If by "dialects" you mean Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, etc, then those are languages, not dialects.



Edit by Miki: We started a discussion at the "Warlords" thread and decided to give it its own thread
http://z7.invisionfree.com/SimplyTK/index....topic=93&st=105

tvbtiger...I totally agree with you, I also think that Mandarin and Cantonese are languages of their own...the problem is...the source where I extracted my last post from doesn't make it clear if he/she meant the Chinese languages or the different dialects in between those languages...shrug shoulders...
I found this sites here...
http://www.glossika.com/en/dict/index.php
http://chineseculture.about.com/cs/language/a/dialects.htm

We all know that, if you google it or read about elsewhere, that the identification of the varieties of Chinese as "languages" or "dialects" is controversial. Doesn't mean that I don't agree with you.

I don't know the author meant the difference of pronounciation of deverse Mandarin dialects...and connecting it with "Warlords" here...with ancient Mandarin. But I think the author really described all Chinese languages as "dialects" .

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Chinese%20dialects
The word "dialect" when used to describe Chinese is a bit of a misnomer. Dialects are mutually intelligible forms of one language e.g. British English and American English. A speaker of American English, can understand the vast majority of what someone from England says , even though their accent and some of the terms are different.

On the other hand, if I, speaking Mandarin, try to talk to someone who is speaks Cantonese, we will not be able to communicate very easily unless we start writing notes to each other (as Chinese characters are pretty much standard).

A good analogy would be the romance languages in Europe- they are all closely related and have some degree of mutual intelligibility; however they are not totally mutually intelligible, depending on which two languages are being compared.

A big reason Chinese "dialects" are called dialects instead of "languages" is for political reasons. The so-called "unity" of the Chinese language and thus of the Chinese culture is a big factor in holding the country together. If you told everybody that they are speaking different (albeit very closely related) languages, it removes a good portion of the glue that holds China together as a country.

Linguistic differentiation along political boundaries is a not uncommon phenomenon. The example of the romance languages is a good one - they are linguistically at least as closely related as Chinese "dialects" but are considered to be different languages because they are spoken in different countries. Another example would be Norwegian and Swedish, or Hindi and Urdu, or Indonesian and Malay, all of which are examples of partially or totally mutually intelligible languages which because they are spoken in different countries (and in some cases written differently) are considered to be different languages even though they are mutually understandable to a greater degree than some Chinese dialects.


These are the main divisions of Chinese dialects:

Mandarin - (known in Chinese by a host of names incl. "Putonghua", "Guoyu", "Guan Hua" etc.) - Mandarin is the most popular dialect in China, being spoken as a first language in the Northeast, Northwest, North-central and West of China by a total of at least 650 million people as well as being spoken as a second language by the rest of the country. Supposedly the most "ideal" Mandarin is spoken in places like Hebei province or in Haerbin, in Heilongjiang province rather than in Beijing because people in Beijing add the "r" sound to the end of too many words. However, Mandarin is still said to be based on the Beijing dialect.

Jin dialects ("Jinyu") - spoken in Shanxi province, very similar to Mandarin except that it also has glottal stops on some words whereas Mandarin does not.

Wu dialects ("Wuyu") - spoken in Shanghai city, Zhejiang province and Jiangsu Province. Examples include Shanghainese, Hangzhou dialect and Suzhou dialect.

Min dialects ("Minyu") - spoken in Fujian, Taiwan and parts of Guangdong province. Examples include Taiwanese and Fuzhou dialect.

Cantonese ("Yueyu", "Guangdonghua") - Spoken in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. Examples include Guangzhou dialect, Hong Kong dialect and Taishan dialect.

Xiang dialects ("Xiangyu") - spoken in Hunan province.

Hui dialects ("Huiyu") - spoken in Anhui province

Gan dialects ("Ganyu") - spoken in Jiangxi province.

Ping dialects ("pinghua") - spoken in Guangxi province.

