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Subtitling dialects | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Amun Triglot Groupie Netherlands Joined 5058 days ago 52 posts - 72 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, French Studies: Spanish | Message 25 of 39 12 September 2012 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have seen it happen a couple of times, mostly people from very rural and isolated
areas. Eastern Nethelands mainly where there are Low German elements in their Dutch. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5855 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 26 of 39 12 September 2012 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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That has been always the case here in Singapore of subtitling non-Mandarin Chinese
Dialects with standard written Mandarin Chinese. In fact, all television shows and radio that are originally in Cantonese or Hokkien are dubbed into Mandarin before they are allowed to be aired and shown to the public. The government stand is: we must unify the language used by citizens so that people from different dialect groups will be united as one people of Singapore. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5783 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 27 of 39 12 September 2012 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, yes, I know they watch Brazilian soap operas etc and until reading this thread I thought it was a one-sided problem too, but (in the light of your information above) if they're translating Brazilian authors in Portugal, then the problem is not one-sided.
You make a very good point and I can't argue with that. The only thing I would say is that, in the meantime and while the two dialects are still mutually intelligible with a little exposure, it's still a terrible shame that both sides miss out on so much of the other's cultural output, because (I repeat) something is always lost in any translation, however good. Edited by Random review on 12 September 2012 at 5:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 28 of 39 12 September 2012 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As a teenager, I remember watching some show in class where they interviewed people from Southern France and the differences were deemed sufficiently noticeable that there were subtitles in Metropolitan French.
I can't remember though if these people were speaking Occitan (often considered a distinct language) or Meridional French (often considered a dialect of French with strong influence from Occitan).
Interesting. This thinking could end up backfiring if continued long or insensitively enough just as had happened when governmental decrees in the 1990s in Republika Srpska (i.e. Serbian part of Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Serbia insisted that henceforth the only prestigious sub-dialect for anyone claiming Serbian ethnicity regardless of his/her native dialect and place of birth was the sub-dialect typical of northern Serbia. This new insistence alienated the Serbs of Bosnia to the point where the Bosnian Serbian government effectively reversed its decree while the Montenegrin nationalists pushing for separation from Serbia got a boost by being able to spin this new insistence as "linguistic discrimination" and nothing more than Belgrade's cultural arrogance/snobbery. Both of these policies were originally done in the name of "national unity" by extending the questionable requirement for people aspiring for ethnic unity to have the same native dialect. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 29 of 39 12 September 2012 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yeah, Singapore is the only nation that thinks China isn't doing ENOUGH to eradicate its linguistic and cultural diversity. :) Anyway, since Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese and the others are dialects only in name, I don't think they count as "subtitling dialects". For all intents and purposes they're completely different languages and dubbing Cantonese into Mandarin is no different than dubbing English. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5855 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 30 of 39 12 September 2012 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think the government of Singapore is successful in this aspect, so much so that they have extended it to use English to unify the 4 main races of Singapore. The main reason for this success is that there are substantial economic benefits for the citizens and the country thought the adaption of the unifying language. For the case of English, the country is able to attach investments from the western world in the early days of the country's independence. Many citizens has recognized the need and benefit for adapting English which resulted in an universal acceptance of using English as the language of communication, despite the fact it is the mother tongue of a very small portion of the population. For the case of Mandarin, the Chinese population realized that different dialect groups can communicate with each other, which in turn drove the growth of home business. That was the situation in the 70s and 80s. Now, with the raise of China, people appreciate that they have adapted Mandarin, so that doing business in China is easier than their competitors. The end result is that young people like me cannot speak the dialect of my grandfather, but can discuss a variety of issues in the adapted language, thought many will not consider us as native speakers. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5855 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 31 of 39 12 September 2012 at 7:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
Please look at the point of view of the government: we were a colony make up of immigrants from different background and we need ways to make people royal to the new state. As a friendly advice to you, I will urge you not to speak your sentiments (about the policies) out loud if you visit Singapore. You could be branded as an extremist which allows the government to detain you for 2 years without triad. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5783 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 32 of 39 12 September 2012 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I made several friends from Singapore at uni, none of whom wanted to go back when they
finished their studies (over a decade ago), precisely because they couldn't criticize their government. They all ended up having to go back. Now I can't speak for anyone else on here, but when you say this (it doesn't sound that friendly to me b.t.w.)....
...you make it very difficult (at least for me) to do what you ask here:
Besides, few people are rude enought to go to a country and start criticising its government straight away and I doubt Ari would be any exception. He was making a comment about the minority language policy of certain governments on a language related forum, which I think is legitimate. Edit: sorry if that seems rude, there's a lot of great things about Singapore and the best friend I ever had is from there (I still remember some of the swear words!), but I got really upset by that comment about the Singapore government throwing Ari in jail for two years without trial as I find that kind of arbitrary power extremely frightening in any hands and the way you put it (I'm guessing unintentionally) made it sound like a threat to my ears. I've calmed down a bit since writing the above, but I'm still so upset I'm actually shaking even now. Edited by Random review on 12 September 2012 at 10:18pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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