What are the ages of each dialect?

[Guest timc18]

I think i've read somewhere that Mandarin is the youngest dialect (dunno when it developed though..anyone know?) and Min Nan Yu is one of the oldest dialects? (funny how i speak the newest and oldest dialects...if my info is correct). I also read that the Yue dialect was popular in the Tang dynasty (1700s??), but I have no info about when it actually developed.

I have no info on any other dialects...so when did the other major dialects (Gan, Wu, etc) develop?

[Amdir_Flassion]

Wah???....Tang Dynasty in 1700s? It's true Canto developed became popular in the dynasty, but that was in 700AD-800AD - somewhere around there. It still retains its nine tones.

[blob]

Well, yes, but I wonder if it is in danger of loosing the 9 tones. Me and most of my friends seem to only recognise 6-7 tones now, not sure how the other 2-3 tones differ.

Apparently Hakka is a pretty old dialect too. I am not sure how old though.

[Guest timc18]

oh oops. My bad about the time period of the Tang Dynasty.

Yes, I've heard Hakka is very old too. In fact, I've found that Hakka shares a lot of vocabulary with Taiwanese (Min Nan) that I have not heard in other dialects (maybe I just havnet heard it being used).

For example, both Hakka and Taiwanese colloquial for 地方 is sou zai (roughly mandarin tones 1 and 3)..which I think is 所在 (complete guess, since nobody uses written taiwanese anymore). Does any other dialect share this vocab?

[hparade]

yes i know 所在 'cos i can speak minnanhua, but not taiwanese accent though ;)

[bathrobe]

Exactly what do you mean by an 'old dialect'?

Do you mean that it split off from the other Chinese dialects a long, long time ago?

Or do you mean that it retains a lot of features of ancient Chinese?

In a sense, it doesn't mean anything to talk of 'old dialects'. Presumably Minnanhua, Cantonese, Mandarin and all the rest were originally the same language, so they're all equally old!

[pazu]

Blob, are you a native Cantonese speaker?

I can't agree with you that the tones in Cantonese are fading.

I don't know which tones you have problems with, but it sounds quite strange to have problems for a local.

Do you mean you have problems with the "rusheng" (入聲)? Can you be more specific?

[skylee]

The tones of the following numbers represent the nine tones of Cantonese -

394052786

The last three tones (7th-9th tones) are rusheng. They are similar to the 1st, 3rd and 6th tones, respectively, (which is perhaps why some people can recognise only 6 tones) but they always end with p, t, or k.

[ala]

I agree with bathrobe, all dialects have some ancient traits. Shanghainese (and other Wu dialects) have retained the full set of ancient voiced consonants, something both Mandarin and Cantonese have lost (hence why Cantonese and Mandarin have more live tones than ancient Chinese and Shanghainese). But Shanghainese has really brutalized the ancient vowels by truncating all diphthongs; and the -k, -p, -t of Middle Chinese have become just one single short glottal stop.

Shanghainese tones:

Two actual live tones:

Tone 1: 34 阴去

Tone 2: 53 阴平

Three natural tones (限定的自然调):

13 = voiced 浊音 (阳去)

2- = voiced Rusheng 浊音入声

5- = voiceless Rusheng 清音入声

Five tones total; two live tones and three are related to Rusheng (the short syllables, -k) and voicing (intials with b-,d-,g-,z-,v-,w-,r-,ng-, etc).

BTW, the two digit tone marks are based on a relative pitch from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest)

[blob]

Blob, are you a native Cantonese speaker?

I can't agree with you that the tones in Cantonese are fading.

I don't know which tones you have problems with, but it sounds quite strange to have problems for a local.

Do you mean you have problems with the "rusheng" (入聲)? Can you be more specific?

Hi Pazu,

Yes, I am a native cantonese speaker. However, from young up till now, I just spoke it, without taking too much note about the 9 tones. However, one day, one of my mainland chinese friends asked me to say out the 9 tones, and I found I was hard pressed to explain how the sounds of 4 and 8 are different and I find 7,5,3 very similar too. Well I can tell the difference, but I have to repeat the words a few times, and to explain which part differs, I find that tough (unlike mandarin, where it is very easy to see and explain how the 4 tones differ from each other). BUt that may be because I don't know the tonal system of cantonese that well

[Quest]

because Cantonese was not taught at school, I also never thought about the 9 tones until recently.

[Guest eventide]

据我的印象，以前曾在哪里看到过说方言的统一，也就是所谓mandarin的产生始于雍正时期。闽南语是最古老的方言。。。不过福建、包括广东在中国的开发过程来看，绝对是晚于黄河流域，是慢慢南迁逐渐形成的，这样说来闽南语也不应当是最古的，黄河流域的肯定是要讲带方言性质的语言的，不应比闽南语早么？我也没有这方面专业知识，瞎想的

[Ian_Lee]

Isn't Shanghaiese the youngest dialect since Shanghai was only founded in 1840s?

