74 replies to this topic

[tongyan]

ok, i misunderstood.
however, i don't think i misunderstood that really really small quote on your sig that i just noticed. i just can't believe that such an analogy can be made...

The existence of 濁音 in one's national language determines the strength of that nation?
Is this quote taken out of context or something?

[nishishei]

however, i don't think i misunderstood that really really small quote on your sig that i just noticed. i just can't believe that such an analogy can be made...

The existence of 濁音 in one's national language determines the strength of that nation?
Is this quote taken out of context or something?

I think it's pretty obvious that you aren't supposed to take that quote too seriously. But in all honesty, the only First-World nation without voiced consonants (濁音) and without English as a second official language is Iceland.

My signature is a statement Wu Zhihui (吴稚晖), a native Wu speaker from Jiangsu, made in good humor when he wanted Wu dialect to be the national language of China instead of Mandarin during the mid-1910's.

Wu Zhihui was the chairman of the committee responsible for the formation of the national language. The vice-chairman was Wang Zhao, who was pro-Mandarin. Wu Zhihui and Wang Zhao did not get along at all, Wu Zhihui would later resign his post, and members of the Jiangsu-Zhejiang bloc walked away from the discussion and did not participate in the voting.

Here is background info (from Nationalism and Language Reform in China, "One State, One People, One Language", DeFrancis):

The most important issue confronting the assembly was the question of what sounds were to be represented by these symbols. In view of the fact that the conference which the delegates had been invited to attend had been designated as a Conference on Unification of Pronunciation, their task was clearly one of deciding on a standard language for the whole country. On this issue the delegates split into two groups. One comprised delegates from the Mandarin-speaking area under the leadership of Wang Chao. The other consisted of representatives from the southern coastal area under the leadership of the Kiangsu-Chekiang bloc, which in turn was led by Wu Chih-hui and Wang Jung-pao of Kiangsu, the latter being the man who in 1906 had drafted the reply of the Ministry of Education rejecting the phonetic scheme proposed by Lu Kan-chang. The two groups were about equal in strength. The focal point of their disagreement was Wang Chao's insistence that the Mandarin pronunciation should be taken as the standard as against the equally strong contention of southern representatives that such a procedure would not meet the problem of southern dialect sounds not existing in Mandarin. "Southerners cannot get along without voiced sounds and the entering tone," maintained WangJung-pao. He was echoed in this by Wu Chih-hui, who argued that Germany was strong because its language contained many voiced sounds and that China was weak because Mandarin was lacking in them.

After a month of stalemate Wang Chao called a separate meeting of the thirty delegates, a majority of those attending the conference, who were representatives either of the Mandarin area or of the provinces of Kwangtung and Fukien. Wang told his audience that the stand taken by the absent Kiangsu-Chekiang bloc was tantamount to advocating the pronunciation of this region as the national language, a course which if adopted would bring disaster to China for generations to come. He repeated this assertion to the plenary conference and also advanced a proposal for a new system of voting to resolve the deadlock. His suggestion, calling for one vote for each province regardless of number of delegates, was quickly identified as a means of giving ascendancy to the numerically preponderant Mandarin provinces. The conference was thrown into an uproar. Wang Chao attempted to exert pressure to split the southern group by threatening to walk out on what he referred to as the "Kiangsu-Chekiang Conference on Unification of Pronunciation." Finally he almost came to blows with Wang Jung-pao. One day, when the latter happened to use the colloquial Shanghai expression huang-pao ch`e "rickshaw," Wang Chao mis-heard it as the Mandarin oath wang-pa tan "turtle's egg," whereupon he bared his arms and chased the speaker out of the hall. That was the last of Wang Jung-pao at the conference.

The upshot of all this controversy was a complete victory for the Mandarin group. Wang Chao got his way in the matter of voting procedure and was thereby enabled to end the more than three months of discussion by receiving approval for a series of agreements to his liking.

[qrasy]

Quote above is also found in http://www.pinyin.in...s/DeFr1950.html

Is SOV and 上海="above the sea" peculiarities found in Suzhounese?
How about the "上海去" example?

