The mandarins of Cantonese
- Thread starter Terry S.
- Start date
I think you're right about that, bilingualism and trilingualism have to be part of the reckoning here.
It seems odd to call Cantonese a dialect when according to these stats, it would be one of top 15 most spoken languages in the world...
I notice a big change now in Chinatowns. 20 years ago most people spoke Cantonese, now most speak Mandarin.
I notice a big change now in Chinatowns. 20 years ago most people spoke Cantonese, now most speak Mandarin.
The way Sinitic languages evolve is much like Romance language, but far more extreme in terms of mutations
If you treat Middle Chinese as Latin, Mandarine would be French(abundant changes from MC) whereas Cantonese would be Italian(maybe Spanish, there are languages closer to Middle Chinese than Cantonese). As a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese, I can barely understand anything of Cantonese phonetically. Mandarine largely reworked the sounds from Middle Chinese; several consonants(such as /ng/) were dropped together with some of the tones. It also entirely jettisoned the writing system, style and grammar which had been existing all the way back to 5000+ years ago when they wrote oracles on the turtle shells.
Cantonese and other “dialects” are surely languages but there’s reason behind the fact that Cantonese is called a “dialect” in China. Yes, the ability of understanding each other between two “dialects” is almost 0. You might see people coming from two adjacent villages having tremendous difficulties understanding each other. China has more than 1.4 billion people, and thousands of “dialects”. If we recognize all different “dialects” with language, this could be a disaster. The US, having only two “major” languages already have severe discrimination going around, esp against Spanish speakers. If we got like 1000 languages existing in this country, China’s stability could be significantly compromised. So yes, Mandarin is more than a lingua frica but also a stabilizer in China that unite us together.
Of course, BBC would care much about stability of China as a foreign media.
Oh, talking about China towns. Earlier in the US, vast majority of the Chinese came from places where they speak Cantonese. But now Chinese immigrants come from literally everywhere. So even some of them could speak Cantonese they need a lingua frica that is not English(because they are learning it)
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Don't forget the Chinatowns of Vancouver and Toronto as well.
More of the recent Chinese immigrants (primarily from the mainland) settle in Richmond and in Markham, suburbs of those cities, respectively.
I found it fascinating that while Korean language is about 40% derived from 'Chinese', based on Korean numbers it resembles Cantonese more than Mandarin. This is even though geographically Korea's in Mandarin territory and Cantonese is on the other side of China. It seemed to me that Korea was influenced by an ancient form of Chinese, and that Mandarin is instead a modern language. Compare the similar numbers 1-10 in all three languages:
(K- Korean, C- Cantonese, M- Mandarin)
Two-
K: ii
C: yi
M: er
Three-
K: sam
C: sam
M: san
Six-
K: yook
C: lok
M: lyoo
Nine-
K: goo
C: gao
M: jyow
Want to know something cool?
These number derive from Middle Chinese whose pronounciation are:
Two
“*ɳi->*Ri” (Part of “N” sound changes to “R” in late Middle Chinese)
Six
“*Luwk”(very similar to Japanese)
Nine
“*Kuw”
“*jit”, “*ɳi” “*sam(h)”, “*si(h)”, “*nɔ”, “*luwk” “*ts(h)it(I didn’t mean to say the word but anyway)”, “*pəit” and “*kuw” are the pronounciation for 1-9 in Middle Chinese. I wonder how many matches Korean?
Chinese dialects in decline as government enforces Mandarin
Linguists concerned as regional languages dwindle amid push to strengthen uniform national identity
www.theguardian.com