Kejia dialects, more commonly known as "Hakka" ("kejiahua") - Spoken by the Hakka, people who migrated from the north several hundred years ago to south China esp. Guangdong. Kejia is linguistically related to other dialects of Chinese, but traditionally because the Hakkas came from the north they were considered migrants and hence "not Chinese" a view which persists into the present.

Some more dialects for the list above:

Chaozhou dialect - spoken in Chaozhou, which is in northern Guangdong province, it is actually not closely related to Cantonese but rather is a type of Min language

Hangzhou dialect - spoken in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, it sounds similar to Shanghainese, but they have some "r" sounds in it too. One of the Wu dialects.

Ningbo dialect - spoken in Ningbo, sounds even more like Japanese than does Shanghainese, also a Wu dialect.

Xiamen dialect - basically the same as Taiwanese, but it is spoken in Xiamen in Fujian province.

Total population (in mainland China) by language group as of 1989:

mandarin: 662,240,000

Jinyu: 45,700,000

Wuyu: 69,750,000

Huiyu: 3,120,000

Ganyu: 31,270,000

Xiangyu: 30,850,000

Minyu: 55,070,000

Yueyu: 40,210,000

Pinghua: 2,000,000

Kejiahua: 35,000,000

A final note is that the node below lists all the languages spoken in China (by both Chinese and minorities) as opposed to being solely a list of Chinese dialects.


Although I do have an opinion on that matter (as I stated at the beginning of this post) I don't want to digg deep here since I'm a) no expert in languages like you are tvbtiger :) b) I'm not able to speak, understand any Chinese language so I don't want make a complete fool of myself by teaching others about it. If it comes across like that...I'm terribly sorry, it wasn't my intention.

Thanks for the in depth explanations. When will you be giving your lecture at the university again? Great research!

Maybe we should make a separate thread for this ;)

As for "dialect"/"language" - I am a philologist by education, so languages are my profession. And I would fight til dead body, protecting my opinion and throwing arguments (based on my own knowledge) why I believe and insist those are languages :) I even on my blog I wrote whole "essay" on the subject :)

As far as I know those are called "dialects" strictly for political reasons, as it was mentioned in quoted article. Sometimes censors even change given articles and replace "language" with "dialect", so it not necessary must be author's fault. I've encountered one clear example of this, when an author was presenting on her blog a scan of her article in a newspaper, explaining that it wasn't her, who wrote "dialect" each time she called Cantonese a "language" :blink:

Also saying that Chinese speak Chinese is misleading. I'd rather say Chinese is written language. Spoken are different story. So when sometimes someone tells me they learn "Chinese", while in fact they study Mandarin, I write a simple question in colloqial Cantonese: 你好嗎? 你鍾唔鍾意台彎呀? *he I don't think many Mando reading/speaking persons would understand ;) RunOver

Can anyone recommend any good material for learning the Cantonese language? I have Pimsleur's Cantonese I, but find that instead of being conversational in general, it is more geared towards an American businessman that is trying to pick up a Cantonese woman and take her back to his hotel room.

This does not help me <_<

Any help would be appreciated and it might even impress my boyfriend's mother enough into liking me!!! Heehee :lol:

From advances learners I learned that Pimsleur isn't good - they speak wierd and unnatural.

I use this
http://www.amazon.com/Yourself-Cantonese-C...95117426&sr=8-1
it comes with 2 CDs with all dialogues, dialogues are written with characters and Yale transcription.

and this
http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Cantonese-Work...95117426&sr=8-3
no characters, but they nicely explain grammar and there are keys at the end to every excersice, so you can check if you did excercises correctly.

I also use this
Speak a Chinese Dialect
http://www.lp-group.com/store/cantonese.html
I bought it on eBay and it was much cheaper there. It's for computer - java based. Some basic phrazes, vocabulary, all goes with characters (inclusing Canto specific) and voice recording.

Thanks tvbtiger - much appreciated ;)

i agree. however, it's not quite like romance languages, because written, they are mutually intellible. romance languages are not bangwall

Anybody know a good (affordable) way to learn Mandarin? I need to learn some before I leave for Taiwan. Thank you.

