Talk:Standard Cantonese

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[edit] Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, etc. dialects

This article will contain information about the dialect spoken in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau according to the current consensus. Please read Talk:Cantonese (linguistics). Discuss first if you have other plans. -- Felix Wan 22:53, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I heard that the Macao dialect was slightly different from Hong Kong dialect. Is that true? — Insta ntnood 06:22, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

It sounds about the same to me. Guangzhou dialect is probably more different from Hong Kong than Macau is. --Yuje 10:40, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I know there are now very much the same. But what I heard was that they used to be a little bit different. — Insta ntnood 12:02, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

I believe they are so mutually intelligible that we do not need seperate articles on the three dialects. We should explain the minor differences within the article if some users can explain them. -- Felix Wan 00:54, 2005 Apr 7 (UTC)

Most of the differences between Hong Kong and Guangzhou can be explained by the current phonological shift and the fact that some Hong Kongers are descended from Teochew, Hakka, or Shanghainese immigrants who didn't speak Cantonese natively or spoke it as a second language. But even so, the differences are still minor.--Yuje 02:01, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. And I read a passage that vocabularies of the Macau dialect are very slightly different from those of Hong Kong. — Insta ntnood 14:09, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

There is a discussion on the Macao dialect/accent at this forum (notably the comment by Johannes at 19:59, March 21). See also this book review, especially the paragraph starts with "Chapter 2 is..". — Insta ntnood 15:23, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

I think there are some major noticable differences between Guangzhou Cantonese and Hong Kong Cantonese, as well. In general, Hong Kong Cantonese is somewhat faster and tends to cut off, shorten, abbreviate, or merge many words. Thirty-three (saam sap saam/saa a saam), what(mat yeh a?/mei a?), is that so? (hai m hai ah?/hai mai a?)--Yuje 08:52, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps we can add these differences among the prestige variants to the article. — Insta ntnood 11:59, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

I believe this difference is part of Hong Kong's current phonological shift, isn't it? (I'm not a Hong Konger) If so, it could probably be included in that section. By the way, do you know if the merged sounds have their own characters or if they're still written as normal?--Yuje 21:26, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

It is not entirely current, nor a shift. Such differences exist for quite a long time, and the differences are not only phonological. On the shift, most people do not regard it as a real shift, but a lazy or wrong way of pronunciation. — Insta ntnood 10:49, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

Just from the list in the article I see that most, if not all, loan words are used in HK Cantonese mostly and are not "Standard Cantonese" terms as defined in the article.

And what is the consensus? Is Hong Kong Cantonese a subset of Standard Cantonese or is Hong Kong Cantonese a "non-standard" dialect of Cantonese? I tend to go with the latter since by definition a "Standard" should not have all kinds of phonological shifts occuring. And if that is the case, why is the material regarding HK cantonese even included in this article? There should be a separate one.

And why is the most commonly known Chinese term for Cantonese: 廣東話 not included in this article nor the Cantonese (linguistic) article? Instead, 廣府話 is used here in the article which gives the impression that this article deals with Guangzhou speech only. --Kvasir 08:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that is because 廣東話 refers to all the understandable Cantonese spoken, which does not limit it to Standard Cantonese. Therefore it means that informally, 廣府話 is part of 廣東話. As a result, people in Hong Kong, Mainland China (excluding Guangdong and cantonese speaking areas in Guangxi)and overseas will call Cantonese 廣東話, while people in Guangzhou, for example, will call Standard Cantonese 廣府話 or 廣州話. This means that even though the term 廣東話 may bethe Chinese term commonly known for Cantonese in Hong Kong and overseas, it is not the general common term if we include Guangdong and Guangxi. Another teminology is 白話, which means Cantonese spoken by all Cantonese speakers even in Guangxi province. Which makes sense since certain Guangxi people speak Cantonese, and they are not from Guangdong. 白話 literally means "pure language", and the closer the way you speak is to Standard Cantonese, the more your Cantonese will be considered 白/pure. Last point to make is that Canton is the westernised version of Guangzhou, so strictly speaking, Cantonese is really 廣州話. --Guest 21:07,15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lingua franca

This comment "Cantonese, rather than Mandarin, is the lingua franca of the overseas Chinese community in the Western world." is false. Maybe it could have been true 30 years ago, but today, Mandarin is definitely the lingua franca for overseas Chinese. - 18.85.28.28 12:55, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there would be any reliable statistical data to back this claim. It is based on observations of different people, and it depends on where do the people make the observations. — Insta ntnood 15:22, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

