Mandarin v. Shanghainese v. Cantonese

[ChinesePod]

If you are interested, basic comparison of the three on ChinesePod #35:

http://www.chinesepod.com/2005/11/04/35-don%e2%80%99t-take-that-tone-with-me/

[Mugi]

Nice website. Good resource for beginners, especially for the Shanghai expat community.

Next time you want to introduce Cantonese (or any other dialect/language for that matter), I would suggest getting a native speaker into the studio. While Jenny makes a valiant attemp in Cantonese, her tones are a bit off and the 再 in 再见 is a little funky. But the main problem was saying that 唔该 (m4 goi1) = 没关系. 唔该 has many different usages, but is most often closest to 对不起, 麻烦你 or 谢谢 in Mandarin. What Jenny should have said in reply to 多谢 was 唔使 (m4 sai2).

Keep it coming though!

[Quest]

Left a message there as Smith, in memory of smithsgj.

[skylee]

"in memory"????

[Yuchi]

Anyone else a bit envious of her linguistic capabilities?

[beirne]

In the podcast Jenny translated ni3hao3 as lei ho. I've heard nei ho elsewhere. Are both correct? What is the difference between them?

[Quest]

In the podcast Jenny translated ni3hao3 as lei ho. I've heard nei ho elsewhere. Are both correct? What is the difference between them?

n/l mix up. they are both okay, n is more old-style.

[Mugi]

Yes, both are correct. Nei5 is the traditional pronunciation of 你. Many Cantonese can't/don't distinguish between /n/ and /l/. I think lei5 is used almost to the exclusion of nei5 in HK, but in Guangzhou there is a clearer distinction between age groups (/l/ used by younger generation, /n/ by older generation or younger people with strict parents/teachers ) At least this was the case 10 years ago. I suspect as time goes on /n/ will drop out of usage completely as an initial.

[ala]

"thanks" in Shanghainese is usually followed by a modal particle "o" so that it's less abrupt --> 谢谢噢 (ziaayaa o).

"thank you" in Shanghainese can leave out the modal particle --> 谢谢侬 (ziaayaa non).

"Shanghainese" in Shanghainese is 4 syllables, but the guy speaker was pronouncing 3 --> 上海言话 (zanheiraeroo)

阿拉 ala ("we" in Shanghainese) can also be singular "I", but the singular usage is more haughty or arrogant, and can be used to show that one is part of a group the other speaker is not in (hence more arrogant).

Overall the guy speaker was doing a fantastic job in pronouncing Shanghainese, sometimes better than the girl (for example the girl's 点心, the 点 was pronounced too high in pitch, but she was probably pronouncing high because she was speaking slowly and with careful emphasis).

What makes Shanghainese hard to speak is the extensive tone sandhi (tone changes for every character in a word), but Western language speakers should have an advantage over Chinese-only speakers here.

[Mugi]

阿拉 ala ("we" in Shanghainese) can also be singular "I", but the singular usage is more haughty or arrogant, and can be used to show that one is part of a group the other speaker is not in (hence more arrogant).

English also has a similar phenomenon; it's called the "royal we". Unsurprisingly, you'll sometimes hear royals (and other aristocrats) use it to refer to themselves in the singular.

How common is this 'singular' usage of 阿拉 (or equivalent word) in other 呉 dialects?

[hakkaboy]

Mugi, Margaret Thatcher said, when her grandson was born, "We are a grandmother".

[ala]

How common is this 'singular' usage of 阿拉 (or equivalent word) in other 呉 dialects?

It's a lot more common in Ningbohua (also 阿拉 but pronounced like Pinyin "e-le"). In Shanghainese, the singular usage has slowly become quaint, but every once in a while you still use it (without even noticing it). Wu dialects that do not use 阿拉 for first person (and instead use 倪 ni) don't seem to have this problem.

[Ncao]

Ala, if 侬(non)is you ,then how is 你 pronounce? Also how do you pronounce 我 and 我們?

[ala]

Ala, if 侬(non)is you ,then how is 你 pronounce? Also how do you pronounce 我 and 我們?

Shanghainese:

Singular

I 我 ngou, rou (wu); 阿拉 ala

you 侬 non

he/she 伊 yi

Plural

we 阿拉 ala

you 哪 naa

they 伊拉 yila

The character 你 is just pronounced "ni", but we don't use it except to pronounce Mandarin writings.

[Quest]

ala, what about demonstrative and interrogative pronouns in shanghainese? The this/these and that/those and the five w's.

[ala]

shanghainese demonstrative pronouns

个 ge-, 迪 die- = this

哎 ei- = that

个只 getsa, 迪只 dietsa = this

哎只 eitsa = that

个眼 gengae, 迪眼 diengae = these

哎眼 eingae = those

个塔 geta = here

哎塔 eita = there

个面塔 gemeeta = over here

哎面塔 eimeeta = over there

个能伽 genenkaa, genkaa = like this, this kind

哎能伽 einenkaa = like that, that kind

what --> 啥 saa, 哪能 naanen

who --> 啥人 saagnin

why --> 为啥 weisaa

where --> 何里塔 aaliita

which --> 何里只 aaliitsa

[Mugi]

Thanks ala for all the info.

