Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
you obviously know nothing about the Chinese language.
Ok, if Cantonese in indeed a written language as you said, give me one book that is entirely written in this language.
I already gave you one. As well as a magazine that is written entirely in Cantonese. And the Cantonese version of wikipedia. There are many more.
Quote:
The truth is, despite of a few words here and there in Cantonese, it is not functioning as a written language. The vast majority (say over 95%) of its vocabulary still comes from standard Chinese, just with a different pronunciation. How to say words like "love" "nature" "science" "forgive" "world" in Cantonese? They are written exactly the same standard Chinese.
Sure, but words like where, who, him, like, know, not, we, to be, etc. are not written the same.
Quote:
There are a million songs in Cantonese, and if you look at the lyrics, they are all in the same written form as standard Chinese, and Chinese people from elsewhere have zero difficult in understanding them. If Cantonese does exist as a written language, how the hell are these song not written in that language? Why is it written in standard Chinese?
Here is a song sung, and written in Cantonese (check the subtitles, they are not standard Chinese)。
is the trailer for the new movie Ted 2 with subtitles in Cantonese.
Here is baidu translate which can translate between Mandarin and Cantonese (both using simplified characters, btw). Here is an advertising promotion from the octopus card company, also written in Cantonese.
Last edited by Oldhag1; 04-28-2015 at 05:35 PM..
Reason: No more than 2 videos
Geez, do you consider the language with 95% standard Chinese, a few colloquial Cantonese words and mixed with quite a few English words "written Cantonese"?
Sure...
And why did you fail to show me a book written in Cantonese? Oh, because it is impossible. Even those few Cantonese words are very colloquial and can never been written as something remotely formal and serious. None of them can be used in legal, literary or scientific language, do you agree? They only appear in daily conversation, which is why they are oral languages, not written. Why is it so hard for you to admit.
as to the octopus card website, I don't know what you are smoking, it is 100% standard Chinese for me, except for the sentence in quotation as a testimonial - again, completely oral language (and I can't do that to all other Chinese dialects). Why do you think the more formal description below doesn't contain a single word of those gibberish words? Because Cantonese can't function properly as a fully functioning written language.
Like I said, all Chinese dialects are different, and they all can throw in a few local words based on pronunciation, and call it a written language.
Last edited by botticelli; 04-28-2015 at 01:15 PM..
I think the internet actually promotes the use of colloquial languages/dialects. If you visit the local forums of Chinese cities and provinces, you can always see a lot of dialectical phrases. In old days, only standard languages were typically typed and written.
It is true in Europe as well.
Geez, do you consider the language with 95% standard Chinese, a few colloquial Cantonese words and mixed with quite a few English words "written Cantonese"?
Sure...
And why did you fail to show me a book written in Cantonese? Oh, because it is impossible. Even those few Cantonese words are very colloquial and can never been written as something remotely formal and serious. None of them can be used in legal, literary or scientific language, do you agree? They only appear in daily conversation, which is why they are oral languages, not written. Why is it so hard for you to admit.
as to the octopus card website, I don't know what you are smoking, it is 100% standard Chinese for me, except for the sentence in quotation as a testimonial - again, completely oral language (and I can't do that to all other Chinese dialects). Why do you think the more formal description below doesn't contain a single word of those gibberish words? Because Cantonese can't function properly as a fully functioning written language.
Like I said, all Chinese dialects are different, and they all can throw in a few local words based on pronunciation, and call it a written language.
Yes, they're 95% or how many percent lexically similar to written Mandarin and other Chinese dialects. So? It's the same with written Spanish, written Portuguese and written Italian. Difference between written Spanish and written Portuguese is probably smaller than that of Simplified Chinese/Mandarin vs Traditional Chinese/Cantonese.
Yes, they're 95% or how many percent lexically similar to written Mandarin and other Chinese dialects. So? It's the same with written Spanish, written Portuguese and written Italian. Difference between written Spanish and written Portuguese is probably smaller than that of Simplified Chinese/Mandarin vs Traditional Chinese/Cantonese.
Since Ming dynasty, Mandarin has been the only major language used in Chinese literature (besides classic Chinese which is not really spoken). All the famous novels were written in Mandarin. All Chinese books on science, technology, arts, law...are only written in Mandarin. In fact, if you try writing anything sophisticated in a dialect, you will find you have to rely on Mandarin vocabulary, because it is established that way.
Since Ming dynasty, Mandarin has been the only major language used in Chinese literature (besides classic Chinese which is not really spoken). All the famous novels were written in Mandarin. All Chinese books on science, technology, arts, law...are only written in Mandarin. In fact, if you try writing anything sophisticated in a dialect, you will find you have to rely on Mandarin vocabulary, because it is established that way.