If there is no reliable statistic as you said, then the original comment should be deleted. We can think about this reasonably. People from Taiwan and Mainland abroad would most likely all speak Mandarin. But only people from Hong Kong, Macao, or Guandong would speak Cantonese. So I believe Mandarin is the lingua franca, or simply to delete that comment in the article for lack of evidence. - Quain 13:18, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Well, Taiwanese Mandarin (Guoyu) and Mainland Mandarin (Putonghua) are slightly different, aren't they? Taiwanese would pronounce, for example, "le se" as for 垃圾 whereas people from mainland China "la ji". Yes, you're right: people from Taiwan and Mainland abroad would most likely all speak Mandarin. It's also true the the population of Hong Kong, Macao, and Guandong is outnumbered by that of Taiwan plus the entire mainland China. But they don't imply the slightest linkage, do they? :-D Certainly it does not mean, in any sense, that the number of people from Taiwan and Mainland abroad is much greater than that of people from Cantonese-speaking areas. So your statement is not that logically valid, I suppose.

On the other hand, whether Cantonese is the lingua franca or not is downright beyond my ken. No comment to this. :)-- Jerry Crimson Mann 16:08, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Only recent emigrants from mainland China speak Mandarin. Not all earlier emigrants from the mainland speak good Mandarin, as Mandarin (Putonghua) was not as popular as in present time. They may speak their own languages. — Insta ntnood 19:44, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Most of the immigrants from the Chinese mainland come from Guangdong province, though there are increasing numbers from Fuzhou. So to say that there are large number of mainland immigrants and that Cantonese is the most widely spoken isn't a contradiction. Whether a language is a lingua franca depends on who's making the observations and where. In most Chinatowns it would probably be Cantonese, in Hawaii and among second or third generation people it'd likely be English, in some Taiwanese neighborhoods Mandarin, and in many other places especially with mixed populations many are multilingual and might communicate in any of the three languages. --Yuje 05:37, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

I think .. lingua franca is not necessarily the language that is actively spoken by the widest number of people in their normal day to day life. Rather, it is the common language that people can use to communicate when they otherwise do not share a common "native" language. In this sense, the lingua franca of Chinese today in the western hemisphere is Mandarin. I have met very few Chinese people on the East Coast that has zero comprehension of Mandarin. Even in Chinatowns where the background chatter is dominated by Cantonese, if you speak Mandarin to a shop keeper they'll almost always be able to respond in kind. --BenjaminTsai ^Talk 14:53, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

By that criteria, English would be the lingua franca in North America. Mandarin is spoken to non-Cantonese Chinese, but English is the language used to communicate with all non-Chinese, and even some Chinese. --Yuje 14:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, for better or worst English has become the de facto lingua franca of not just North America but also the world. --BenjaminTsai ^Talk 14:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[1] There was a recent paper article on this very subject, so I thought it would be relevent to append it to this discussion. --Yuje 07:30, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cantonese language during Ming Dynasty

According to section on history Cantonese language was the official language of the Ming Dynasty. Is it more accurate to say that modern form of Cantonese came from the official language of Ming Dynasty? And is there any evidence to back this? To my understand many of the pronunciations of the Tang Dynasty are preserved in modern Cantonese. — Insta ntnood 19:47, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

The history section is totaly POV, and totaly inacurate. Cantonese was never EVER the official language of China. There was not such a thing as an official pronunciation of Chinese until the 1920s anyway. And the written official version of Chinese was classical Chinese until the 1920s. I wonder who wrote those insanities in the history section. It will have to be extensively rewritten. Hardouin 00:43, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

May you provide some suggestions as to what approach you might take to perform these amendments? Maybe we can help out! :) --HappyCamper 01:06, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Right. Let's see how we can amend and improve it. :-) — Insta ntnood 07:55, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

There's no official tongue of Chinese until the 1920s, but there was a certain common tongue among the people in the imperial courts in each of the different periods of history. — Insta ntnood 07:55, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

