Tag: Cantonese

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Culture Experiences History Language Learning Languages

jī‐tĂłng‐yā‐jiǎng

jī‐tĂłng‐yā‐jiǎng ((jÄ« chicken 鞥 雞/鷄)‐(tĂłng {together with} 搌 搌/仝)‐(yā duck éž­ 鎚)‐(jiǎng speaking èźČ èŹ›) → [people not understanding each other because of speaking different languages (from Cantonese)]) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Yes, this expression comes from Cantonese, but the above Mandarin version does appear in Mandarin dictionaries, so it qualifies as a Mandarin expression!]

Recently, while out to dinner with one of the first families to serve in the local Cantonese congregation, along with the circuit overseer serving the local Chinese circuit and his wife, the subject came up of how Mandarin and Cantonese are actually different languages, not just dialects of the same language.

Chickens Talking with Ducks

The wife of the circuit overseer asked what the difference is between a language and a dialect. So, I proceeded to explain something that is emphasized by American sinologist and University of Pennsylvania Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations Victor H. Mair, that a primary way accepted by most linguists to distinguish a language from a dialect is mutual intelligibility, as is discussed in this excerpt from the MEotW post on “fāngyĂĄn (fāng·yĂĄn {direction → [place]} · speech → [topolect; dialect (common but misleading translation)] æ–č蚀)”:

It has been said that “a language is a dialect with an army and navy”, but in his article Professor Mair gives us a more linguistically correct and useful way to distinguish between a language and a dialect:

Regardless of the imprecision of lay usage, we should strive for a consistent means of distinguishing between language and dialect. Otherwise we might as well use the two terms interchangeably. That way lies chaos and the collapse of rational discourse. Mutual intelligibility [emphasis added] is normally accepted by most linguists as the only plausible criterion for making the distinction between language and dialect in the vast majority of cases. Put differently, no more suitable, workable device for distinguishing these two levels of speech has yet been proposed. If there are to be exceptions to the useful principle of mutual intelligibility, there should be compelling reasons for them. Above all, exceptions should not be made the rule.

What is mutual intelligibility? Simply put, in linguistics, two or more speech varieties are said to be mutually intelligible if they are “able to be understood by one another’s speakers”. For example, if one person only knows English, and another person only knows Spanish, they can’t really understand each other if they try to talk to each other—English and Spanish are not mutually intelligible, and are suitably recognized as being different languages, not just different dialects of “European”.

Similarly, if one person only knows Mandarin, and another person only knows Cantonese, they can’t really understand each other if they try to talk to each other—Mandarin and Cantonese are not mutually intelligible. So, while they may be “fāngyĂĄn (fāng·yĂĄn {direction → [place]} · {(patterns of) speech} æ–č蚀)”, linguistically, Mandarin and Cantonese should really be considered to be different languages, not just different dialects of “Chinese”.

Indeed, I have heard people use this week’s MEotW, “jī‐tĂłng‐yā‐jiǎng ((jÄ« chicken 鞥 雞/鷄)‐(tĂłng {together with} 搌 搌/仝)‐(yā duck éž­ 鎚)‐(jiǎng speaking èźČ èŹ›) → [people not understanding each other because of speaking different languages (from Cantonese)])”, to specifically describe Mandarin-speakers and Cantonese-speakers trying to talk to each other, and not understanding each other. 🐓 🩆

After I explained the gist of the above, one of the daughters of the family at the dinner—who had been labouring for decades under the misconception that Mandarin and Cantonese are just dialects and that someone who knows one can easily learn the other—said, “Now I don’t feel like an idiot.”

Uncommon Knowledge?