[nishishei]

Quote above is also found in http://www.pinyin.in...s/DeFr1950.html

Is SOV and 上海="above the sea" peculiarities found in Suzhounese?
How about the "上海去" example?

Yeah, Shanghainese is essentially Old Suzhou-hua with heavy influence from Ningbo-hua, as Suzhou-hua was considered classy and cultured, and those with money tend to be from Ningbo. Even non-Wu speaking Subei prostitutes in Shanghai would imitate Suzhou-hua. One can argue (and many do) that Shanghainese is the modern variation of the Suzhou-hua found in Wu culture (such as Pingtan, Wu literature, etc). The transition of Shanghai from an ordinary town to a metropolis also involved the transplantation of the original local Shanghinese dialect (still found in suburbs) with Suzhou-hua. Rural suburbs of Shanghai today still speak Wu dialects similar to Old Shanghainese, and not Old Suzhou-hua. Today's urban Middle/New Shanghainese is more similar to Old Suzhou-hua than to Old Shanghainese. Old Shanghainese is thus seen as 乡下闲话 by nearly all Shanghainese speakers today. When people say "Protect Shanghainese", they do not mean Old Shanghainese, but the Shanghainese "injected" with the cultural prestige of Old Suzhou-hua.

Today's Suzhou-hua has also changed greatly from Old Suzhou-hua (to which Shanghainese inherited). Hence, Suzhou-hua today has very little influence.

[qrasy]

The modern Shanghainese tones are the same as Ningbonese tones, isn't it?

But how about Suzhounese and "上海去"? Don't Suzhounese have something like 7 tones? And is the tone Sandhi that heavy that 上•海•去 is different from 上海•去?

Edited by qrasy, 26 September 2005 - 07:05 AM.

[nishishei]

The modern Shanghainese tones are the same as Ningbonese tones, isn't it?

But how about Suzhounese and "上海去"? Don't Suzhounese have something like 7 tones? And is the tone Sandhi that heavy that 上•海•去 is different from 上海•去?

Yeah, Suzhou also says 上海去; never 去上海. And all Northern Wu dialects distinguish 上•海•去 from 上海•去, because the tone sandhi in Wu dialects is lexical and the name of the city "Shanghai" (proper noun) is one lexical item.

[qrasy]

So Suzhouhua 上海 is different from 上•海.

To me, 上海去 and 去上海 seem the same (but 饭吃 and 吃饭 not)

(in Suzhounese) How about strange words like leq-hae? arlitaq? Strange word structure SOV? (well, 上海 does not seem object to me in above sentence), "position adverb" put before word?

Edited by qrasy, 27 September 2005 - 06:13 AM.

[qrasy]

don't see any reason why they wouldn't be found in japanese and korean. 睇 is not a cantonese-specific character. it's actually a character used in classical chinese which also happens to be heavily used by cantonese so many have just conveniently identified it with cantonese.

http://www.kangxizid...ge.php?page=808 its description is "目小視也", does '睇' in Cantonese have this meaning? Also its reading is considerably different from what it should be (第).

[tongyan]

http://www.kangxizid...ge.php?page=808 its description is "目小視也", does '睇' in Cantonese have this meaning? Also its reading is considerably different from what it should be (第).

please tell me if i'm misunderstanding the meaning but would you construe 目小視也 as being akin to a 'glance' or 'blush'? if so, that meaning could be included under the cantonese use of 睇 since a long, hard stare at something would use 望 or �� (http://www.unicode.o...B&useutf8=false) or lai4 (i can't remember the character right now, if there is one).

The pronunciation is different but i don't think this is an isolated case. Many of the pronunciations in the Kangxi dictionary, especially the more 'obscure' characters, do not correspond to modern Cantonese pronunciations.

[qrasy]

"目小視也", doesn't it mean 'seeing with eyes almost closed'?
Kangxi pronunciation is too old, so Cantonese pronunciation usually missed out in f/p/h, but not in tones. (I do notice heavy colloquialization to make the tone rising e.g. 妹妹、地下, but not in aspiration -h-)

I checked the usage of 睇 in Japanese, for the words yokome, nusumimiru, and they are "横目"　(horizontal eye (linear eye?) ) and "盗み見る" (to look as if want to steal something (to peep?) ) respectively.

