Waitau

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Pronunciation for Waitau and Standard Cantonese in this article is in Jyutping, those for Hakka are in IPA.

Waitau, or Waitau Wah (Traditional Chinese: 圍頭話, Simplified:围头话, lit. "walled (village) language"), can refer generally to any Chinese language/dialect spoken in the villages of Shenzhen and Hong Kong in southern China, including Hakka and Cantonese variants, in contrast to Standard Cantonese (Guangfu) spoken by the majority of Hong Kong and Shenzhen residents.

Some Hakka people in Shenzhen and Hong Kong simply call their language vui₁₁ tʰeu₁₁ va₅₃, obviously meant to be Waitau Wah. Moreover, local residents in the Sai Kung District of Hong Kong call the indigenous language spoken in that area either Waitau or Se Wah (Chinese: 畲話; corruption: 蛇話). Se Wah, the Han language adopted by the She, is closely related to the Hakka language, so what the locals call Waitau Wah might be one of the local Hakka variants.

In a specific sense, however, Waitau is a distinct dialect of Cantonese. According to some linguistic classification schemes, Waitau form part of the Dongguan-Bao'an sub-zone (莞寶片) of the Cantonese dialect zone (粵方言區). It is spoken by the older generations in Shenzhen, and by those in the New Territories, Hong Kong.

The following discussion treats the Waitau as a Cantonese dialect.

[edit] Waitau vs. Standard Cantonese

Sometimes Waitau sounds close enough to Cantonese to allow people to surmise the meaning from the context. For example, 驚 (geng1; "to fear") is pronounced geng5 in Waitau, with only a change of tone. Sometimes Waitau is more "modern" than Standard Cantanese in terms of phonetics. For example, the term 新婦 (daughter-in-law, lit, new mistress) is pronounced san1 pou5 in Standard Cantonese, but san3 fu5 in Waitau. The well-known phenomenon of "no soft-lip [sounds] in the ancient time" (古無輕唇) in Chinese phonetics tells us that the Standard Cantonese reading is a more "ancient" one.

Sometimes Cantonese and Waitau use different words for the same concept. For instance, Waitau, like Mandarin, uses the word 吃 (pinyin: chī; Waitau: hek1) for the verb "to eat", while Standard Cantonese and Hong Kong Hakka use the word 食 (sik6 and sit₅ respectively), which is also used in Classical Chinese.

[edit] In popular culture

The Cantonese dialect can be heard in Hong Kong TV dramas and movies, and is usually used to characterise characters who come from walled villages. For example, in the 1992 movie Now You See Love ... Now You Don't (Traditional Chinese:《我愛扭紋柴》), the chief character, played by Chow Yun-Fat who himself grown up in Lamma Island, consistently speaks the Waitau language. In the 2005 TVB drama Just Love (Traditional Chinese:《老婆大人》), the character who is an influential resident of a certain walled village, and is played by Johnson Lee (Chinese:李思捷), also speaks Waitau.

[edit] Waitau vocabulary

The following table contains some Waitau words and phrases, along with its Standard Cantonese and Hong Kong Hakka equivalents. It can be seen that Waitau, not surprisingly, shares many cognates with Hong Kong Hakka.

Waitau (pronunciation in Jyutping)	Meaning	Standard Cantonese equivalent (pronunciation in Jyutping)	Hong Kong Hakka equivalent (pronunciation in IPA)	Notes
haau6	bright	光 (gwong1)	皓 (hau₁₁) There is a phrase in Hakka: 皓光鑭璨 (hau₁₁ gong₃₃ lan₅₃ ts^han₅₃), meaning bright and shiny, often said about new houses or apartments.
wu5	extinguished	熄 (sik1)	烏 (vu₁₁), which means "dark".
fui3	open, apart	開 (hoi1)	開 (hɔi₃₃)	Unlike its Cantonese equivalent, it is never used as a verb, but instead always follows a verb, e.g. daa2 fui3 dou6 mun4 (lit. beat open [measure word] door; to open the door).
zaau5	dry	乾 (kon1)	燥 (tsau₃₃), which means dry, parched.
tau4	to tie, to fasten	綁 (pong2)	綯 (t^hau₁₁)	Also used in standard Cantonese, but is outdated today. 綯 is an archaic character.
ng4 ceng4	not yet	仲未 (zung6 mei6), 仲未曾 (zung6 mei6 cang4)	唔曾 (m₃₃ ts^hen₁₁)
kau4 fu4	as long as, provided that	求祈 (kau4 kei4)	求乎 (k^hiu₁₁ fu₁₁)	e.g. kau4 fu4 yau5 di1 jaa5 hek1, which means "[it's ok] as long as having something to eat". The written form might be 求乎, a remnant of Classical Chinese. See, for example, Doctrine of the Mean, Ch.13:"君子之道四，丘未能一焉：所求乎子，以事父，未能也......". Compare the terms 在乎, 幾乎, both vestiges of Classical Chinese that still exist in modern Chinese. (This use of the classical 乎 is equal to the modern 於.)
lau4 gwaa3	to leave alone, to let go	由得 (yau2 dak1 or yau4 dak1)	留下 (liu₁₁ ha₅₃)	e.g. lau4 gwaa3 kyu4, which means "leave him/her alone".
lang4 hai5	clever, talented		能大 (len₁₁ t^hai₅₃)	It is usually used to describe children. Many people in Hong Kong have come to know this term by watching the TV drama Just Love.
ang5	to answer, to respond	應 (jing3)	應 (jin₅₃) 應答 or 答應 are used to mean to answer or respond. 應 on its own has the effect of answering back, sometimes in an impolite sense.
huk5	to weep	喊 (haam3)	叫 (kiau₅₃)	Both Waitau and Mandarin (kū) use the word 哭.
wun6 zan4	to be called	叫做 (giu3 cou6)	喊做 (ham₅₃ tsɔ₅₃)	The written form should be 喚成, also used in standard written Chinese.
cau3 hang5	dirty		臭羴 (ts^hiu₅₃ hen₃₃ or ts^hu₅₃ hen₃₃), which means "stink, stench" for things that smell, but for immoral people it means "vile" and "dirty". 羴味 refers to some type of stench, however the original 羴 refers to the smell of sheep or goats 羊臭, from Guangyun.
gwai5	home	屋企 (uk1 kei2)	屋家/屋下 (vuk₃ ka₃₃)	The written form is 歸. e.g. hyu3 gwai5 (去歸), meaning "to go home". We can hear the phrase faan1 gwai1 (返歸), also meaning "to go home", in Standard Cantonese, but where 歸 is never used independently to mean "home".
doek2	1.blister, bleb (in the mouth) 2.bubbles (in boiling water)	泡 (pok1)
ceoi5	at (a place)	喺 (hai2)