Talk:Cantonese (linguistics)

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[edit] Cantonese is NOT prevalent

First of all, Catonese is a different language from Mandrian. Second of all, the term "prestigious" refers to the romantization of the words. Third of all, the Chinese main language is Mandrian, and people from Guangdong are encouraged to learn Mandrian. The future of the world economy of China will be Mandrian, and not Cantonese. -Intranetusa


"cantonese is not prevalent in china but very prevalent in usa, canada, australia, new zealand, south africa, viet nam, and hong kong sar. "

--Cantonese, as part of the Chinese language. But so is Mandrian.


"a lot of movies and television is also produced in cantonese and some of the most sophisticated oriental film and tv is made in cantonese and translated into mandarin. " Hong Kong is the movie hub of China, and the majority of people in Hong Kong & the souther provinces speak Cantonese.


"there is also canto pop which is listened to not only by chinese but filipino, taiwanese, etc." Very rarely. People in Taiwan speak Min Nah and Mandrian, and the majority of Taiwanese do not understand Cantonese at all. And the predominant "sino" language in the Phillipines is Min Nan and not Cantonese.

The fact remains that Cantonese is spoken mostly in Hong Kong and Southern China.

-intranetusa



[edit] Cantonese is prevalent

Cantonese will always be a prestigious dialect. There are many Cantonese living oversea and the prevalence of Hong Kong's popular culture and movies has spurred some Chinese in other regions to learn Cantonese. Also the fact that in mainland China, Guangdong people are having more children than the northern people. Therefore, the future of Cantonese language and culture will still be dominant. Sonic99 02:17, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Probably the biggest threat to the long-term survival of Cantonese came in 1997. I'm sure there are many who fantasize at night about the death of Cantonese, but if it does go extinct, I doubt it'll happen as quickly as Tibetan or Uyghur; Hong Kong by itself outnumbers the entire Tibetan population. Languages die unless they're spoken, and they're not spoken if not percieved as useful or respectable. But I think there's reason to be optimistic: there's a Hong Kong culture producing a thriving Cantonese movie, television, radio, and pop music industry, which is more than can be said for say Shanghainese or Hokkien. (I know of only a single Shanghainese movie, and it was made in Hong Kong) I don't think this culture is popular enough that it would make others want to learn Cantonese, but it would stop or slow down native speakers from losing Cantonese. But I find it understandable why a lot of Taiwanese fear the possible damage to their language and culture if unification happens, and why the independence movement heavily promotes Taiwanese language. --Yuje 08:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

reply to first comment by Sonic99, not Yuje: Wow...thanks for letting us share your amazing insights!!! I too also hope the Cantonese language will continue to be prestigious, dominant and prevalent amongst Cantonese-speaking people!!! I didn't realise that the 1,000,000,000 (that's one billion for those who can't count:-) Chinese people who do not speak Cantonese are so eager to join Cantonese language classes just so that they can understand Hong Kong pop music and films in the authentic original language. Obviously, reading subtitles or watching dubbed films, or listening to putonghua versions of Hong Kong pop music would just be so tiresome!!! Also I suppose schools all across China are introducing Cantonese language classes, and that parents are making sure their children are going to be fluent in Cantonese, just for the sake of their future of course!!! LDHan 04:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Sources, please? ;) Seriously, no sane speaker of any language or dialect will go to that extent in proclaiming his language or dialect as "prestigious" and that its "dominance will still prevail"...unless both are under contestation. Your action actually vindicates the later.--Huaiwei 02:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
So cantonese will go the way of Akkadian, Latin,Sumerian etc, as they use to be the lingua franca at some point but are extinct now. Enlil Ninlil 05:16, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Quite unlike languages like Latin, however, Cantonese has never been the lingua franca for diverse peoples in any significantly-sized society except those in, or with an ancestry tracing back to the Guangdong region. Still, it will be interesting to see it go the way of Latin. :D--Huaiwei 06:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


Actually, most movies made in Hong Kong are now in Mandrian and Cantonese. Most Cantonese speakers know Mandrian so movies produced around the HK area such as Crouching Tiger are in Mandrian & also translated to Cantonese.

-intranetusa

[edit] Hong Kong girls

Why do fresh off the boat Honger girls don't date western-born Chinese, mainland Chinese and Vietnamese Chinese(Hoa) guys? Can someone tell me why. 69.159.203.22 22:37, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

>>>>>WTF are you talking about?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Intranetusa (talkcontribs).

Hay each girl is diffenrent and will date who they want!!!!!!!!!! Some like foregners like my love, and some dont. Enlil Ninlil 05:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Cantonese girls are greedy and uuuuuugly. 73.150.235.202 02:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
The keywords here is not "honger" girl. The key is in "fresh off the boat". I'd bet if a fresh off the boat Mexican girl would date someone who can speak Spanish. Kowloonese 02:01, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Hey Kowloonese, he said that Hong Kong girls don't date mainland Chinese and Vietnamese-Chinese. That means they don't like fresh off the boat Guangdong Cantonese men and Cantonese-speaking men from Vietnam. It's not a language barrier. 73.150.235.202 01:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

i dont know but why would anyone want to date a hong girl anyway? vietnamese girls are way cuter. im quite surprised hong girls can choose at all. theyre not terribly cute, and their personalities arent very attractive either.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.144.50.24 (talk • contribs).