There was a lingua franca used by the imperial elites before 1911. This lingua franca varied along history, depending where the court was located. Cantonese was never one of these lingua franca. At the most we can say that Cantonese was perhaps the lingua franca of the Chinese kingdoms located in Guangdong province at the times of Chinese disunity, although the last time there was such a kingdom was in the 10th century, and I'm not sure we can talk of a "Cantonese language" as early as the 10th century. As for the claim that in the 1920s the leaders of China hesitated between Cantonese and Mandarin to choose as the official language of China, it is simply a falsehood. The real hesitation was between Mandarin and the Wu dialect of the rich business elites of Shanghai/Suzhou/Hangzhou. Also, the claim that "the Cantonese-speaking population was slightly larger than the Mandarin-speaking population" is totally and uterly insane. I really wonder who in their right mind could write all these insanities. For records, 67% of Chinese are speakers of Mandarin dialects today, and only 5% of Chinese people are speakers of Cantonese dialects. The proportion was approximately the same 100 years ago. In short, 90% of the history section needs to be removed, only 10% is credible info. I will do the changes this afternoon. Hardouin 12:31, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

What would perhaps be true is that Cantonese has preserved many of the aspects of the lingua franca of the earlier dynasties. There are many sources saying that the ROC founders voted to adopt the Peking dialect as the basis of pronunciation of Kuoyü, merely one vote more than Cantonese (probably the dialect of Canton city). The main reason was many revolution leaders were from the Canton province, or were Cantonese speakers. Some sources even say it was Dr Sun Yat Sen who advocated to adopt the Peking dialect to promote national unity. The comparison between the number of speakers of Cantonese and Mandarin is illogical, but we have to consider the differences among Mandarin dialects (see the article on the Tianjin dialect for instance), and acknowledge the fact that the option was Peking dialect, instead of Mandarin. The percentage of the present-day distribution of speakers of different languages is a result of decades of promotion of Putonghua, that many languages have been displaced. Few people actually spoke Putonghua when the PRC was founded. — Insta ntnood 15:41, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Cantonese has preserved many of the aspects of Middle Chinese, but so have other dialects. And although Cantonese has preserved some features, like final consonants, it has also developed pronunciations far away from Middle Chinese, so that Cantonese is no closer to Middle Chinese, no more authentic than other dialects. As for what you mention for ROC founders, the one vote more for Beijing dialect than Cantonese, I'd like to see hard proof. Again that seems to me like a popular myth from HK. From what I know of Chinese history, it was Beijing and Shanghai dialects that were in the balance. Remember that the Republic was dominated by rich industrialists from Shanghai area, and the Republicans were in Guangdong only until 1925, afterwards they were in Nanjing. As for the National Assembly of China, the one body competent over that linguistic matter, it was never located in Guangdong. It was in Beijing first, and then in Nanjing. And the Cantonese speaking representatives in that National Assembly were always a small minority. As for the percentage of the present-day distribution of speakers of different Chinese dialects, it is not very different from what it was 100 years ago. In the 1920s the Cantonese speakers were only 5% of Chinese people. It is the Wu dialects that have always had the largest number of speakers after the Mandarin dialects, not the Cantonese dialects. And if you're talking about just a city, it is Shanghai that had more inhabitants than Beijing, Canton, or HK, so if anything the most spoken local dialect was Shanghainese, not the dialect of Canton city. Hardouin 23:43, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm the original writer of those INSANITIES, as Hardouin will describe as according to my own understanding of my mother tongue. Yes, it's correct that China had never had a declared "de facto" until the 20th century (in my memory I wasn't the person who wrote down "de facto"), however Cantonese was the most widely-spoken Chinese tongue before the PRC declaration of Putonghua as the current de facto. Deryc k C. 11:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

You see, that's precisely what I call insanities. Cantonese was NEVER the "most widely-spoken Chinese tongue before the PRC declaration of Putonghua as the current de facto". Maybe that's what you were told by your family when you were young, but that's simply not true. Double-check the facts before writing things like that. Hardouin 11:59, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

This is starting to get heated. Can please we refrain from using the word "insanities"? Now, to be more productive, we need to find a reference which supports or refutes this concept. Who's going to the library today then? It simply isn't good enough to state what one thinks are facts. State a reference. --HappyCamper 12:07, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Maybe Hardouin will be interested? Deryc k C. 12:44, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure this Wikipedian would gladly volunteer :-) Ditto for me. Let's give this 2 weeks and see what happens? I'll be off... --HappyCamper 12:57, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm reading this article [2], but it's pretty long, and I'm not good at reading simplified Chinese characters. :-) Meanwhile, this [3] is a TV programme that in the beginning one of the hosts says the Canton dialect (i.e. what we call Standard Cantonese on Wikipedia) lost by one vote. — Insta ntnood 13:02, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Lost by one vote in what? Deryc k C. 16:18, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