Edited by qrasy, 15 October 2005 - 04:15 AM.

[tongyan]

"目小視也", doesn't it mean 'seeing with eyes almost closed'?
Kangxi pronunciation is too old, so Cantonese pronunciation usually missed out in f/p/h, but not in tones. (I do notice heavy colloquialization to make the tone rising e.g. 妹妹、地下, but not in aspiration -h-)

I checked the usage of 睇 in Japanese, for the words yokome, nusumimiru, and they are "横目"　(horizontal eye (linear eye?) ) and "盗み見る" (to look as if want to steal something (to peep?) ) respectively.

since i never actually looked in a dictionary for this character, i went to taiwan's ministry of education's dictionary of the national language 教育部國語辭典
http://140.111.34.46...String=睇

1. 微微斜視。玉篇˙目部：睇，傾視。楚辭˙屈原˙九章˙懷沙：離婁微睇兮，瞽以為無明。

2. 看、注視。晉˙陶淵明˙閒情賦：仰睇天路，俯促鳴絃。清˙莊棫˙蝶戀花˙　城上斜陽依綠樹詞：凝睇窺君君莫誤，幾多心事從君許

the second definition fits the modern cantonese meaning quite nicely.

[qrasy]

For your info, from a Cantonese-Mandarin dictionary the 書面語 of 睇 = 斜眼看.
----------------
I have searched 乸 and it can be used for noun. It just makes some kind of "animal girl". If I recall correctly it's also for human?
-----------------
How about these words?
Hampalang ... Sai "哂"
... Zo "咗"
Yiga "而家"
Any ideas?

Edited by qrasy, 21 October 2005 - 02:49 AM.

[tongyan]

For your info, from a Cantonese-Mandarin dictionary the 書面語 of 睇 = 斜眼看.
----------------
I have searched 乸 and it can be used for noun. It just makes some kind of "animal girl". If I recall correctly it's also for human?
-----------------
How about these words?
Hampalang ... Sai "哂"
... Zo "咗"
Yiga "而家"
Any ideas?

乸 is usually not used for humans unless you want to degrade somebody. it's generally considered vulgar - some ppl will refer to their girlfriend or wife as 我隻乸 when talking to friends or speak badly of a male by calling them a 乸形 (which is similar to the mandarin expression '娘娘腔') a girlyman, if you will.

As to the others, I have theories but nothing concrete to back it up.
For 晒 <- i think it has to have the 日 radical instead of the 口 radical because the act of drying is representative of a completed action (drying is the last process) of course, 晒 also has the meanings of 'all'.

For 咗 - I am unclear at this point.

For 而家 - I remember hearing that this is actually a sound change from the original term, 現今 or 如今
because of the evolutionary lazy-sound phenomenon and the tendency to merge commonly use words by dropping the consonant ending of the first character. In this case, however, both words have dropped their consonant endings and we end up with the modern ' 而家 '
I think for many Cantonese village dialects, 而家 is not used and they have their own variation of the 現今 or 如今 or 今下 or 今陣 or 今時.
when i visit distant cousins from the 'ancestral' village, they say 今陣時

[qrasy]

I just realised.. 乸 and 女 could have the same root... Only the vowel is different.

According to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/咗 , 咗 is found in position 0185.211, but I can't find it. http://www.kangxizid...m/org/index.php

Edited by qrasy, 07 November 2005 - 01:41 AM.

[tongyan]

I just realised.. 乸 and 女 could have the same root... Only the vowel is different.

According to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/咗 , 咗 is found in position 0185.211, but I can't find it. http://www.kangxizid...m/org/index.php

qrasy... i think with the kangxi positions...
the whole number is the page number, the first two letters after the decimal is the character position - the third number after the decimal, if it is not a 0, means that the character does not exist in kangxi. that would be the position it would have been in if it were included in kangxi...

for example, on page 185, the last character with 5 strokes has the kangxi position 0185.210 (http://www.unicode.o...E&useutf8=false)... 咗 would theoretically come after that character if it were included in kangxi... 0185.211 is just for indexing/organization purposes.