It could be said that ones such as this family and this circuit overseer and his wife, who have all worked so hard and served for so long in the Chinese language fields, should already have known such a basic thing about the Chinese languages. However, the following things are unfortunately true:

  • Even publishers who are learning a language to serve in that language’s field generally consider such linguistic (language science) knowledge to be specialized technical knowledge that is beyond what they need to learn, and possibly beyond what they could even comprehend.
  • Western-educated publishers learning a Chinese language may unwittingly go along with the Western worldly tendency to exoticize things related to China. (John DeFrancis, in his book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (p. 37), calls this “Exotic East Syndrome”.) They may be content with—or even enjoy—the alluring veil of mystery and mystique surrounding certain things related to China and Chinese culture. Thus, they don’t seek to learn about and understand deeper truths about such things, that may pierce through this obscuring veil, and burst this bubble.—Compare 2 Corinthians 3:14, including the margin note.
  • The central ruling authorities of China have long actively promoted the scientifically incorrect idea that the different varieties of speech in China are just dialects of the one Chinese language. This idea is political propaganda supporting the idea that it’s good for there to be central ruling authorities in China.
  • Traditional worldly Chinese language instructors and others who are knowledgeable about Chinese languages and Chinese characters are eager to promote and perpetuate the traditional thinking about Chinese languages and characters, that they have invested so much time and effort in, and that they are so proud of.
  • Chinese-educated publishers who are already steeped in the traditional ideas about Chinese languages, Chinese characters, etc., and who are thus lauded and deferred to as experts by other publishers, may be eager to simply unquestioningly pass on the cultural knowledge and ideas that they were taught, and that they are lauded and respected for.
  • The Bible makes it clear that Satan the Devil is “a liar and the father of the lie”. It also describes him as “the great dragon
who is misleading the entire inhabited earth”. So, while we can only speculate about the details of what strings are purposely pulled in the spirit realm by Satan and his demons as opposed to what human folly they simply passively observe, we can be sure that Satan is delighted with all the ways in which people are misled in and about the Chinese culture, in which the dragon is considered a positive, revered symbol.—John 8:44; Revelation 12:9.

So, for reasons such as the above, even the basic linguistic truth that Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc. actually function as different languages is unfortunately not yet common knowledge among those serving in the Chinese fields. As the saying goes, which some say is a Chinese proverb, “error will travel over half the globe, while truth is pulling on her boots”.

Jesus said, though, that true worshippers worship “with spirit and truth”, and that “the truth will set you free”. With regard to Chinese languages, Chinese characters, etc., the truth about them can even set one free from unnecessarily feeling like an “idiot”, as the sister mentioned above so eloquently put it, because of labouring under all the political propaganda, traditions, and other kinds of misinformation and wrong thinking that unfortunately surround Chinese languages, Chinese characters, etc.—John 4:23; 8:32.

Huge Worldwide Effects

In addition to being hugely freeing for individual language learners, spreading the truth about the Chinese languages, Chinese characters, etc. is also important on a larger scale, since the worldwide Mandarin field, for one, is the largest language field in the world, and probably the largest language field that has ever existed in human history. For comparison, according to Ethnologue, a resource on world languages, the worldwide Mandarin field (those worldwide whose mother tongue is Mandarin) is about twice the size of the second largest worldwide language field, the Spanish field, and it’s about two and a half times the size of the third largest worldwide language field, the English field. Allowing various untruths to continue to divert and bog down the language-learning efforts of those who come to help in the worldwide Mandarin field can have incalculable overall negative effects on the preaching work in this enormous field.

So, even as we hang on to Bible truth, let us also hang on to the linguistic truths that we learn, and let us do what we can to share them with our fellow workers in the vast worldwide Chinese fields.

Categories
Culture Language Learning Languages Science

yǔzĂș

yǔzĂș (yǔ·zĂș language · {ethnic group → [group of things with common characteristics] → [group]} èŻ­æ— èȘžæ—) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

While “language family” seems to be a commonly accepted linguistic term, there does not seem to be universal consensus on what terms to use for subdivisions of language families. This is suggested by the wording used in the Wikipedia article on language families, under the subheading “Structure of a family”:

Language families can be divided into smaller phylogenetic units, conventionally referred to as branches of the family because the history of a language family is often represented as a tree diagram. A family is a monophyletic unit; all its members derive from a common ancestor, and all attested descendants of that ancestor are included in the family. 


Some taxonomists restrict the term family to a certain level, but there is little consensus in how to do so. Those who affix such labels also subdivide branches into groups, and groups into complexes.