...in becoming the official language of China? -- Jerry Crimson Mann 17:46, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. I've sent RTHK an email and see if they can provide any source on that. :-) — Insta ntnood 20:15, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

You don't have to go look for far-fetched documents in Chinese if you want to set the records straight. Just check this webpage in English ([4]) and you will know most of things you ought to know on this matter. As you can see from the webpage, Cantonese was never in the balance. At the Conference on Unification of Pronunciation that met in 1913, the two large blocks that were opposed to each other were the Mandarin block against the Zhejiang-Jiangsu block (i.e. Shanghainese and Wu dialects), exactly like what I said above. And if you care to read the whole page, you'll find this paragraph that sums it all:
"The National Language Romanization was able to win considerably wider support for its other main feature, namely the writing of the Peking dialect as the standard language for the whole country. In contrast, toward the end of the Manchu period reformers like Lao Nai-hsüan had insisted on devising separate scripts for the southern coastal dialects. At the 1913 Conference on Unification of Pronunciation, too, there were reformers with somewhat similar views who had been defeated only by parliamentary maneuvers and threats of physical violence. But by the time that G.R. was created the idea of achieving national unity through uniformity in the script had made considerably more headway in the dominant intellectual circles of the day. Of the five men who created the National Language Romanization, not one was a native of Peking. Indeed, apart from Li Chin-hsi, who was a native of Hunan, the remaining four all came from the southern coastal area. Yet they found no difficulty in reaching agreement to promote the Peking dialect as the exclusive standard. Among educated Chinese generally this was becoming increasingly accepted also as the form of speech and writing which was to effect the unification of the country." Hardouin 23:50, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

More sources are never wrong. ;-) -- Jerry Crimson Mann 03:31, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I concur. Assuming what someone "ought to know" is a very dangerous thing...I'm in contact with a professor who specializes in East Asian studies at the moment. I'm looking for printed research and interpetation of the linguistic history of Cantonese at the moment from all perspectives. I doubt the answer to this question is as definitive as it may appear to be. This is very characteristic of some areas of the humanities, which is why it is such a worthwhile area of research. For myself, I want something more definitive than a website. A genuinely peer reviewed journal entry would make an excellent addition to this article! :-) --HappyCamper 03:59, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

The paragraph Hardouin had quoted can be true too. It mentioned what happened in 1913 to decide on a writing standard, possibly after the Peking dialect was chosen as the official national spoken variant. If we read carefully it is possible that there's actually no contradiction between the long article in Simplified Chinese ([5]) and the article Hardouin quoted ([6]). If we have some knowledge in history of that period we may expect what the proportion of Cantonese speakers would be among the revolution leaders. — Insta ntnood 07:38, August 26, 2005 (UTC) (modified 11:26, August 26, 2005 (UTC))

Sorry if I may come across as exasperated sometimes, but I feel like we are discussing the roundness of the earth here and somehow we are asked to bring references proving that the earth is round, just because one Wikipedian said it was flat. I studied in the best oriental schools in Europe and America, and I can assure all of you, there is absolutely no debate about Cantonese possibly having been chosen as the national language of China. If you don't trust the website I recommended, you can also check this excellent book: Modern Chinese : History and Sociolinguistics. Hardouin 11:16, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Hey there! I will indeed check that book - thanks! I don't know if this is the case, but perhaps a number of Wikipedians editing this page have a Cantonese background, it is probably awfully good to hear something even remotely suggesting that the language was once possibly really close to being the language of use in China - even if the statement might be false. I suspect that there is some reluctance to admit this, and probably some other cultural factors are coming into play here. On my part, I have no idea at all about this history, so I'm quite skeptical of anything until I've read it myself in a journal. Initially, I was a bit weary of your comments as I did find them somewhat overbearing - I mean, it's not often that one is told of insanities or whatnot! :-D However, I'm really glad to see that things have started to settle down now, and I'm sure the other Wikipedians would agree with me too. You're most welcome to edit the page - why not give it a try now, and take out all the references/suggestions in the article that you think should not be there? I think we're at a point where everyone is willing to listen and hear everyone out. I'll try and help out with the edits as well. At worst, we can revert :) - However, I really don't want an edit war to start here, so please everyone, be kind with your edits and edit summaries! Let's give these few edits about Cantonese a try, so don't be too quick to remove material that doesn't sound right - articles are always in construction! --HappyCamper 13:10, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