[Tei]

--click--

[ala]

Isn't Shanghaiese the youngest dialect since Shanghai was only founded in 1840s?

That's asinine. Shanghainese (and other Wu dialects) have kept more consonants than any other Chinese dialect. They are also the only dialect to maintain the full set of Ancient-Middle Chinese voiced consonants (Min has only kept less than 5). But Wu dialects have lost nearly all the original diphthongs.

[ala]

[img']http://www.glossika.com/en/dict/sources/fangyanlishi.jpg[/img]

Tei, 没有证据表明当时闽语和中古汉语是两个对立的音系。 图的逻辑有问题，他只好说闽语保留了中古汉语的有些音比较好，但不能把闽语和中古汉语对立。

The figure above is flawed. Middle Chinese and Min should not be side by side. There's no evidence that during the time of Middle Chinese, Min was already in its own branch as a separate entity from Middle Chinese. Yes, Min is more conservative in certain aspects than other dialects, but this conservation traces to Middle Chinese like all the other dialects.

Even James Campbell himself wrote:

"However, the earliest branching of Chinese dialects occurred with the Min dialects, so these dialects share some characteristics that resemble Middle Chinese in many ways; more so than most other dialects."

The figure he has however does not follow that logic. It is wrong; at the very least, misleading.

[Tei]

Actually, I think when you read what you quoted from James Campbell, it can be interpreted in two ways. One being that it branched from Middle Chinese, and the other that it branched away with Middle Chinese.

But all the same, I do not know who's right or wrong. I just find it all interesting.

[Altair]

For what its worth, I have read in more than one book that a quick and dirty approximation of old Chinese (I think the references where to Tang-era Chinese) can be obtained by putting Shanghainess intials onto Cantonese finals. I am not sure, however, how much Cantonese has retained of older vowel structures and diphthongs. I think it is more than Shanghainese, but I am not sure about other dialects.

I agree with bathrobe, all dialects have some ancient traits. Shanghainese (and other Wu dialects) have retained the full set of ancient voiced consonants, something both Mandarin and Cantonese have lost (hence why Cantonese and Mandarin have more live tones than ancient Chinese and Shanghainese). But Shanghainese has really brutalized the ancient vowels by truncating all diphthongs; and the -k, -p, -t of Middle Chinese have become just one single short glottal stop.

Shanghainese tones:

Two actual live tones:

Tone 1: 34 阴去

Tone 2: 53 阴平

Three natural tones (限定的自然调):

13 = voiced 浊音 (阳去)

2- = voiced Rusheng 浊音入声

5- = voiceless Rusheng 清音入声

Five tones total; two live tones and three are related to Rusheng (the short syllables, -k) and voicing (intials with b-,d-,g-,z-,v-,w-,r-,ng-, etc).

BTW, the two digit tone marks are based on a relative pitch from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest)

Ala, what is the definition of "live" and "natural"? Does 限定的自然调 mean "tones with a restricted distribution"? If this is so, I would assume that "live" means that there is no restriction about the type of words that can have this tone. Are restricted tones restricted because syllables of those natures can only have those tones, or because those tones can only appear with those syllables, or both?

By the way, do you know or have any interesting speculations about the origins of the terms 入声 and 去声? In other words, what about these syllables calls up notions of 入and 去?

[ala]

Ala, what is the definition of "live" and "natural"? Does 限定的自然调 mean "tones with a restricted distribution"? If this is so, I would assume that "live" means that there is no restriction about the type of words that can have this tone. Are restricted tones restricted because syllables of those natures can only have those tones, or because those tones can only appear with those syllables, or both?

By the way, do you know or have any interesting speculations about the origins of the terms 入声 and 去声? In other words, what about these syllables calls up notions of 入and 去?

By "natural," I mean those tones bound by the syllable structure (voicing, glottal stops). By "live," I mean free from syllable structure (like the 4 tones in Mandarin). The 5 citations tones in Shanghainese can be reduced to only 2 (the live tones), because the "natural" tones are mere observations of the pitches required to pronounce voiced consonants and glottal stops. All voiced consonants (actually voiced "h" phenome) will be pronounced with the same pitch; there is no tonal differentiation in voiced consonants. It's like marking pitches for the English word "desk" (voiced) as compared to "test" (voiceless), notice the low-med rise in pitch for desk. But doing so has no meaning and relevance, so we can ignore the three "natural" citation tones as well (see them as a historical tradition to characterize Chinese dialects, but not dwell on it too much for Shanghainese).

You are quite right about using Shanghainese initials with Cantonese finals to approximate Middle Chinese. Although Hakka finals might be even better (天 = t'in in Cantonese; t'ien in Hakka; t'i in Shanghainese).

I'll get back to you on why it is called 入 and 去.

[bathrobe]

But doing so has no meaning and relevance

In linguistic jargon, do you mean 'phonologically non-distinctive'?

Also, I assume that you are saying there are only two underlying tones, but they have different realisations (allotones?) that are totally predictable from the phonological environment.