at home, and with with their Canto speaking friends, relatives and co-workers, they speak Canto, but because they live and work in the U.S., they also have a basic, rudimentary knowledge of English, but they still rely on ppl like me to navigate their world of health and wellness, their insurances and their retirement years.

 

Note: Apologies--in order for me to hurry up and do my work, I only focused on Canto characters. A friend of mine who is from the Guangzhou province, in her 20s, have only had Mandarin taught throughout her educational process, so I just assume that is a given and the guy from HK in the prev post has been in the States prior to the handover, so there was no use asking him about that aspect of the other portion of the original post's question.

[geraldc]

Cantonese is fighting back. Amongst the overseas HK community, there are more online Cantonese classes for kids etc. 

The weekend Chinese schools in the UK up until the 1990s were all Cantonese, then they slowly changed to Mandarin as more people came from the mainland. Now the Cantonese teaching has gone online/remote. With the political developments, speaking Cantonese is even more of an identity issue. A few families I know have stopped with Mandarin for their kids and are going back to Canto.

 

There are even text books now https://hambaanglaang.hk/ and proper learning/teaching resources.

 

 

 

 

[PerpetualChange]

On 1/10/2022 at 10:51 AM, geraldc said:

there are more online Cantonese classes for kids etc. 

Any for adults?

[geraldc]

I don't personally know of any group classes, but I know a few adults are having tailored private lessons through the school linked here. eg a parent whose kid does an online class, but that parent doesn't speak Canto, or an adult who hasn't spoken Canto in years and wants to brush up.

[mikelove]

FWIW, traffic at our free cantonese.org dictionary website has more than doubled in the last 2 years (despite our utterly neglecting it) and is currently at something like 200,000 queries per month. Which is about the number of queries MDBG sees in a typical day, but nevertheless, one data point to suggest interest in Cantonese is growing (or at least not fading).

 

And certainly based on support queries / add-on downloads / etc we're continuing to see a lot of interest in Cantonese - it's low-key been a pretty significant driver of business for us.

[Tomsima]

I have to admit, learning cantonese feels a lot more fun from a media point of view - news and blogs are often more interesting and engaging, plus there's the whole back catalog of HK films to get your teeth into (although I've watched many with excellent Mandarin dubs). I find myself a lot more engaged with the content available online in general when compared to mainland. Channels such as The Culturist 文化者 on youtube are a good example.

[abcdefg]

Watched this yesterday, about the differences between Cantonese and Mandarin, by Stuart Jay Raj: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUlSVvLH1_8 

 

As someone who doesn't know any Cantonese except for a handful of menu terms for ordering a dim sum meal, his discussion impressed me a lot. The bit about how Tang poetry comes alive in Cantonese was an unexpected bonus -- it is about 18 minutes in. 

[abcdefg]

On 12/15/2021 at 12:26 PM, PerpetualChange said:

I believe that, even in PRC, people in areas with deeply entrenched local language culture receive at least the first several years of their education in that language, with Mandarin-speaking teachers showing up with greater and greater frequency toward the back half of primary school.

 

Replying to an old post @PerpetualChange -- I've seen that at work, just like you say. One summer, living in Kunming, I had an informal Mandarin teacher whose full-time job during most of the year was teaching proper Chinese to school kids who entered the system after only using the regional dialect at home (昆明话)。We became friends and eventually I met several of her teacher friends who had similar duties. They often joked and chatted about how challenging it was. Later in the year, I visited her hometown in the beautiful southern mountains of Yunnan (墨江 -- an autonomous Hani prefecture.) There I met more of her teacher friends who said it was like pulling teeth to get the small-town kids to talk Mandarin. 

[PerpetualChange]

Well, I've finished Pimsluer Cantonese. It was... alright, I guess. Definitely out of date and in need of some tweaking. Also, there's only one level, and no Pimsluer+ stuff, so not sure where to go next. Over the next few days I'll do a little research and see what other options are out there for continued study in some kind of systemized, not totally self-guided way.

[Apoc]

I'm also curious to hear about any further learning materials. I've been doing Pimsleur as well, luckily I'm only at the episode 10 currently. Already a bit worried if there's any further quality resources, apart from the textbooks mentioned here. I did the free lessons on the app "Cantonese Language with Master Ling" but for me it doesn't seem useful enough to pay the full price (44 euros a year), but at least it's an option. Combined with some tutoring and lots of Youtube videos it might get me somewhere, considering that I already have a good basis from Mandarin.

 

In the past I had a similar experience with Vietnamese where after studying Pimsleur (there's only 1 level), Duolingo (did 1/3 before it got too hard) and some Memrise, it was like being in a desert with nowhere to go. I didn't find any beginner podcasts or graded readers like there is for Mandarin. I doubt people can get beyond beginner level in the "less prominent" Asian languages like Viet, Canto, Thai, Indonesian etc. without living in those countries. It's a good reminder of how good we have it as Mandarin learners.

[geraldc]

This youtuber always is used as an example about how you can self learn away from a Cantonese environment

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy5xzRVJtN8

[Apoc]

Very informative, thanks for the link. First time I heard about CantoneseClass101, I'll definitely give it a try.

[Tomsima]

Grace's videos have been really encouraging and helpful for me. I signed up for CantoneseClass101, their content is pretty good, I sort of dip in and out. I bought the premium during one of their heavily discounted periods, but in retrospect I still think my money would have been better spent on a package of one-to-one classes on italki. Nothing will ever live up to the old Chinesepod classes back in the day with John Pasden, though, so perhaps thats a bit unfair.

 

I'm still doing daily study through Glossika shadowing. Its very tortuous work, but I can feel it slowly working away on my brain. I have yet to have a conversation class, but I am starting to pick up some understanding watching some HK vloggers and youtubers. Its expensive, but I would still recommend this as a key resource for Cantonese at present.

[PerpetualChange]

On 1/13/2022 at 8:11 AM, Tomsima said:

Grace's videos have been really encouraging and helpful for me. I signed up for CantoneseClass101, their content is pretty good, I sort of dip in and out. I bought the premium during one of their heavily discounted periods, but in retrospect I still think my money would have been better spent on a package of one-to-one classes on italki. Nothing will ever live up to the old Chinesepod classes back in the day with John Pasden, though, so perhaps thats a bit unfai

Curious about this because in my limited experience a lot of italki/preply tutors do not really have a systemized way of teaching you, they just want to have some conversation and that's it... of course, maybe I'm being unfair, and just going off of experience with Mandarin. A cantonese tutor who provides materials or at least teaches materials you must procure on your own would be ideal. If anyone can recommend a good one, feel free to let me know. 

[alantin]

@PerpetualChange, LTL Flexi Classes have a Cantonese course of 57 one hour classes and apparently they are in the process of adding more. I did their HSK4 course last year and found the teachers really good, the course very structured, and the materials very good too. If I was beginning Cantonese, I'd start there.

[PerpetualChange]

@alantin- it certainly looks good. The one thing I don't necessarily like is it looks like it sets you up with a subscription? I would rather try a few classes before I commit to something like at least $50 USD per month. Which seems to be the bare minimum. 

[黄有光]

On 12/15/2021 at 8:49 AM, Flickserve said:

It’s good to be sentimental but societal needs have changed.

There is value in preserving the culture of a region, and, beyond that, people often talk about languages like it's a one or the other situation, when nothing could be further from the truth. The CCP could, for example, institute a policy in which half of classes be taught in the local 方言 with the other half to be taught in 普通话。That would be sufficient to engender diglossia in the population. Instead, the CCP chooses to deliberate displace local languages. I think that's a terrible policy. It is disrespectful of heritage.