[sbt08]

Cantonese is second only to Mandarin now, but as the mainland economy grow so fast, Mandarin will dominate in Chinese-speaking community, for new learners, I would suggest them to learn Mandarin instead of Cantonese.

[General_Zhaoyun]

USC, on Jun 28 2005, 10:59 AM, said:

noted thanx your advice.
but again i do not know why Taiwanese always refer their dialects as min-nan.
Isn't that Min-nan = Fujian.
why min-nan? what about my min-xi, or min-bei?? are they = Fujian??
my suggestion is we shud drop min-nan for Fujian. do you agree??
USC

Min-nan is only a part of Fujianese (Hokkien) akin to Taiwanese/Holo. Min-xi and Min-bei are different sub-branches of the Min dialect. Note that there are many different dialects in Fujian province, such as Min-nan, Fuzhou (Hockchew), Putian etc..

Min-nan is spoken in Taiwan and Xiamen in Fujian province, Singapore and Malaysia.

[nishishei]

USC, on Jun 28 2005, 02:59 AM, said:

i do not know why Taiwanese always refer their dialects as min-nan.
Isn't that Min-nan = Fujian.
why min-nan? what about my min-xi, or min-bei?? are they = Fujian??
my suggestion is we shud drop min-nan for Fujian. do you agree??
USC

No, we shouldn't.

Min = Fujian
Minnan = Southern Fujian
Minbei = Northern Fujian
Mindong = Eastern Fujian.

Most Taiwanese (benshengren) are from the Minnan area of Fujian, hence their dialect is also a Minnan dialect.

Fuzhou is in the northern part of Fujian, hence it is a Minbei dialect.

Minnan and Minbei are mutually incomprehensible, so that's why we use Minnan and Minbei and usually don't talk about a single Min dialect group.

[xng]

nishishei, on Jun 27 2005, 09:18 PM, said:

No, we shouldn't.

Min = Fujian
Minnan = Southern Fujian
Minbei = Northern Fujian

Nishi is right. Chao zhou and other minnan dialects are only slightly different .

Wait till you hear the difference between min nan and min bei. I know a bit of putian (subbranch of min language), it essentially has lost all the "ru" sheng (just like mandarin) and has lost "b", "g" sound (just like cantonese) whereas Min Nan has retained all these middle chinese sounds.

But since all of them (min bei and min nan) belongs to the same language group, they have some similarities like calling husband and wife as "lau ay", and using 伊 for he/she.

What baffles me is why there are 7 subbranches instead of 2 subbranches (min nan and min bei). Are they so different from each other ?

This post has been edited by xng: 28 June 2005 - 02:47 AM

[USC]

nishishei, on Jun 27 2005, 09:18 PM, said:

No, we shouldn't.

Min = Fujian
Minnan = Southern Fujian
Minbei = Northern Fujian
Mindong = Eastern Fujian.

Most Taiwanese (benshengren) are from the Minnan area of Fujian, hence their dialect is also a Minnan dialect.

Fuzhou is in the northern part of Fujian, hence it is a Minbei dialect.

Minnan and Minbei are mutually incomprehensible, so that's why we use Minnan and Minbei and usually don't talk about a single Min dialect group.

noted thanx yr explanation mainly from geographical point of view.
but for unity sake. like Singaporean, Hokkien = Fujianhua nobody in Singapore
or Malaysia or Indonesia or Philippines use the word min-nan even though their
ancestor come from min-nan.
my ancestor from min-xi, but i cannot use min-xi as distinguish as the Taiwanese.
Min is old name substitute by modern version of Fujian. Thus Taiwanese
speak Hokkien, a kind of dialect from southern Fujian.

[xng]

USC, on Jun 28 2005, 05:07 PM, said:

noted thanx yr explanation mainly from geographical point of view.
but for unity sake. like Singaporean, Hokkien = Fujianhua nobody in Singapore
or Malaysia or Indonesia or Philippines use the word min-nan even though their
ancestor come from min-nan.
my ancestor from min-xi, but i cannot use min-xi as distinguish as the Taiwanese.
Min is old name substitute by modern version of Fujian. Thus Taiwanese
speak Hokkien, a kind of dialect from southern Fujian.   