Hakkaboy - that's the one! How does it sound to the ears of most Brits?

[Ferno]

wow I heard the audio file.

This just destroys the argument in favor of Characters that they "unify all the dialects under a written standard that can be pronounced in whatever language you want".

ie: Shanghai-hua has different word choice than Mandarin, plus Shanghai-hua has less syllables which means they need to make different/longer words to avoid too many homonyms which changes the word choice even more, and although I'm not certain, there are probably grammar differences as well. How can you possibly fully represent both Mandarin and Shanghai-hua with the same writing? You can't, Standard Written Chinese is just Written Mandarin.

[Mugi]

This just destroys the argument in favor of Characters that they "unify all the dialects under a written standard that can be pronounced in whatever language you want".

I don't know that too many people actually make this claim per se. Written language never exactly represents language as it's actually spoken. Modern Standard Chinese is not an accurate representation of the way any native Mandarin speaker, be they from Harbin, Beijing, or Chengdu, or even a CCTV newscaster from wherever with so-called perfect Putonghua, actually speaks the language in everyday life. This phenomenon is by no means unique to Chinese - it occurs in every language with an established written form. Compare the script of a Hollywood action movie with standard written English - there's a huge gap, and that's even with factoring in written conventions applied to the script. They way I am writing this post differs significantly to what I would actually say if we were sitting together in a bar having the same conversation. In this sense, the fact that grammar or word choice in spoken language may differ some is not so significant when it comes to writing in a common style.

I remember being somewhat interested in this issue when I was in Gunagzhou - I asked a number of native Cantonese speakers how they actually read and understood newspaper articles written in standard Chinese - university students usually responded that they read it and understood it in their minds in Mandarin. Slightly older respondents (20s and 30s) generally said that they gave everything a Cantonese pronunciation, but otherwise read it as it was (i.e. read Mandarin words (that don't occur naturally in Cantonese) character by character as is, but with Cantonese pronunciation: 他们 -> ta1 mun4 instead of the Cantonese 佢哋 keui5-dei6). Older respondents (40s +) converted non-Cantonese words into Cantonese where they could (i.e. they would see 他们 but actually read it in their minds as 佢哋). And some people would even adjust the grammar! They would see 我先去 but if asked to read it aloud in Cantonese would actually say 我去先 Ngo5 heui3 sin1. An extreme example would be reading 他先走了 but actually saying to oneself 佢行咗先 keui5 hang4 jo2 sin1.

I admit that me questioning a few people is far from a scientific survey of the situation, but it demonstrates that at least for some people a common written system works perfectly well to faciliate communication between different spoken dialects/languages on a written level.

ala, sorry to keep directing questions to you, but how do native Shanghainese speakers of different generations actually read/understand standard written Chinese? Is there a similar pattern to my (limited) experience in Guangzhou?

[ala]

ala' date=' sorry to keep directing questions to you, but how do native Shanghainese speakers of different generations actually read/understand standard written Chinese? Is there a similar pattern to my (limited) experience in Guangzhou?[/quote']

People under 30-40 of age cannot read in Shanghainese at all with Mandarin text. When they see Mandarin text, they will mentally read in Mandarin, not Shanghainese. When they see Shanghainese text (such as used in internet forums and msg boards), they will read in Shanghainese, but the characters used are so unstandardized that it is impossible to take this form of writing beyond the casual environment of the forums (example, actual Shanghainese sentence taken from a forum: “阿拉么以赛了了白相拉海playstation。” --> Ala ma yeezei leila besianlahei Playstation. --> Mandarin translation: 我们现在正在玩playstation。--> English: We are playing playstation right now.）.

People who are in their 50's can read Mandarin text using Shanghainese pronunciations, but most still don't know how to pronounce Mandarin words like 这, 谁, 知道, 在, 晚上 etc, and when they see these characters replace them with the Shanghainese (个、啥人、晓得、拉海、夜, respectively).

footnote:

“阿拉么以赛了了白相拉海playstation。” Ala ma yeezei leila besianlahei playstation.

Audio I made of the above sentence.

阿拉 = ala = we

么 (no std) = ma = topic marker particle or contrastive e.g. Playstation么是日本产品，Xbox么是美国个。(The Playstation is a Japanese product, while the Xbox is American).

以赛 (should be 现在) = yeezei = now

了了 (no std) = leila = at

白相 (should be 孛相) = besian = to play

拉海 (no std) = lahei = to exist (present progressive auxillary verb)

Of the above sentence, only 阿拉 is somewhat conventionalized, and it is completely phonetic.