So, it seems that one common—but not universal—language classification scheme is:

  • family > branch > group > complex


In contrast, noted American sinologist and University of Pennsylvania Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations Victor H. Mair, in his article “The Classification of Sinitic Languages: What Is ‘Chinese’?” (p. 749), sets out a slightly different language classification scheme:

  • family > group > branch > language > dialect

The Mandarin Word for “Language Group”

Regardless of whether we consider language families to be first subdivided into branches or into groups, an accepted and acceptable Mandarin translation for “language group” is this week’s MEotW, “yǔzĂș (yǔ·zĂș language · {ethnic group → [group of things with common characteristics] → [group]} èŻ­æ— èȘžæ—)”, as Prof. Mair confirms in the article (p. 747) mentioned above.

If “zĂș (clan; race; tribe; {ethnic group}; nationality [→ [class or group of things or people with common characteristics]] 族)” seems familiar, perhaps that is because it occurs in some fairly well-known scriptures. For example, the 2019 Edition of the Mandarin New World Translation Bible translates “every nation and tribe and tongue and people” in Revelation 14:6 as “měi (every æŻ) ge ([mw] äžȘ 怋/缇/äžȘ) guĂłzĂș (guó·zĂș national · {ethnic group} → [nation] ć›œæ— ćœ‹æ—), bĂčzĂș (bĂč·zĂș sectional · {ethnic group} → [tribe] 郚族), yǔyĂĄn (yǔ·yĂĄn language · {(type of) speech} èŻ­èš€ èȘžèš€), hĂ© (and 撌) mĂ­nzĂș (mĂ­n·zĂș {(of) people} · {ethnic group} → [people] 民族)”.

The Mandarin Word for “Language Branch”

For reference, the Mandarin word for “language branch” is “yǔzhÄ« (yǔ·zhÄ« language · branch èŻ­æ”Ż èȘžæ”Ż)”, as Prof. Mair confirms in the article (p. 747) mentioned above.

It’s interesting to note that according to Prof. Mair’s article (p. 737) mentioned above, not only are Mandarin and Cantonese separate languages (not just “dialects”), it would be more accurate to consider them to be in separate language branches, as defined by the language classisification scheme he uses:

Cantonese and Mandarin are separate languages. Cantonese is not a ‘dialect’ of Mandarin or of Hanyu, and it is grossly erroneous to refer to it as such. Since Cantonese and Mandarin are separate languages (or, perhaps more accurately, separate branches), it is wrong to refer to them as ‘dialects.’ The same holds for Hokkien, Shanghainese, and so forth.

That Mandarin and Cantonese should really be considered to be in separate language branches emphasizes to us politically neutral Mandarin field language-learners that we must not repeat or be misled by the politically motivated erroneous assertion that Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc. are just dialects of “Chinese”. That might be even more wrong than saying that English, French, Spanish, etc. are just dialects of “European”!

Categories
Culture History

bĂĄihuĂ 

bĂĄihuĂ  (bĂĄi·huĂ  {white → [colloquial; vernacular]} · speech [→ [writing based on vernacular speech]] ç™œèŻ 癜話) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

As mentioned in last week’s MEotW on “chĂ©ngyǔ (chĂ©ng·yǔ {(sth. that) has become} · saying → [set phrase (typically of 4 characters); idiom] æˆèŻ­ 成èȘž)”, Literary Chinese was the standard style of writing in China for a long, long time. Since language naturally changes as time goes by, though, the way people actually talked became more and more different from Literary Chinese.

Eventually, starting about a century ago, in the early 1920s, written vernacular Chinese, or bĂĄihuĂ  (bĂĄi·huĂ  {white → [colloquial; vernacular]} · speech [→ [writing based on vernacular speech]] ç™œèŻ 癜話)—this week’s MEotW—began replacing Literary Chinese in literary works, and it eventually became the standard style of writing for Modern Standard Mandarin.

