Talk:Weitou dialect

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[edit] Cantonese "Wai Tau" = Hakka "Vui Teu"

The article so far suggests that WaiTau dialects are all Cantonese, this is plainly incorrect, since Hakka people sometimes refer to the language they speak in their Hakka Villages as [vui₁₁ t^heu₁₁ va₅₃]. The translation of the term as "walled city" dialects is literal, however, the majority of villages in Hong Kong are not walled. In the Hakka sense of the term 圍頭/围头 is generally of 'the village'. Thus VuiTeu dialects should be termed more appropriately as "village dialects".

Most of the walled villages in Hong Kong are found in the New Territories, and some are Cantonese, others are Hakka. See Walled villages of Hong Kong that suggest Waitauwah cannot be equated solely with Cantonese.

Dylanwhs 20:13, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

But by any means it should carry the meaning of "walled". Deryc k C. - the very original one

D e ryc k C. - the esperanza-enriched one 04:58:34, 2005-09-03 (UTC)

[edit] "Snake Language"

"It is also known as Se Wah (Traditional Chinese: 蛇話 lit. snake language)... "

The character for 'snake' is actually a incorrect character for the language. The She people or Se-Ch'uk in Cantonese is more properly rendered as 畲族 and their language is 畲話. Traditionally, Chinese linguists have associated the She peoples and language with Hakka - not Cantonese. Dylanwhs 20:30, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hakka Expressions listed under WaiTau Words

From my own language/speech of Shataukok, the following Hakka vocabulary are cognates with those listed under WaiTau words in the article. I've provided the characters that I think best fits the pronunciations with its meanings.

Characters	English	Pronunciation (IPA)

烏	extinguished	vu₃₃
慌	afraid	k^hɔŋ₁₁
乾	dried	kɔn₃₃
綯	to tie, to fasten	t^hau₁₁
唔曾	not yet	m₃₃ ts^hen₁₁
求乎	as long as, provided that	k^hiu₁₁ fu₁₁
能太	clever	len₁₁ t^hai₅₃
貓	cat	miau₅₃
渠	him/her	ki₁₁

This is table also appears in my talk page Dylanwhs 23:37, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Section

In my opinion, the main paragraphs of this article should be split into 2 or 3 sections. Deryc k C. - the very original one

D e ryc k C. - the esperanza-enriched one 09:22:46, 2005-09-04 (UTC)

u can do that, of course. ^_^ --K.C. Tang 13:08, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Later, I'm now facing something hard. Deryc k C. - the very original one

D e ryc k C. - the esperanza-enriched one 14:44:54, 2005-09-04 (UTC)

Done. Deryc k C. - the very original one

D e ryc k C. - the esperanza-enriched one 11:20:20, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

[edit] Section cleanup

I suggest the table to be disassociated into a list like this:

Cantonese

Waitau: sth
Hakka: sth
meaning: sth

Deryc k C. - the very original one

D e ryc k C. - the esperanza-enriched one 11:20:20, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

Have revised. :P --K.C. Tang 16:53, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hakka section

As the Cantonese has equvialents of the Waitau words together with characters, the Hakka section too requires the characters with it's corresponding pronunciations, and equivalent words. For example, huk (to cry) is not used much in everyday Hakka, since kiau₅₃ is used, so I've put in 叫 kiau₅₃ and so forth. Dylanwhs 08:20, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

With regard to the removal of the phonemic transcription in Hakka, that's ok. Perhaps Cantonese really ought to be transcribed phonetically in IPA too. This will make the article less subject to change, that is, certain romanisations tend to be fashionable for a while, then something else replaces them. Unicode moved from Yale to Jyutping lately for its listings of Cantonese readings, for instance. IPA should be used in a linguistic related article such as this. It will be able to tie in with other articles such as the descriptions of Cantonese, Hakka and other Chinese dialects nicely. Dylanwhs 08:36, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

No objections for IPA. By the way, the table format has been revised a bit, and a rather (for me) interesting term has been added. --K.C. Tang 17:10, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

IPA or Jyutping, as you people will like. Deryc k C. - the very original one

D e ryc k C. - the esperanza-enriched one 07:11:05, 2005-09-12 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification

Just wondering if the lead section could be worded a little more clearly: is Waitau all three: a (a) Cantonese variant (b) synonym for Hakka, and (c) term for any non-Standard Cantonese (Guangfu) dialect...or is it only "truly" (a)? It seems that most of the page is dedicated to (a). Perhaps this could be a little clearer. Thanks --Dpr 18:22, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

yeah, i know it sounds a bit confusing, but the fact seems to be that the term is used both in a general and in a specific sense. u can try to clarify it, of course. :P --K.C. Tang 14:34, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I can only clarify if I know what it means. So am I correct, does it mean all three things, (a), (b), and (c)? If the terms has many meanings, it should (can) be stately cleary that this is the case. Thanks --Dpr 01:56, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

as the article states, the genereal meaning is any spoken variant, other than Guangfu, used in the villages of Hong Kong, sometimes even including Hakka (as the She Wah case suggests). we can say it is the "folk" use of the term. The specific meaning is a dialect of Cantonese, which has its distinct phonology, according to some linguists. we can say it is the "linguistic" use of the term. Hope it is clear. :P --K.C. Tang 04:16, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] vocabulary

The following section was originally in the article. However, in retrospect, it looks like original research. It has been moved here for those who may be interested.--K.C. Tang 14:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[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.
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)

[edit] Is Waitau dialect mutually intelligible to Cantonese?

Is Waitau dialect mutually intelligible to Standard Cantonese? If the dialects were spoken slowly, can two speakers of the two dialects, understand each other? Homer33 03:15, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

um... I guess so.--K.C. Tang 09:00, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

K.C. Tang, are you a Hakka? Homer33 01:40, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

why, the Hakka speaks Hakka, not Waitau. I can only understand some Waitau, not Hakka. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 01:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Waitau is listed as one of the Hakka dialects in the list of chinese dialects. If Waitau is not a Hakka language, then the Hakka lists of dialects should be changed. Homer33 04:59, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I see, will change that. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 09:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

K.C. Tang, Waitau dialect may be a Hakka dialect that is similar to Cantonese, Are you 100% sure that Waitau is not a Hakka dialect? Otherwise a Hakka editor should make the change. Chow Yun-Fat is a Hakka and spoke Waitau. Homer33 15:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Why, you can take a look at the references listed in the article. There are two links and one book, the book (a tome indeed) is not easily available, though. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 03:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)