What's "Guoyue"???--Eternal 18:00, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

It means "Mandarin" pronounced in Mandarin. In Cantonese it is Gwok Yue (approximately). It is made of two Chinese words and literally means the "country's language". --HappyCamper 18:41, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

The essential problem is, how are we going to rewrite that section? Deryc k C. - the very original one

D e ryc k C. - the esperanza-enriched one 10:29:32, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

I empathise 100% with Hardouin here. Perhaps "insanities" is too strong a word, but it comes close to describing the history section of this article. We shouldn't be spending time arguing whether the world is round or flat if someone comes in and says that it is flat.

Let's see:

Cantonese culture and language became the official language again during the Ming Dynasty, and at that time modern Cantonese language took its form.

This is ridiculous. The court dialect during the Ming Dynasty was that of Nanjing. This dialect is well documented in the rime book Hongwu Zhengyun.

In the Qing Dynasty, the Manchus made the Manchu variation of Chinese, later developed into Mandarin (Qing official language) and Putonghua, the current official language.

What the hell? Mandarin is the "Manchu" version of Chinese? Early Mandarin is known from the Yuan Dynasty in the rime book Zhongyuan Yinyun, 300+ years before Manchu conquest. The Mandarin of that time already shows many of its most characteristic features: the split of the Ping but not the Shang and Qu tones; the disappearance of the Ru tone, etc.

Cantonese supporters argued that the history of the Cantonese language can be traced to Huang Di times, and cited the fact that Cantonese-speaking population was slightly larger than the Mandarin-speaking population at that time.

When did Guangdong province have a larger population than the rest of China? I think the writer here is confused about the concepts of "Middle Chinese" and "Cantonese". Middle Chinese (Sui Dynasty / Tang Dynasty) is the ancestor of all modern Chinese dialects, except Min, and it had many features we associate with Cantonese today, e.g. final plosives. But it also had features we associate with Wu, e.g. voiced consonants, and even features that we associate with Mandarin, e.g. retroflex ("rolled") consonants. It's the ancestor language, and it's ridiculous to equate it with modern Cantonese.

The general understanding is that after South China was repopulated by migration from the north during the Tang and Song Dynasties, the Late Middle Chinese spoken there evolved in isolation into the modern, heterogeneous, southern Chinese dialects: Gan, Hakka, Cantonese. (Min is also a southern Chinese group, but since it keeps archaic features from Old Chinese that not even Cantonese or Hakka have kept, it's really in a category of its own.) The northern Chinese dialects, which were exposed to more internal and external migration, changed at a faster rate while maintaining greater homogeneity, from Late Middle Chinese into the modern Mandarin dialects. The central Chinese dialects were between the two: those further south had more opportunities to diversity, becoming Xiang and Wu; others were exposed to more influence and migration from Mandarin, and evolved into the modern Southwestern (Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Hubei) and Jianghuai (Jiangsu, Anhui) Mandarin dialects.

As for what to do with the current history section: I say it should be completely removed. It's better not to have it than to have it there advertising falsehoods and misconceptions about the fundamentals of the Chinese language(s). And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

-- ran (talk) 17:32, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

The original passage of words were created per request, but if the majority agrees to remove the passage, then just leave it done. Deryc k C. - the very original one

D e ryc k C. - the esperanza-enriched one 08:41, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tone names in Pinyin or a Cantonese romanization

I reverted edits of 219.173.119.57 [7] which had changed the tone names in the article from Pinyin to a Cantonese romanization of that anonymous user's choice for these reasons:

The names in Pinyin are standardized labels in academia.
Standard labels are necessary for English readers in comparative studies of geographical and chronological dialects.
The pronunciation of those names in Standard Cantonese may be interesting information, but they are not as necessary. Omitting them makes the tables more compact.
If one argues that tones should be named in the dialect being discussed, then why should tones in Middle Chinese be pronounced in Cantonese then?
The user chose a personal romanization method that matched none of those listed in Wikipedia.
If the consensus is to add those pronunciations, I recommend using the IPA system being described in the article for consistency.

