fewer homonyms in cantonese than mandarin?

[WilsonFong]

i've been studying mandarin for a quite a while now, and one thing i notice is that many words that have the same pronounciation (though different tone) have different pronounciations in their cantonese equivalents. for example, in the order of english-mandarin-cantonese (with my own poor latinization scheme for cantonese):

heart - xin1 - sum

new - xin1 - sun

letter (mail) - xin4 - suhn

box - he2 - hup

and - he2 - wo

to drink - he1 - hoht

river - he2 - ho

not - mei2 - moot

each, every - mei3 -mui

beautiful - mei3 - may

the only example of the opposite that i can come up with right now is:

pair - shuang1 - seung

up - shang4 - seung

so does this mean that there are more different monosyllables in cantonese than there are in mandarin? if so, how many are there (i know that mandarin has about 400 excluding tones)?

[ala]

Not necessarily. Cantonese is very deficient in its number of initial consonants compared to Mandarin. For example, Cantonese has no retroflex (like Mandarin s/sh, z/zh, c/ch), and the Mandarin h/f/k typically become just h in Cantonese. There are many more examples where in Cantonese a pair is homophonous but not in Mandarin, for example: 黄、王 are homophones in Cantonese. Cantonese still ends up with more unique syllables than Mandarin, but not by very much.

1. Cantonese has 1500 unique syllables including its 9 tones.
   
2. Mandarin has about 1200 unique syllables when including its 5 tones.
   
3. Urban Shanghainese has about 600 unique syllables including the high/low tonal contrast.
   
4. Japanese has about 300 unique syllables, not including high/low pitch accent.
   

Not surprisingly then:

most polysyllabic = Japanese > Shanghainese > Mandarin > Cantonese = least polysyllabic (most monosyllabic)

For example common verbs like "to have" 有 and "to exist" 在 in Shanghainese (yeute 有得, lahei 辣海) and Japanese (aru, iru) are all polysyllabic, because there are less unique syllables, so in order to avoid homophones, the word increases in length of syllables.

[nnt]

Hán Việt (Chinese characters/vietnamese pronunciation) has about 2000 unique syllabes including its tones :

heart - xin1 - sum - tâm

new - xin1 - sun - tân

letter (mail) - xin4 - suhn - tín

box - he2 - hup - hạp

and - he2 - wo - hòa

to drink - he1 - hoht - hát

river - he2 - ho - hà

not - mei2 - moot - một

each, every - mei3 -mui - mỗi

beautiful - mei3 - may - mỹ

pair - shuang1 - seung - song

up - shang4 - seung - thượng

Mandarin has about 1200 unique syllables when including its 5 tones

I think it's a bit more (about 1600)

[HashiriKata]

Cantonese has 1500 unique syllables including its 9 tones.

Mandarin has about 1200 unique syllables when including its 5 tones.

Urban Shanghainese has about 600 unique syllables including the high/low tonal contrast.

Japanese has about 300 unique syllables, not including high/low pitch accent.

Hán Việt... has about 2000 unique syllabes including its tones

This is very interesting! Does anyone know roughly the number of syllables in Korean?

(I may be able to conjure up some nice theory if I get some figure for the number of syllables in Korean. )

As a side note, I should mention that the number of syllables alone may not tell you much about the homonyms situation in the language, since a language in theory may be said to have such and such syllables but those syllables may hardly be used at all in practice (eg. Japanese has a number of syllables which are used only for transcribing foreign sounds/ words)

Cheers,

[nnt]

Does anyone know roughly the number of syllables in Korean?

Not Korean (Hangul), but Hanja, korean pronunciations of chinese characters. Some research is necessary, but I don't think it should exceed much japanese On-reading.

Vietnamese has roughly 7000 unique syllabes, but Han/viet only 2000 (not including regional variations) .

[HashiriKata]

but I don't think it should exceed much japanese On-reading.

Thank you nnt! You may be right but the number/ size of the syllables also depends on how many of the final L,M,N, K,P,T the language has (in the context of these languages within 漢字圈). Other things being equal, the more of those final consonants you have, the more syllables in the language will result, which can lead to interesting implications.

(Compared to Japanese, Korean has many more of these final consonants; Just as compared to Mandarin, Vietnamese has many more of these.)

[ala]

As a side note' date=' I should mention that the number of syllables alone may not tell you much about the homonyms situation in the language, since a language in theory may be said to have such and such syllables but those syllables may hardly be used at all in practice (eg. Japanese has a number of syllables which are used only for transcribing foreign sounds/ words)

Cheers,[/quote']

Well the numbers I gave, aren't theoretical syllables, but actual syllables found in the language (though of course, some syllables are far less frequent). Theoretically, Cantonese will have a lot more syllables (given its CVC syllabic structure and 9 tones).

For Japanese, I think 300 is including -n, -k, -s, -z, -ts etc finals plus long/short vowels. For example さん san is one syllable (and it really is); みず mizu is one syllable (Tokyo dialect); and えい ei is one syllable (long [e:]).

[HashiriKata]

Well for Japanese, I think 300 is including -n, -k, -s, -z, -ts etc finals. For example さん san is one syllable (and it really is); みず mizu is one syllable (Tokyo dialect).

I know what you mean by this but I wouldn't get way off topic to try to bring you out of it .