A Literary Turning Point

The Wikipedia article on written vernacular Chinese provides this summary regarding this literary turning point:

Jin Shengtan, who edited several novels in vernacular Chinese in the 17th century, is widely regarded as the pioneer of literature in the vernacular style. However, it was not until after the May Fourth Movement in 1919 and the promotion by scholars and intellectuals such as pragmatist reformer Hu Shih, pioneering writer Chen Hengzhe, leftist Lu Xun, Chen Duxiu, and leftist Qian Xuantong that vernacular Chinese, or Bai hua, gained widespread importance. In particular, The True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun is generally accepted as the first modern work to fully utilize the vernacular language.[source]

The Wikipedia article on the May Fourth Movement adds the following:

In Chinese literature, the May Fourth Movement is regarded as the watershed after which the use of the vernacular language (baihua) gained currency over and eventually replaced the use of Literary Chinese in literary works. Intellectuals were driven toward expressing themselves using the spoken tongue under the slogan æˆ‘æ‰‹ć†™æˆ‘ćŁ [wǒ (my 我) shǒu (hand 手) xiě (writes 憙 毫) wǒ (my 我) kǒu ({mouth(’s utterances)} 揣)] (‘my hand writes [what] my mouth [speaks]’), although the change was actually gradual: Hu Shih had already argued for the use of the modern vernacular language in literature in his 1917 essay “Preliminary discussion on literary reform” (æ–‡ć­Šæ”čè‰Żćˆèźź), while the first short story written exclusively in the vernacular language, The True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun, was not published until 1921.

Punctuation! Arabic Numerals!

Interestingly, the Wikipedia article on written vernacular Chinese, quoted above, goes on to make the following claim about what came along with this change to the vernacular style:

Along with the growing popularity of vernacular writing in books in this period was the acceptance of punctuation, modeled after that used in Western languages (traditional Chinese literature was almost entirely unpunctuated), and the use of Arabic numerals.

The above claim about how it came to be that we now benefit from punctuation in modern Chinese writings is repeated in the separate Wikipedia article on Chinese punctuation:

Although there was a long native tradition of textual annotation to indicate the boundaries of sentences and clauses, the concept of punctuation marks being a mandatory and integral part of the text was only adapted in the written language during the 20th century due to Western influence.

A quick web search also turned up this post on the Chinese Language Stack Exchange website, part of which says:

I have seen some old Chinese books. The words flowed from top to bottom on the page and there was no punctuation.

We can be thankful that bĂĄihuĂ  (bĂĄi·huĂ  {white → [colloquial; vernacular]} · speech [→ [writing based on vernacular speech]] ç™œèŻ 癜話) (along with, apparently, punctuation and Arabic numerals) replaced Literary Chinese as the standard style of writing for Mandarin, just as I’m sure that the English-speakers among us are thankful that the standard written English of today is no longer the written English of Shakespeare or that of the King James Version of the Bible.

How About Cantonese, Shanghainese, Etc.?

BĂĄihuĂ  (BĂĄi·huĂ  {white → [colloquial; vernacular]} · speech [→ [writing based on vernacular speech]] ç™œèŻ 癜話) not only became the standard style of writing for Modern Standard Mandarin, but due to China’s particular language and political situation, it also became the standard style of writing for speakers of Cantonese and of other Chinese languages, as Wikipedia points out:

Since the early 1920s, this modern vernacular form has been the standard style of writing for speakers of all varieties of Chinese throughout mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore

As someone who was in the Cantonese field for a long time before joining the Mandarin field, I can attest to the fact that years ago in the Cantonese field, we would use official publications that were actually in written Mandarin, with its different vocabulary, etc., because bĂĄihuĂ  (bĂĄi·huĂ  {white → [colloquial; vernacular]} · speech [→ [writing based on vernacular speech]] ç™œèŻ 癜話), the standard writing style in the Chinese world, is based on Mandarin.

Recently, though, Jehovah’s organization has carried on in the direction gone in by bĂĄihuĂ  (bĂĄi·huĂ  {white → [colloquial; vernacular]} · speech [→ [writing based on vernacular speech]] ç™œèŻ 癜話), of having writing reflect how people actually talk, by making available publications in which the writing is based on spoken Cantonese, in addition to the existing publications using written Mandarin. (Publications in which the writing is based on other spoken Chinese languages are also available.) This is in harmony with a basic principle regarding how God designed and created humans to use language, which, as linguists have figured out, is that speech is primary and writing is secondary.

Different kinds of written Chinese on jw.org

Publications are available on jw.org in writing based on different Chinese languages, to better match how people actually talk in those languages.