Please discuss. -- Felix Wan 00:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I recommend using Jyutping throughout the article wherever pronunciation guide for Chinese words are necessary, because Jyutping is currently the most widely-accepted, typist-friendly and reader-friendly scheme of Cantonese romanization and pronunciation guide. Deryck C. 07:35, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

It's easy to input, but I don't think it's the most widely accepted. :-D — Insta ntnood 20:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I was indeed also under the impression that it is the most widely accepted, since if someone chats with me about Cantonese in a somewhat technical way, that's what they'd use - though often they know it as "LSHK" rather than "Jyutping". -- KittySaturn 16:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Main Point: Jyutping is doubtlessly more writer- and reader-friendly than IPA. Deryck C. 09:12, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

To KittySaturn: of course, because that's the only usable version on a keyboard. Deryck C. 04:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative view of finals analysis

Finally, I decided to add the alternative view, quote my sources here in the talk page, and ask other Wikipedians for help in finding more definitive reference materials. During a discussion, I learned the second view, which is verifiable by these:

We know that the two dialects should be very close to each other, yet the two pages use different approaches in phonological analysis. The "Hong Kong" approach is more well known as it is recorded in S. L. Wong, A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced According to the Dialect of Canton. The "Guangzhou" approach is actually using a method closer to the second one I mentioned in the article, and considered medials as part of the rime. Notice the presence of /oŋ/ and /eŋ/, and the absence of /uŋ/ [ʊŋ] and /iŋ/ [ɪŋ]. Unfortunately, I have lost my link to a clearer article that supports the second approach. If anyone can find a book or paper supporting it, please add it here in the talk page. -- Felix Wan 03:42, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vowel chart

I noticed that this chart was unused. I'll leave it here for your consideration.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:09, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, this looks like a good chart, but it shows an [a] rather than [ɑ]. I'll ask the original creator whether he can change this. —Umofomia 22:41, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tone section does not make sense

I came here looking to find how the first tone should sound. I found a chart that does not explain what any of the tones sound like (for example: "low," "low rising," "high," "high rising," etc.). Can this be improved? It's important. Badagnani 02:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Unless I'm way off, the numbers indicate tone levels, so, for instance, "55" is "high level". I have attempted to deduce and add appropriate descriptions to the table. Some of them are the same as each other. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 07:24, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, this is very helpful. The numbers now make some sense; they are not well explained. It still doesn't make sense that some tones have the same numerical value. Badagnani 07:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural role, (public transport announcements in Cantonese in Guangzhou)

Quote from Cultural role: Cantonese enjoys a standing slightly inferior to Mandarin but much superior to other varieties of Chinese in China. This is seen in Guangzhou where announcements in the public transport are made in both Mandarin Chinese and the local lingua franca Cantonese. Not even Shanghainese enjoys this privilege in Shanghai, the largest and arguably the wealthiest city in China. end quote.

Does Cantonese really have a higher standing in Guangzhou than Shanghainese in Shanghai? I think there should be more to back up this statement. The example given about public transport announcements is not very convincing as it is probably for the benefit of non-Mandarin speaking Hong Kong people. I think outside of the Cantonese speaking areas Cantonese is largely irrelevant, it's just another dialect from another part of China, nobody would expect a non-native to understand or speak it. Although amongst the non-Mandarin dialects, Cantonese has more exposure, due to the existence of Hong Kong. LDHan 17:02, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed the above quote from the article and my edit summary was Guangzhou public transport announcements in Cantonese are for benefit of non-Mandarin speaking HK people.

User:Yuje moved it back and wrote And Shanghainese public announcements aren't offered for non-Mandarin speakers in Shanghai.

The situation in Guangzhou and Shanghai are not really comparable. Are there large numbers of Shanghainese speaking people who don't understand putonghua in Shanghai and need announcements in Shanghainese? . Are there large numbers of Shanghainese speaking visiters to Shanghai who don't understand putonghua and need announcements in Shanghainese?