[nipponman]

For Japanese, I think 300 is including -n, -k, -s, -z, -ts etc finals plus long/short vowels. For example さん san is one syllable (and it really is); みず mizu is one syllable (Tokyo dialect); and えい ei is one syllable (long [e:]).

No. さん, みず, and えい are all disyllabic. What makes you think they are monosyllabic?

It isさ + ん, み+ず, and え+ い(or in slang, え+え). If you say them like they are one syllable (ie, hold the sound for ええ for only one syllable) you might be misunderstood I think.

[Mugi]

At the risk of continuing this OT digression, my two cents worth: さん and えい are certainly monosyllabic - don't get tripped up by the fact that there is more than one phoneme involved or that they are represented by more than one character. A single syllable word may include a consonant blend and a triphthong and still be monosyllabic: flour -> /flauər/ (consonant blend + triphthong, represented by 5 characters (letters) in conventional English orthography, but still a single syllable).

みず is debatable, however. Even if it's pronounced quickly, I think there is always a small /u/ at the end, no matter how indistinct. I've lived and worked in 下町 Tokyo for the last 5 years and have never noticed anyone pronounce みず as /miz/. That's not to say that some people don't say it that way - I've just never noticed it. I'd be interested in any references ala could give.

Now, if です or ~ます had been given as examples, I would have been more inclined to agree...

[ala]

No. さん' date=' みず, and えい are all disyllabic. What makes you think they are monosyllabic?

It isさ + ん, み+ず, and え+ い(or in slang, え+え). If you say them like they are one syllable (ie, hold the sound for ええ for only one syllable) you might be misunderstood I think.[/quote']

No. Absolutely not.

さん and えい are bimoraic, but certainly not bisyllabic. You are confusing smallest rhythmic beat (the mora) with the syllable.

Also, in Japanese, ええ and えい (as in 英語) are EXACTLY the same. It's not [e] + , it's simply [e:].

Mizu was a bad example, since both monosyllabic and bisyllabic pronunciations exist, with the latter actually more predominant.

desu and -masu are better examples.

[Mugi]

Mizu was a bad example, since both monosyllabic and bisyllabic pronunciations exist, with the former actually more predominant.

I beg to differ - if in fact there even is a monosyllabic pronunciation of みず, it most certainly isn't the most predominant. Perhaps you meant "latter" instead of "former"? Out of curiosity, can you give any online references for this monosyllabic pronunciation of みず?

[skylee]

Shouldn't this thread be about Cantonese and Mandarin (as the title suggests)?

[HashiriKata]

the Mandarin h/f/k typically become just h in Cantonese.

Can someone tell me if the Fong in "WilsonFong" a Cantonese surname? It sounds Cantonese to me but if it is, it would contradict what ala's said.

One of the ways to test whether Cantonese has more or less homonyms than Mandarin is you could write some long passage in (established) romanisation for both Mandarin and Cantonese. The one that is easier to understand than the other in their romanisation has perhaps less homonyms than the other. Just an idea.

[Ncao]

Yes, Fong is Cantonese. It would be Fang in Mandarin.

[ala]

I beg to differ - if in fact there even is a monosyllabic pronunciation of みず, it most certainly isn't the most predominant. Perhaps you meant "latter" instead of "former"? Out of curiosity, can you give any online references for this monosyllabic pronunciation of みず?

Typo. I meant latter. Otherwise it wouldn't have been a bad example.

[ala]

The one that is easier to understand than the other in their romanisation has perhaps less homonyms than the other. Just an idea.

Unless you plan to write a sentence with completely monosyllabic words (or identical number of syllables for both Cantonese and Mandarin words respectively), then it's not really relevant because the original poster seems to be talking about unique syllables (i.e., character homonyms). Natural languages tend to have similar numbers of WORD homophones over time anyway.

Can someone tell me if the Fong in "WilsonFong" a Cantonese surname? It sounds Cantonese to me but if it is, it would contradict what ala's said.

Not really contradicting at all. I wasn't very clear, but in Cantonese: 花 = fa, 呼 = fu, 富 = fu, 苦 = fu... None of the last 3 Cantonese fu's in Mandarin even start with the same consonant (hu, fu, ku, respectively). One could argue that in Cantonese, [f] is merely an allophone of /hw/. Kind of like how Japanese doesn't distinguish fu from hu; a little different analogy though.

[nipponman]

Also, in Japanese, ええ and えい (as in 英語) are EXACTLY the same. It's not [e] + , it's simply [e:].

Don't want to further digress, but I agree with the first part, i guess I don't know what a japanese syllable is. But ええ and えい are definitely different. How are they the same? They are pronounced differently, just like iu and yuu. Ask any native and they will tell you that ええ is more colloquial, but that えい is the more correct pronounciation. Just like in collouquial pronunciation, many words with ai become ee. not ei.

[WilsonFong]

interesting responses.....kinda weird how some people are talking about my surname though:-?

[nnt]

A few figures with data from the current Unihan database :

for the whole database, there are

• 2168 unique Cantonese pronunciations,
  
• 520 Korean (hanja),
  
• 554 Japanese On-reading (not all are monosyllabic )
  
• and 1433 Mandarin unique pronunciations
  

.

(Data concerning Vietnamese pronunciations in the same Unihan database are not significant because the data are very very incomplete)

What are your conclusions, HashiriKata ?