>>>>> Someone delete this section. This is off topic and the creator is a tard. -intranetusa

[edit] Romanization

It looks like a paragraph about Cantonese Romanization is missing (or maybe an article). There is a category Category:Cantonese (linguistics) romanisation, but no article or anything that I can find in Wikipedia to make sense of the different articles about the topic. Maybe someone who knows the topic could start something? olivier 17:28, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you could start it with the information from wiki pages and your resources? Enlil Ninlil 05:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I am actually wondering why such a summary doesn't seem to exist, while the article seems to be already quite detailed. olivier 08:49, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
I've just added some relevant Wikilinks in "See also." See if these have what you need. Badagnani 09:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. That's a beginning. I guess that a next step will be to compare them, explain where and when each of them is used and why. olivier 09:23, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Need help at Cellophane noodles

[edit] Cellophane noodles question

Hello, there's some controversy about the origin of the name saifun to refer to cellophane noodles. It was earlier thought that this was a Japanese name (i.e. harusame saifun) but it now seems it might be from Chinese, maybe related to the Mandarin "fen si." Is it possible that "saifun" is a Min Nan pronunciation? It doesn't seem to be Cantonese. Thank you, Badagnani 22:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I grew up in Hong Kong. No one there call that thing saifun. It is called fun see in Hong Kong. I later learned that they are also called "細粉" (sai fun in Cantonese pronunication, or xi4 fen3 in Mandarin) in some Mandarin restaurants. I would say 細粉 is not Cantonese, or at least not HongKongese. However, saifun may still be a Cantonese pronuciation of a non-Cantonese term. Kowloonese 02:11, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm very happy to know that your help has led to the solving of this question. This website offers proof that these characters are used, and the explanation that this is a "Cantonesization" of a Mandarin term may very well be the case. Would you please take a look at Cellophane noodles and see what you think of my newest edit? Thank you, Badagnani 03:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Example of 我

Beijing Mandarin pronunciation of wǒ is irregular, ě is expected.

That's interesting, can anyone explain a bit more? Is it "ě" in other dialects of the Mandarin group (spoken in northern and southwestern China)? Or is it that it should be "ě" according to some theory, but in actual normal speech it's "wo3"? LDHan 16:13, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
It's according to the regular sound change from Middle Chinese to Modern Chinese. However, pronouns, particles and adverbs are known to be influenced by things other than regular sound changes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Changeup (talkcontribs) 15:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC).
According to my Chinese dictionary (Far East), ě is listed as an alternate pronunciation. But (rather unhelpfully), it doesn't say where. --Yuje 00:51, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New box

This edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cantonese_%28linguistics%29&curid=147533&diff=79802330&oldid=78980419 doesn't make for a very attractive page. Badagnani 06:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Quite a few users have commented on the unattractiveness of that box. To date, it's only being proselytized by a single, dedicated Wikipedian. --Yuje 10:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The box has apparently been re-added. It remains as unattractive and off-center as it was before. Can't something be done about this? Badagnani 21:08, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not a good solution to simply move the box down lower, keeping the important information about the Chinese names of the language out of the first paragraph. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cantonese_%28linguistics%29&curid=147533&diff=80153727&oldid=80144137 Badagnani 05:01, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Better red and well-fed

I have no idea whether this is due to an elaborate behind-the-scenes mythology to which viewers are not privy, or it's just some closed-caption transcriptionist's idea of a joke, but on closed-captioned American episodes of Teletubbies, Po (the little red one) is said to be "speaking Cantonese" when she talks. None of the other 'tubbies have their babling mentioned at all in the captioning, though it all sounds the same. That is just plain weird. --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.231.119.52 (talk • contribs).

See [1] and [2] Badagnani 23:12, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spoken in...

The box that reads that Cantonese is spoken in: "Southern China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and other Asian countries" is stretching it a bit - and last time I looked, The UK, The US, Canada etc are not Asian Countries :) . I know how it is supposed to be read, but I suggest to clarify things, this should be changed to "Southern China, Hong Kong and Macau" only, as it is the main (or one of the main) languages spoken there. Any objections?

its spoken in the chinatowns there. its definitely not the main languages there, considering the chinese population is under 1% compared to 25% of malaysia.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.158.14.222 (talk • contribs).


People in Taiwan (ROC) speak Min Nah and Mandrian, and the majority of Taiwanese do not understand Cantonese at all. You will find more Cantonese speakers in Manchuria than in Taiwan. And the predominant "sino-Chinese" language in the Phillipines is Min Nan, a variant of Taiwanese-Mandrian and not Cantonese. The most widely spoken Chinese language outside of China is Mandrian, and not Cantonese. Most of the 7 million world wide Cantonese speakers are in Hong Kong and Southern China. Mandrian remains the most spoken "sino" language in Asia. -intranetusa

There are about 1 million Cantonese speakers in Vietnam. There are also Cantonese speakers in Malaysia and Indonesia. Most of the Filipino-Chinese in the Phillipines, have assimilated and most don't speak Min Nan anymore. They don't even have chinese last names. In Canada, Cantonese is the dominant chinese dialect and in United States, Mandarin is the dominant chinese dialect. Do some research. Sonic99 20:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] San Diu Dialect in Vietnam

San Diu people are ethnic mountain chinese who live in Northern Vietnam and they speak an archaic variant of Cantonese. They are believed to have migrated from the Guangdong province in 1600. How close is San Diu dialect to Standard Cantonese? Sonic99 06:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome

Welcome, User:221.126.142.153 -- your extensive edits were quite good! Badagnani 19:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)