DN

dn,

i have a small lonely planet phrasebook in mandarin and check out the bookstores you have and the travel or languages section.

will come in handy or just a great way to practice some easy words for your trip :lol:

rain
:rolleyes:

I'm using Listen and learn Mardarin Chinese
ISBN 0-486-99812-6
Suggested retail is 14.95 US but I got mine at Amazon.com for 11.95
It's a good starting piont if you in a hurry. It has 2 CDs and a booklet to follow the dialogue.
I also have the Japanese and French versions of the series and will buy the Modern Greek some time in the future.

BTW for people in the US nick jr is going to have a kids series called ni hao kai-lan coming in Feb. 2008 according to the site. :blissysmile :clap jay
Ni Hao Kai-Lan

Cantonese language course in Japan..."Learn Cantonese" with movies...this semester "Confession O Pain" :lol:

http://www.asahi-culture.co.jp/cgi-bin/lec...ode=info&id=177

maybe this site could help you

http://www.chineselearnonline.com/

another good book is beginner's chinese by yong Ho
ISBN 0781810957

Thanks Miki for giving me the link to this interesting thread!

tvbtiger, if you allow me, I would love to read your "essay" on this subject about the different languages and dialects in China. So, I would love to have the copy or a link.

I think that tvbtiger's blog is written in Polish so that won't help you :lol: ...but I will try to find some links that I'll post here.

When you watch some of TK's DVDs I would advice you to do something I did at the beginning too...switch the language on your remote...between Cantonese and Mandarin...the difference is so evident....after some time you will never mix up those two languages up...they are so different.
Or in interviews...the one with Sandra Ng...she speaks Cantonese, she speaks Mandarin (since he knows she's able to understand Mandarin too and he understands Cantonese, they used this "babylonian" interview style... meaning everyone speaks his/her own language to be dubbed/subbed later on) so it's easier for him. There are some others where he answers in Cantonese.
These here e.g...Cantonese
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2EhsyzWV78
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og6-8vRcmMI

Mandarin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3W5RyN0aVU

I never heard him speak Taiwanese though :(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_(linguistics)
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanische_Sprache
More links:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/taiwanese.htm
Link with sound files...
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~taioanoe/culture.htm

And to confuse you even more...there's simplified and traditional style in written Chinese/characters... :lol: ...you can find out here what it's all about and who uses them...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_character
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurzzeichen

(for those who are interested, the second link is he German one...please have a look at it too even when you don't understand what's been written since they added clips to make the difference more visual...example is "to do", two longer, one short version)

To make it more simple...well, it's not that simple, but anyway :lol:
HK and Taiwan -> traditional (complicated) characters
Mainland China -> simplified Chinese

HK; Macao-> Cantonese (official language)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_%28linguistics%29
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantonesisch

Mainland China, Taiwan -> Mandarin (official language), and Taiwanese in Taiwan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_%28linguistics%29
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordchinesische_Dialekte


I'm sure Paige and tvbtiger will tuzski030 if I wrote crap...please feel free to do so...

Found this btw. about written Chinese and the fact that there is indeed a written colloquial Cantonese. Does that mean that although the Cantonese speaking people in HK usetraditional characters there are some special colloquial characters too?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_written_language

I wouldn't mind giving you the link, but are you fluent in Polish? Because I wrote it in that language...

Nooo, Polish is not a dialect of Russian :lol: ;)

And you know - due to all that confusion with languages/dialects I noticed, that in HK in many cases people use those terms are synonyms. In Cantonese there is a word for spoken language "wa2" and it means just "spoken language", without any difference for language/dialect, so maybe this confusion is a result of not clear terminology in Chinese languages. For them it's either 話 "wa2" or 文 "man4" ("spoken language" vs. "spoken and written language/written language/language in general").

Oh yes!!

There are many characters you won't find anywhere outside HK. Maybe on Macau, but I'm not sure.

Examples:

Canto
冇 = not/don't have
唔 = not (before a verb)
佢 = he/she/it
嗰 = particle creating "there/that" 嗰個人 that person 嗰度 there (that place).

