Question for Chinese Speakers

[HumbleWCGuy]

I had spoken to a friend from Malaysia. She only speaks Cantonese. She seemed to suggest that Cantonese wasn't as formal as Mandarin. Would it be common for Cantonese speakers to name things in Mandarin to indicate formality?

[David Jamieson]

I had spoken to a friend from Malaysia. She only speaks Cantonese. She seemed to suggest that Cantonese wasn't as formal as Mandarin. Would it be common for Cantonese speakers to name things in Mandarin to indicate formality?

only if they didn't have a canto word for it. lol

mandarin (putonghua) is common speech. Most people in CHina, regardless of dialect will likely be bilingual with their regional dialect (cantonese, toisanese, shanghaiese, etc etc) and putonghua.

[GeneChing]

That was a big issue for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in China. Here you had this classic story being delivered by native Cantonese speakers. It was compared to Shakespeare with a country accent. Nevertheless, many scholars believe that Cantonese is closer to ancient Chinese. I'm told this is based upon ancient poetry, which allegedly sounds better in Cantonese than in Mandarin.

Mandarin is the dominant language and Cantonese will default to it especially with newer terms. But then, some Chinese speakers default to English too. A case and point is that Hong Kong Cantonese speakers will say "Yes Sir!" in English, fallout from being a colony of the crown for sure.

[HumbleWCGuy]

That was a big issue for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in China. Here you had this classic story being delivered by native Cantonese speakers. It was compared to Shakespeare with a country accent. Nevertheless, many scholars believe that Cantonese is closer to ancient Chinese. I'm told this is based upon ancient poetry, which allegedly sounds better in Cantonese than in Mandarin.

Mandarin is the dominant language and Cantonese will default to it especially with newer terms. But then, some Chinese speakers default to English too. A case and point is that Hong Kong Cantonese speakers will say "Yes Sir!" in English, fallout from being a colony of the crown for sure.

I was just curious, my system uses a Mandarin derived name but most of the terminology is all Cantonese. My instructor said that his teacher, a Chinese man, referred to Wing Chun as Yunn Chun or, closer to the Yale tanscription Yong Chun. My instructor started calling it Wing Chun so that people would know what it was.

[GeneChing]

That's a huge topic, you know. Wing Chun, Ving Tsun, Yongchun, it's very confusing. But that's a bit of a different issue than I thought you were discussing initially as it's all written the same in Chinese - 詠春. This is more about romanization, and with Wing Chun, that's another can of worms.

[hskwarrior]

same thing with choy lee fut....

Tsai Li Fo,

Cai Li Fo

Choy, Choi, lee, lay, lei, li, fut, fat, fo.

[TenTigers]

That was a big issue for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in China. Here you had this classic story being delivered by native Cantonese speakers. It was compared to Shakespeare with a country accent. Nevertheless, many scholars believe that Cantonese is closer to ancient Chinese. I'm told this is based upon ancient poetry, which allegedly sounds better in Cantonese than in Mandarin.
.

Many Mandarins are condescending toward Cantonese like that, which is funny.
Isn't that like saying an African classic sounds better in German?
Mandarin is the language of the Chings who occupied China, just as the Germans occupy South Africa.
I still know some Cantonese who refer to Mandarins as Chings.

[GeneChing]

I'm a Ching, not a Qing. Actually, in Mandarin, I'm a Chen. The Ching comes from transliteration of the Hakka pronunciation.

The Choy Lay Fut/Califo situation is similar, but not the quite the same, as it doesn't have the same longstanding battle of trademarking the spellings like Wing Tsun.

[David Jamieson]

Chinese and Indian civilizations being the oldest, naturally have multitudes of mutually unintelligible dialects. Mao recognized this and mandated putonghua into existence and enforced it's teachings across the country.

probably one of the few wise things he did to attempt unity over a generational learning model.

[omarthefish]

And furthermore:

Mandarin is the language of the Chings who occupied China, just as the Germans occupy South Africa.

....is patently false.

The word "mandarin" may have it's etymology in the Qing dynasty but the language is not Qing derived at all. The language of the Qing dynasty is "Manzuyu" which is now actually a nearly extinct dialect. "Mandarin" is not called "mandarin" in Chinese. The language that eventually evolved into Mandarin was called "guan hua"官话。 It was made widespread by the Qing's but was not their native language. It's an artificial combination of northern dialects created for government workers so that officials trained in Beijing could be assigned to work in any province of the country.

Guanhua (lit: language of government officials) over time became known as Putonghua (common language) or Hanyu (language of the Han Chinese) because it is based on the native tongue of....NOT the Manchurian invaders but rather instead on the Han people of northern China.

The term "Mandarin" comes from the fact that those in government, those speaking "guan hua" at the time the west started interacting heavily with China, the Manchuran's happen to be in power. "Man" (Chinese for "Manchurian" and
"Da Ren" (Chinese for an important public official. lit "big man")

History of Guan Hua:
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E5%AE%98%E8%AF%9Dh
http://baike.baidu.com/view/295982.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese

Manchurian, in contrast, is not even in the same linguistic family. It's more closely related to Mongolian:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchu_language
Here is an example of Manchurian writing:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...anju_gisun.png

[mawali]

Mandarin is the language of the Chings who occupied China

Not so! The Manchu (Qing) were foreigners when they entered the Han homeland. Former horse steppe peoples, as they became more sedentary, they began to adopt a 'civilized' outlook and adopted many Han customs and intermarried with the locals. Their allies were the Mongols, in most cases hence the favourism of Buddhism within the Manchu worldview. Their language is a Turkic??-Mongol base and perhaps it was integration/development of putonghua with Turkic??-Mongol structure that made the language as we know today.

It may be that the North vs South crisis that elevates the language problem but it ixists in many cultures. Being the center/industrial base/major capital of a country carries a "psychic" crown as in the Beijing (this case) being the capital, carreis more weight in the language realm.
Using Italy as an example, you have the same North vs South dynamic! Northerners are transplanted Germans integrated into the Italian landscape and therefore more industrious than the Southerners, who like to "waste time" (allegedly), speak terribly, drink wine like water, chase women and like to lie in the shade! Northerns, of any locale, are rude, serious, formal, etc while the Southerners are easy going, smile alot, take their time on accomplishing tasks, etc.