February 16, 2012

Chinese Language

bananaleaves:

excitedrainbow:

Chinese Language

from-the-east:

The Chinese language consists of over 400 dialects, with Mandarin and Cantonese being the two most popular.

Cantonese is very similar to what ancient Chinese people spoke, called Classical Chinese or Middle Chinese. The dialect originated from the 广东 (Guandong) province of Southern China. This dialect preserves more of the phonetics and vocabulary of the language spoken in the much earlier dynasties.

Mandarin is a Manchurian-modified version of the Chinese language. When the Manchurians took over China during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), Mandarin was formed in the name of 以漢治漢, “to rule the Han Chinese”. They then used this variation of the language to rule the Chinese. It took less than a century for Mandarin to become the official tongue of the capitol. Beijing became a Manchurian-only region, and the Chinese were forced to move to the south. This is why most Northerners speak Mandarin, while most Southerners speak Cantonese.

Today, when asked if you could speak Chinese, Mandarin speakers would ask, “您说汉语吗？” They asked if you could speak “Han language”, since it was originally affiliated with the “Han people”, as used by Manchurians. As for Cantonese speakers, they would ask, “您说中文吗？” They ask if you could speak “Chinese”.

#I  #HAVE  #A  #LOT  #OF  #FEELINGS  #mandarin is not synonymous with chinese  #and it’s upsetting to me that it’s become that on the global stage  #(obviously i am not decrying its practicality  #because now that china is becoming a global economic power  #you need to find common ground to talk shop)  #but it should be understood that it’s not the catch-all  #it’s becoming the catch-all because they decided that that’s the one they would use to deal  #so now it’s subsuming the others  #(and guangzhou had language protests recently didn’t they?)  #my dad speaks three chinese dialects alone  #if we’re being generous to me i speak two  #neither of which include mandarin  #but it shouldn’t mean that i don’t get to sit at the table  #chaozhou also has a lot of roots in ancient chinese structure and vocabulary  #i just want it all to be preserved  #which seems not likely to happen  #because once you determine one dialect to be THE dialect  #and everyone defaults to that  #seems pretty unlikely that people are going to favor obscure dialects now doesn’t it?

Karen’s feelings are my feelings, pretty much. Every time I say that I might be going to China, people ask me if I speak Chinese, and my reply is always,”You mean, ‘Do I speak Mandarin’.” To which 80% say, “Well yeah, that’s what I meant / Yeah, Chinese!” It’s a very frustrating viewpoint, and though Cantonese (and to a lesser extent Hakka) will probably survive due to how widely spoken it is around the world, I fear that many other dialects won’t.

#MANDARIN ISN’T THE BE ALL AND END ALL OF CHINESE LANGUAGE

i’m also just thinking of how when the population of dialect x-speakers gets spread across x, y, and z, and there’s always going to be preferential languages taught and encouraged to use (mandarin and english, for example) because of their widely accepted use, part of me is worried that it’ll be so easy to see these numbers of speakers dwindle within the next few generations and within the next ten generations of that, become at risk for becoming a lost language

and i’ve heard examples of students whose families are one, who are encouraged to speak mandarin in school and maybe use mandarin outside of the home, and it’s like at some point this is going to yield very specific consequences for this dialect

and even that aside, in my very limited knowledge, china has always existed as a fabric more than an actually cohesive singular place. since the dynasties, they’ve always been trying to deal with how huge the territory is and how many people they have and how the languages have changed and developed, and it’s always seemed to me that china was always just going to be polyglot because that’s part of its history? and the notion that within fifty years(? several centuries?) that may change the story to it used to be, but now, mandarin! just makes me so sad

I read about a year ago that roughly half of the world’s languages are in danger of dying out (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8500108.stm), and everything I’ve heard since then about the opportunities to teach English around the world because of how many people want to learn it really appears to back this up. China’s in danger of becoming a kind of microcosm of that - one major language that everyone speaks, a few other languages that are kept alive by sections of the population, and many dead languages killed off by the combination of the pre-eminence of the universal lingo and too small a native population to ensure their survival.

It makes me sad as well - so much history exists behind a language, and there are many things that just can’t be understood through translation (as you pointed out brilliantly a month or so ago). Even apart from that, loss of language and/or culture makes the world so much poorer.

Also, whaaaaat language riots in Guangzhou?!

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    This is so WRONG. The Mandarin Language was developed in Northern China after the fall of the North Song Dynasty and was...
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    I read about a year ago that roughly half of the world’s languages are in danger of dying out...
  12. bananaleaves reblogged this from excitedrainbow and added:
    #MANDARIN ISN’T THE BE ALL AND END ALL OF CHINESE LANGUAGE i’m also just thinking of how when the population of dialect...
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  14. mamas-kumquat reblogged this from from-the-east and added:
    Both languages beautiful.
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