It depends on your definition of "hokkien" which is non-standard. If it means the min language, then it includes all the dialects of min including chao zhou and hainanese which is not part of the fujien province at present.

Hakka people also reside in fujien province but they are not considered hokkien language.

[nishishei]

USC, on Jun 28 2005, 11:07 PM, said:

noted thanx yr explanation mainly from geographical point of view.
but for unity sake. like Singaporean, Hokkien = Fujianhua nobody in Singapore
or Malaysia or Indonesia or Philippines use the word min-nan even though their
ancestor come from min-nan.
my ancestor from min-xi, but i cannot use min-xi as distinguish as the Taiwanese.
Min is old name substitute by modern version of Fujian. Thus Taiwanese
speak Hokkien, a kind of dialect from southern Fujian.   

Hokkien is just the Min pronunciation for Fujian. It's not a different word.
Min is just an abbreviation for Fujian.
Of course many overseas Chinese won't specifically use Minnan, Minbei, Mindong, etc, as they are more linguistic categories that few people other than some Taiwanese who really care about their dialect are aware.

This is the same for Wu dialects, which are more commonly just termed Jiangzhe-hua (Kauntzereiwo), combination of JIANGsu + ZHEjiang provinces. Although Northern Wu (Bei Wu) and Southern Wu (Nan Wu) are quite different, they are not linguistically separated because there is still some intelligibility. But Fuzhou-hua (Minbei) is VERY different from Minnan.

[phoenix_bladen]

General_Zhaoyun, on Jun 27 2005, 09:14 PM, said:

Min-nan is only a part of Fujianese (Hokkien) akin to Taiwanese/Holo. Min-xi and Min-bei are different sub-branches of the Min dialect. Note that there are many different dialects in Fujian province, such as Min-nan, Fuzhou (Hockchew), Putian etc..

Min-nan is spoken in Taiwan and Xiamen in Fujian province, Singapore and Malaysia.

min-nan min-xi min-bei

reminds me of west germanic east germanic and north germanic under the germanci languages......

[phoenix_bladen]

nishishei, on Jun 27 2005, 09:18 PM, said:

No, we shouldn't.

Min = Fujian
Minnan = Southern Fujian
Minbei = Northern Fujian
Mindong = Eastern Fujian.

Most Taiwanese (benshengren) are from the Minnan area of Fujian, hence their dialect is also a Minnan dialect.

Fuzhou is in the northern part of Fujian, hence it is a Minbei dialect.

Minnan and Minbei are mutually incomprehensible, so that's why we use Minnan and Minbei and usually don't talk about a single Min dialect group.

so you're saying ppl in taiwanese speaking taiwanese min-nan can understand ppl in fujian min-nan ?

personally i would like china to keep and preserve all the 7 main language groups of chinese........i think having their own uniqueness is another great part of being chinese.

This post has been edited by phoenix_bladen: 06 July 2005 - 02:28 AM

[qrasy]

xng, on Jun 28 2005, 02:35 PM, said:

Nishi is right. Chao zhou and other minnan dialects are only slightly different .

Wait till you hear the difference between min nan and min bei.  I know a bit of putian (subbranch of min language), it essentially has lost all the "ru" sheng (just like mandarin) and has lost "b", "g" sound (just like cantonese) whereas Min Nan has retained all these middle chinese sounds.

But since all of them (min bei and min nan) belongs to the same language group, they have some similarities like calling husband and wife as "lau ay", and using 伊 for he/she.

What baffles me is why there are 7 subbranches instead of 2 subbranches (min nan and min bei). Are they so different from each other ?

The 'b', 'g' seems developed from some special 'm','ng'. 明, 玉 represent these.
The original b and g become Yang Category of p and k. Look at 肥, 滑
Are Min Nan and Min Bei closer to each other (if compared to non-Min)?

What are the 7 subbranches of Min?

[BlueNote]

Quote

Agreed, HK songs are best in the 80's and early 90's, it's all downward from mid 90's or so. It's all copy copy copy copy copy from TW songs

Besides Canto Pop, I have met other non-Cantonese who were interested in learning the language because of HK movies.

I knew one girl from Taiwan who was a big fan of Tony Leung Chiu Wai.....but she only knew his movies through Mandarin dubs !

So I guess she was a fan of Tony's looks, and the Mandarin dubbers voice/acting ?