Perhaps Guangzhou public transport announcements in Cantonese are for benefit of HK people, who do not understand Mandarin would be more accurate. Although I do think there is an element of asserting local identity in making announcements in Cantonese, maybe it is tolerated because it can be justified on the grounds of the benefit to Guangzhou in making the announcements understandable to HK people. But this does not mean Cantonese has a higher standing in Guangzhou than Shanghainese in Shanghai, nor is it good evidence on which to make this claim. I think the paragraph in the article should be rewriiten to reflect this. LDHan 09:06, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Cantonese is tolerated to a far greater extent than many other dialects such as Shanghainese are. Shanghainese, for example, has been largely banned from television except in some limited contexts, while an entire mainland Cantonese tv channel. [8] is allowed. --Yuje 01:09, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] population of cantonese speakers

it's stated in previous edition that 5% of china population speak cantonese, but the figure is too vague. It means 5% of China pop. or only han population? does Cantonese, as shown by the figure, refer to all variations of Cantonese and cantonese spoken in Hong Kong and Guangzhou? Quite misleading. -- Yau 1 May 2006

I agree the figure needs to be more specific. OK let's do some sums:

If we take the Cantonese (Yue) group:

[[9]] gives a figure of 70 million.

Population of China: over 1,300 million, Han make up over 90%, so the Han population is at a least 1,170 million.

70 million from a total of 1,170 million gives 5.98%, if a more generous figure of 80 million speakers is used, the percentage is 6.8%. This is for all varities of Cantonese not just the Hong Kong/Guangzhou dialect. LDHan 23:15, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

the problem lays at the original figure---5% (70million). i tried to figure out the time and original source for this estimate but still can't be clear with this. Some suggest 70 million is a worldwide cantonese population, not only in China (and don't even know if it includes taiwan, hk and macao). --Yau, 1 May 2006

[10] actually gives a figure of 66 million worldwide, taken from the 13th Edition of the Ethnologue (1996)[11].

The sentence the figure refer to was Standard Cantonese has spread from Guangdong far out of proportion to its relatively small number of speakers in China. It seems to refer to speakers in Guangzhou and surrounding areas who speak the Guangzhou dialect, assuming Guangdong does not include HK and Macao. The percentage of Guangzhou dialect speakers out of all Chinese (Han) speakers in mainland China then would be significantly lower than 5%. If the figures for the Cantonese (Yue) group speakers worldwide (65-75 million?) and Chinese (Han) speakers worldwide (1,300 million?) are used, the percentage is the range of approx 5-6%.LDHan 16:03, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello, it said only 5 % of the chinese population and not 5% of the chinese han population so it would be a figure of 1.3 billion, that excludes all chinese immigrant people resident in other countries but would include Taiwan,Hong Kong and Macau, and most likely would include all varients of cantonese. Dont makee it to conplex than you make it more confusing. Enlil Ninlil 02:35, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Classification of Chinese languages/dialects

Sichuan dialect is mutually unintelligible with Mandarin(Beijing dialect). So why is Sichuan dialect classified as a Mandarin language dialect anyway? It should be belonged in a separate dialect group like Wu, Gan, Min, etc. Therefore if Sichuan dialect is classifed as a Mandarin dialect, we can also justify that Teochew dialect and Hainanese dialect can belong to the Yue dialect group.Sonic99 05:07, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

The classification of Sichuanhua as a Mandarin dialect is not intended to imply thaht they are mutually intelligible. The terminology used to talk about Chinese language varieties is always contentious, but that is not implied by "dialect" in this case. As for why it is classed as a Mandarin dialect, this is not a decision to be made by Wikipedia editors by linguists; then we, Wikipedia editors, report what linguists say. Linguists apparently believe that Sichuanhua is close enough to the other Mandarin dialects so that they constitute a group together. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 05:53, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

How did the linguists come to the conclusion that Sichuanhua is a Mandarin dialect? Sichuan dialect as well as Wuhan dialect are mutually unintelligible with Beijing dialect. I would think these linguists are trying to promote Mandarin and classed more speakers into the Mandarin group. Teochew and Hainanese are similar to Cantonese in grammar and pronunications and, also the proximity of Canton and their continuous contact with each others, one can say that these dialects can be classified as Yue dialects. I think more linguists should research the Teochew and Hainanese dialects again. Sonic99 00:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

According to The Languages of China by R. Ramsey, what all the Mandarin dialects have in common, and the reason why Sichuanhua is grouped with Mandarin, is that they all lost the -p, -t, and -k endings, and they all use 他 for the third-person pronoun and 的 for the subordinative particle. All the other non-Mandarin dialects do not fit into at least one of the above criteria. —Umofomia 22:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] [a] vs. [ɑ]