I have no doubt that Mandarin has more literature than any other Chinese language since the Ming Dynasty after the capital was established in Beijing and the main spoken language of the Central Plains became similar to modern Mandarin. However, this does not mean that all other Chinese languages do not have any written form at all or they have absolutely zero literature, as there are clearly some books, newspapers, websites, etc. that are written in Cantonese and other Chinese "dialects", which is what is discussed here. The predominance of Mandarin is certainly increasing, especially after the 1997 handover of Hong Kong. But Hong Kong is still largely Cantonese-speaking up to now and if you ever visited British Hong Kong or even talk to some elderly people in HK nowadays, many people there could not speak any Mandarin at all. I wouldn't say they rely on "Mandarin" vocabulary because many of these people can read and write, but just cannot speak Mandarin. Also, majority of Chinese vocabulary (of all modern Chinese spoken varieties) came from before the Ming dynasty anyway.
I have no doubt that Mandarin has more literature than any other Chinese language since the Ming Dynasty after the capital was established in Beijing and the main spoken language of the Central Plains became similar to modern Mandarin. However, this does not mean that all other Chinese languages do not have any written form at all or they have absolutely zero literature, as there are clearly some books, newspapers, websites, etc. that are written in Cantonese and other Chinese "dialects", which is what is discussed here. The predominance of Mandarin is certainly increasing, especially after the 1997 handover of Hong Kong. But Hong Kong is still largely Cantonese-speaking up to now and if you ever visited British Hong Kong or even talk to some elderly people in HK nowadays, many people there could not speak any Mandarin at all. I wouldn't say they rely on "Mandarin" vocabulary because many of these people can read and write, but just cannot speak Mandarin. Also, majority of Chinese vocabulary (of all modern Chinese spoken varieties) came from before the Ming dynasty anyway.
Even those who do not speak Mandarin (not just in Hong Kong. Old people in mainland China also do no speak Mandarin) must be able to read and write in Mandarin, if they have any education at all.
Chinese grammar is very simple, and all the dialects literally have the same grammar except for very minor differences. The so-called written Cantonese uses some local functional words (pronouns, prepositions, auxiliaries, etc.) instead of standard ones. That's all. All written Chinese dialects are the same.
My father and mother are from 2 different dialect groups and in the army, I was exposed to a 3rd different dialect.
In reality, all the different Chinese dialects are so different from each other and so different from mandarin Chinese, that they all might as well be completely different languages.
However, the written script is completely unified and highly standardized across all dialects; it is uniform across all dialect groups.
i know this because I had personal interactions with people from different dialect groups from both North china, south china, guangzhou, Taiwan and overseas chinese groups.
Ironically, Verbal Cantonese actually have far more historical legitimacy than Verbal mandarin.
I once attended a seminar by a Tsinghua University History Professor and he told me that Cantonese was actually the most widely spoken form of Chinese throughout China's history and that if i wanted to know how Tang Dynasty-era poems (an interest of mine) really sounded out, I should read it out loud in Catonese.
According to the Tsinghua University History Professor, what is today called "Mandarin Chinese" was actually a foreign language imposed by Manchu conquerors from the north of China.
According to the Tsinghua University History Professor, what is today called "Mandarin Chinese" was actually a foreign language imposed by Manchu conquerors from the north of China.
That Tsinghua professor is wrong and should not be allowed to spread false information.
Manchus spoke a Tungusic language, which has nothing to do with Chinese language at all.
Chinese literature from Yuan dynasty has clearly shown a similar phonology as today's Mandarin. This is much earlier than Manchus' Qing dynasty.
Cantonese retains some old features of Middle Chinese, true. However, it also lost some features which other dialects retain. To claim Cantonese more "authentic" is the same as claiming French is a more authentic Romance language than Spanish or Italian, though it may be true that French shares some old features of Latin which Spanish or Italian do not share.
if i wanted to know how Tang Dynasty-era poems (an interest of mine) really sounded out, I should read it out loud in Catonese.
This is correct.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bettafish
Cantonese retains some old features of Middle Chinese, true. However, it also lost some features which other dialects retain. To claim Cantonese more "authentic" is the same as claiming French is a more authentic Romance language than Spanish or Italian, though it may be true that French shares some old features of Latin which Spanish or Italian do not share.
This is correct too.
Cantonese certainly retains more old features of the Middle-Age Chinese languages than Mandarin, so does Minnan/Hokkien. So a poem or a piece of Ci(詞) would sound much more poetic and rhythmic when read in Hokkien or Cantonese, that's for sure.
But it's not like an ancient Chinese man living in Chang'an magically teleported by a time tunnel to 2015 could understand Cantonese like it's his native language spoken in the 8th century. Mandarin and Cantonese have evolved differently in the history, then for some reason modern Cantonese sounds more similar to Middle-Age Chinese language, that's pretty much the size of it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
