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Where to Start with Cantonese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4769 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes  Speaks: Russian | Message 1 of 13 27 January 2012 at 7:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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I am still confused on whether Cantonese is actually a separate language, or a dialect of Mandarin. Cantonese is not on the U.S. Foreign Service language difficulty scale, even though I believe it has 200 million speakers. What is the explanation for this? I am intrigued by Cantonese because it is thought to be more difficult than Mandarin. I do have several questions about it.
Is it true that Cantonese has 8 tones? (by the way, how many tones does Korean have?) Would the language skills of a Westerner fluent in Cantonese be more in demand than one fluent in Mandarin, since Mandarin is more widely studied by language students? Aren't most Cantonese speakers in China also fluent in Mandarin? Is the everyday speech of Chinese immigrants in the West Mandarin, Cantonese, or putonghua? How many of them would you overhear speaking perfect Mandarin for example? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5372 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 13 27 January 2012 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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For political or national reasons, it's often called a dialect, but by linguistic standards, it's a language.
Korean has no tones. In that respect, it's similar to French. Edited by Arekkusu on 27 January 2012 at 4:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5406 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 3 of 13 28 January 2012 at 3:22am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
It's definitely not a dialect of Mandarin. It's essentially a separate language, just as Mandarin is, although, technically it's considered to be a dialect of Yue, which would be the equivalent of Mandarin as a language in its own right. Either way, neither Cantonese nor Yue are a dialect of Mandarin, and if anything, both Cantonese (or Yue) and Mandarin would politically be considered dialects of some generalized, non-specific "Chinese language".
It's more like 71 million. The highest estimate I've seen is 120 million, but I doubt this, and the estimate is undated. The lowest estimate I've seen is 56 million, but this was from 1984.
This is a complicated issue, because there can be tones both in a conceptual and a practical sense. Conceptually, there are distinct tones that, in reality, end up sounding the same. Guanzhou Cantonese allegedly has 7 tones, and Hong Kong Cantonese allegedly has 6, although distinguishing conceptually distinct tones would yield 9 tones in total (again, 2 or 3 of which sound indistinguishable from other tones).
Probably not. The language that "everyone" is rushing to learn, whether they're Chinese or Western, is Mandarin. There are plenty of Hong Kong people who already speak decent English, and while most Cantonese speakers are learning Mandarin, few Mandarin speakers are learning Cantonese.
Yes, so long as by "China", you mean the Mainland.
Putonghua is the standardized form of Mandarin, modeled on the Beijing dialect. Most Western immigrant communities have generally spoken Cantonese, but recently there's been a massive influx of Mandarin speakers, but many of these are international students who will eventually be moving back to China.
If by "perfect Mandarin" you mean standard Mandarin, probably only the ones from Beijing, if even. With respect to your thread title, Ari generously fulfilled your need one week in advance: Cantonese resource thread Edited by nway on 28 January 2012 at 3:23am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6220 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 4 of 13 28 January 2012 at 5:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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tanyab
you should definitely get in touch with Ari! He is one of the most knowledgable Cantonese learners on this forum. He has cleared up many a misconception for me with regards to Cantonese! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6573 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 5 of 13 30 January 2012 at 8:24am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
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This looks like a job for ... CANTONESE MISCONCEPTIONS UPCLEARER MAN!
I need to get a better superhero name. Anyway, nway has already answered most of your questions very well, but I might be able to add a footnote or two.
It's certainly not a dialect of Mandarin. Some people argue that Mandarin and Cantonese are both dialects of Chinese, however. This is largely for political reasons, and it's a view that is popular within China. All this is also muddled by the fact that Cantonese speakers mostly read and write fluent Mandarin, even in Hong Kong, even if they can't speak a word of it. This is possible due to the fact that all Mandarin characters have a pronunciation in Cantonese. This has led some people to believe that "Mandarin and Cantonese look the same when written down" (and they are thus only dialects of the same language), but that's false. If you go to Hong Kong you can find comic books, newspaper articles and advertisements written in Cantonese, mostly unintelligible for a Mandarin speaker. It's a pretty complex issue, and I recommend the following article from reknowned sinologist and linguist Victor Mair: What Is a Chinese "Dialect/Topolect"? Reflections on Some Key Sino-English Linguistic Terms . Here's a relevant quote:
Another interesting read is a survey talking about the opinions of various speakers of Mandarin and Cantonese on this very issue. Found here.
Because of this issue of dialect/language and politics, Cantonese is consistently snubbed by these kinds of things. Google translate doesn't do Cantonese, the iPhone doesn't have Cantonese input (though it has Cherokee!), etc. There's only a single Cantonese grammar book published, as far as I know, and no dictionary in print, though there's an excellent community-based online collaborative dictionary called CantoDict. As nway said, 200 millions seems way too high an estimate, though.
It's not terribly more difficult on its own, but it has two factors increasin the difficulty: * Cantonese speakers mostly read and write in Mandarin with Canto pronunciation, meaning you have to learn two languages to be literate. * There's a severe lack of resources.
Maybe. How many tones it has depends on how you count and which dialect you listen to. If you're learning the Hong Kong variety, for all intents and purposes it has six tones. Six tones is also what's used in Jyutping and Yale, the most widely-used romanization systems. The three "stop" tones are only interesting for purposes of historical linguistics. If you count stop tones separately, and look at Foshan Cantonese, I think you can get up to 11 tones, which will sound very impressive. But again, for most learners, the relevant answer is 6.
In Mainland China, yes, except for old people, everyone is fluent in Mandarin. Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong and Macau don't necessarily speak it very well or at all, and the same goes for Cantonese people in Malaysia, Singapore and in Chinatowns worldwide.
In earlier decades, most emigrants from China have been from the southern provinces, speaking Cantonese or Hokkien, but nowadays more and more northerners are emigrating. It also varies between Chinatowns. Soma are predominately Canto, some Hokkien, others Mandarin or some other topolect. 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6285 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 6 of 13 30 January 2012 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
The old Sidney Lau dictionary is still readily found in Hong Kong and there is another one which I think is published by the Chinese University of Hong Kong. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6573 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 7 of 13 30 January 2012 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
Really? I thought the Sidney Lau dictionary was out of print! Last time I was in Hong Kong I couldn't find it, but maybe I didn't look hard enough. I'm going back next month and I'll be sure to look again. Edited by Ari on 30 January 2012 at 3:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6285 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 8 of 13 30 January 2012 at 4:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||
I saw it in Dymocks in the Prince's Building in Central. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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