The article currently lists [ɑ] (open back unrounded vowel) as the long-a vowel for Cantonese. When I went to ask the creator of the vowel chart shown above to change his chart from [a] (open front unrounded vowel) to [ɑ], he said that it was [a] according to the source he reference from, The Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. He said he would change it to [ɑ] if I could show him some references that listed [ɑ]. However, when I actually tried to find these references, none could be found. All the ones that I found list [a]. This includes:

Chinese University of Hong Kong Chinese Character Database Site
Pronunciation guide at cantonese.ca
Hutton, C. and Bolton, K., A Dictionary of Cantonese Slang
Kwan, C., The Right Word in Cantonese
Yang, M., A Concise Cantonese-English Dictionary

Not one source has listed [ɑ] for the value of the long-a vowel. I never thought anything of the fact that [ɑ] was in the article since phonology is not my strong suit and its hard for me to tell vowels apart, but it looks like [ɑ] is wrong by sheer number of sources alone. Should I go ahead and replace all instances of [ɑ] with [a]? —Umofomia 09:41, 22 June 2006 (UTC) [minor correction made 09:51, 22 June 2006 (UTC)]

[edit] Userbox template?

Is there a userbox template that I can use to show that I speak cantonese? Thank you for understanding, that it is completely irrevelant to what this is about. Thank you. GamePlayer623 01:16, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BBL#zh-yue_-_.E7.B2.B5.E8.AA.9E.2F.E7.B2.A4.E8.AF.AD_.28Cantonese.29 The Cantonese is written strangely. 呢个用户能够用熟练嘅粤语进行交流。"进行交流" is not "so Cantonese". Would" 傾偈" be better?--Kfsung 08:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Again, I must say thanks. I learn something everyday, it seems. =). Sorry, I'm not familliar with the words. Can't read simplified chinese (ones computers use.). If it IS simplified chinese that is.

GamePlayer623 03:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Something not quite right, from a native Cantonese speaker's perspective:

Written cantonese is only written in traditional Chinese, not simplified Chinese.
Some words are formal written Chinese, which are not used in spoken cantonese. Basically written cantonese is writing down spoken cantonese, character by character.

AbelCheung 14:33, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, please forget about my 1st comment, I completely forgot about people in Canton province. AbelCheung 14:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cantonese versus Mandarin in Hong Kong and Singapore

Well that is fine then, but cantonese is still spoken by a majority of people and new commers who live there learn it. I've enever watched a ""dubbed"" cantonese TV show in Hong Kong. People can understand mandarine and english but most speak there mother toungue. Enlil Ninlil 06:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

That's because they're usually subtitled with written Chinese at the bottom, and people just read the subtitles if they don't understand the Mandarin. Besides, the TV shows on TVB and ATV are all in Cantonese. Usually the only time those two channels have Mandarin is on the news or in documentaries when a Mandarin speaker is being interviewed or something. Not everybody in HK understand Mandarin, although most in the corporate world have learnt it or want to learn it. The people that don't necessarily have to learn it for work, a lot of times they may not speak or understand much Mandarin. - Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 06:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Well the section needs to be more specific, maybe divided into countries or areas ect? Its confusing the way it is. Enlil Ninlil 06:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

By the way, "dialect" news broadcasts are still done in Singapore, for the sake of the older generation. So "dialects" broadcasts are not totally banned, but they are severely restricted.

[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)

"saifun" is definitely not Cantonese. The Cantonese pronunciation is "fun see" ("fun" rhymes with "gun"). The Min Nan pronunciation is "tang hoon". So "saifun" is not a Min Nan pronunciation either, it seems.

[edit] Chinese surnames categories up for deletion

A new editor has just added a number of categories for Chinese surnames, which I believe to be very useful, particularly for grouping individuals with the same hanzi surname but using different romanizations. As is usually the case at the Categories for Deletion area, the people who frequent that place generally try to delete every new category, regardless of whether they understand its use. In this case, they seem not to understand the utility of being able to have a category for everyone with the name "Liu," for example. Please voice your opinion here. Badagnani 03:42, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] [a] vs. [ɑ] redux

I ended up being away from Wikipedia for quite a while since I posted my last topic on this talk page. Anyway, I didn't see anyone oppose the proposal I set 9 months ago, so if there are no objections, I will be making this change soon. —Umofomia 11:17, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

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