It's very possible you can't even see characters, as they are not in typical Chinese fonts set. You need special HK Cantonese set.

Thanks tvbtiger! I think I have enough general knowledge to know that Polish is not a Russian dialect :lol: - shame, I would have loved to read your piece of work!

Miki, the details/links you posted, wow, I am so dizzy now from all the information! Thank you very much!

My Goodness! :o
I had NO idea all this good stuff was in here! :) (smiley face turning and looking all around)
I am such a hotpants for gentle Takeshi, that I jump right for the photos and such. I think I should try and be a smartypants for awhile and try to learn about these confusing languages! I think my friends and all will appreciate that when I sing (badly<_<) mandarin songs around my house, I might understand some of what it is I am singing! :lol:
I am singing them phonetically of course, so I might be saying thing like, "oooh, baby, lets put cheese on your grandmother, yeah yeah yeah" phoness
Hopefully no-one who speaks Mandarin has ever heard me sing, man. God only knows what I have been saying... :blink:

Thank goodness, there is the standard set of chinese words that chinese people could read, even if you speak a different dialect. At least you could write words down to communicate...hehehe.

I think Sinaporeans may use the simplifed writings as well. I used to learn mandarin and the text books were from Singapore, and the words were simplifed. Although, when so lazy, I write some words simplified - I really can't stand reading in simplified, as in novel reading. Just doesn't look well formed and pretty enough...lol

I think I've seen Takeshi sing in Taiwanese.
Seriously, I don't know about Taiwanese language - I thought the Min Nan was just another word for Taiwanese, but someone told me that they are two different languages. Then I had a squiz of the info above (from Miki) and some say they are the same (my orginally thought). As I like singers who are also Taiwanese, so there are occasion I hear Taiwanese songs (I can recognise it by not knowing what they are singing, cos it's defintely not in my mandarin vocab). So I think need a Taiwan person to clarify this for me ...

Back..on Tk, I'll have a dig in my files. This would be when he was on the variety shows in Taiwan. Big Brother Variety Show is a good example where I think I saw him performing a song.

tvbtiger, don't know if I ever ask the question: Was it cantonese before Andy or Andy before cantonese?

cinxxx, did you ever find yourself singing 'ooh, bao be, ba ru lao fang zai po po shang...." If not, you are safe from offending a chinese elderly :P
You could just learn 'Wo Ai Ni, Jin Cheng Wu.'
That is pretty safe...

I'm not sure I understand the question :huh: You mean: I learn Cantonese, because I like Andy, or if Cantonese was first, then came Andy?

I learn Cantonese for two reasons: 1 - it's a beautiful language and I want to speak it. 2 - I believe I have to speak local language. So none of reasons are Andy. And actually - I don't remember when was the last time I heard him speaking Cantonese. He speaks only Mandarin now <_<

I think Minnan and Taiwanese are the same, but it's not the same as Taiwanese Mandarin... Probably not many people realise there is another language on Taiwan, except Mandarin, so they might think Taiwanese=Mandarin, which creates confusion tuzki018

Yes, well the question that I was curious was that did you learn canto before or after knowing of Andy.

So, it was after that you come to find out about Andy. That would have been cool to be equipped with the language that he speaks.

Maybe what a person told me about Minnan is different to Tai Yu (Taiwan lanaguge) is Taiwanese mandarin instead of plain Taiwanese. That is where I get confused because of what english words call them opposed to what chinese call them. I suppose I could ask my uncle, who lived in Taiwan for like 20 years... :blink:

To be honest - I don't remember. But if it was before of after - it had no connection with Andy, or any other person.

And I'm am already equipped with a language he speaks - English :) Though he doesn't want to speak it crry but he knows it.


With language names - it's probably very common that English names of Chinese languages are not clear and not always correspond with Chinese terminology... :blink:

I don't think that he doesn't want to speak English. It just harder for him to since he doesn't use it that often. ;) So no need to cry. jay