For the record, and not just for the record, I'd like to add that I tend to like aTiongs in general, including Northerners. Generally, they're courteous, honest, and forward-looking. I use the word "aTiong" w/o any of the negative connotations that it may have in Sg.I just don't like the idea that someday I'll be forced to be an "aTiong" for the greater good, and if not me, then my kids and their kids.
Hoklo on Bali, reports from the field
Re: Hoklo on Bali, reports from the field
Re: Hoklo on Bali, reports from the field
Finally had the chance to rd a key few of these papers. I've been "backstreaming" the idea of Vietnam this whole time. Sorry, everybody.John Phan's piece is really interesting, as he presents linguistic evidence that the people living in the Red River Delta in the T'ang were actually speaking some sort of Sinitic language. They then shifted back to using an Austroasiatic language that was creolised in the same way as Penang Baba Hokkien (with Chinese grammatical function words
Then there is John Whitmore's piece about the Hokkien influence in the political and intellectual life of independent Dai Viet.
Li Qingxin has written about the origin of the Mac family in the Lei-chou peninsula, also a Hoklo area. This one is only in Chinese.
Then finally...there is a piece by Michael Churchman (some of you know who he is) about how Chinese and Vietnamese are modern concepts that do not fit into a discussion of the Han-T'ang period. I won't go into detail here, but I think you might enjoy this.
Still, the differences btw the "Viets" we know and love and the Cantonese / "Hainamese" we also know and love ... are considerable. Almost all the "Viets" I've known have been Southern. U wonder how much of this has to do with the Cham and Khmer influences.
Re: Hoklo on Bali, reports from the field
Haha! Don;t worry, everyone does it. Just using the word "China" to refer to the PRC AND the Chiu at the same time invloves a considerable amount of backstreaming. A lot of it has to do with the deficiency of English, where Julius Caesar is called "Roman" rather than "Italian", but Confucius and Hu JIntao are lumped in together as Chinese without a second thought. The Greeks are the European masters of Backstreaming, I think, but even they had different names for themselves at different times (Achaeans, Hellenes) which are all lumped together as "Greek" in English.......then there is the other habit Europeans have of forgetting that "Byzantium" never existed, it was always just called "Rome"....even Osman I considered himself as "Emperor of Rome" when he conquered Constantinople, for him what was the difference between a Christian conquest of Rome and a Muslim one? In this case they break up a continuity (changing "Roman Empire" to "Eastern Roman Empire"-"Byzantium"-"Ottoman Empire") because of received ideas about the legitimacy of Rome and the Catholic church, even after the reformation. Anyway,,,that's taken things far far away from Hokkien.....where is that guy who thinks Hokkien people colonised Peru....he could connect the Ottoman Empire back to Penang, I'm sure!Finally had the chance to rd a key few of these papers. I've been "backstreaming" the idea of Vietnam this whole time. Sorry, everybody.
Re: Hoklo on Bali, reports from the field
Hi Ah-bin,Ah-bin wrote:...there is a piece by Michael Churchman (some of you know who he is) about how Chinese and Vietnamese are modern concepts that do not fit into a discussion of the Han-T'ang period. I won't go into detail here, but I think you might enjoy this.
Is this available on the internet?
Re: Hoklo on Bali, reports from the field
I'm not familiar with this term. What do the morphemes mean - is it 白話?amhoanna wrote:...Something "organic" like Paak-wa for Cantonese?
This brings me to a point pertinent to (sinitic) "ethnic identity" (and hence also "language"). Namely, a friend of mine just told me recently that he'd met a man whose parents were from Hong Kong, but who had migrated to the US. The man himself was either born in HK and migrated with his parents at a very early age, or had been born in the US. In any case, he grew up speaking Cantonese but not being able to read Chinese characters. Like me for Hokkien, he was able to speak Cantonese, but didn't know what many of the individual morphemes were, even of the words he knew very well.
One of the words in this category - so my friend related to me - was using the word "pun-ti-wa" to refer to the language they spoke at home (for what we in English would call "Cantonese"). Apparently, this was the *only* term he used to refer to "Cantonese". I had never heard this term before, and we surmised that it was probably "本地話", and we speculated that this "本地" might have been in contrast to "客家". I told my friend that as far as I knew, Cantonese speakers in Malaysia referred to the language as "kong/kung-fu-ua" and themselves as "kong/kung-fu-ien".
Here are some of the questions which arose from the discussion between me and my friend:
1. How many different terms are there for what we in English call "Cantonese", and are the different Cantonese speakers aware of one another's terms?
2. What are the characters for "kong/kung-fu-ua" and "kong/kung-fu-ien"?
My guess is that the first two are "廣府", and the last is "人" (as in Hokkien "jin1").
3. Is "pun-ti" just "本地". Is this in fact the most common / only way to refer to Cantonese in Hong Kong?
4. What term do the older long-term residents of Guangzhou use for their language, when speaking "Cantonese"?
5. Is there a "Cantonese identity"?
As an outsider who has never explicitly thought about this, I have always assumed there is; i.e. that the Cantonese speakers I know in Malaysia feel some kinship with the Cantonese speaking laundry and restaurant holders (and their descendents) in San Francisco, and with the majority residents of Hong Kong, and with the older long-term inhabitants of Guangzhou. Once I saw that there was "paak-wa", "pun-ti-wa", "kung-fu-wa" I began to wonder.
6. I was aware in my youth of speakers of "t'oi san" and "se yap". When I listened to them speaking, they seemed - to me - to be speaking variants of Cantonese. Is this impression correct? Perhaps the people I heard speaking these only *referred* to themselves as "t'oi san" and "se yap", but were in fact speaking Cantonese with a strong "t'oi san" and "se yap" accent (when I was listening to them), whereas if they were to speak actual "t'oi san" or "se yap", it would have sounded very different.
And even if "real" "t'oi san" and "se yap" are very different from the Cantonese in Hong Kong, are they still considered to be "Cantonese"?
Re: Hoklo on Bali, reports from the field
Oops! After posting, I put "廣府人" into Wikipedia, and got http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_people.
The article answers (most of) questions 1, 2, 3, and 6 but I'll leave the posting the way I originally wrote it, in case anyone has anything to add to answers about 1, 2, or 3. I'm still curious about what others think about questions 4 and 5 though.
In fact, clicking further, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Chinese explains many other aspects of things I was wondering about, including 白話. Should have checked Wikipedia more carefully before asking here.
The article answers (most of) questions 1, 2, 3, and 6 but I'll leave the posting the way I originally wrote it, in case anyone has anything to add to answers about 1, 2, or 3. I'm still curious about what others think about questions 4 and 5 though.
In fact, clicking further, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Chinese explains many other aspects of things I was wondering about, including 白話. Should have checked Wikipedia more carefully before asking here.
Re: Hoklo on Bali, reports from the field
The 本地 thing is quite old as a word to distinguish oneself from Hakkas. They talk of the Hakka-punti wars in the 1800's. In Nanning I met a student who was Hakka from the Sze-yap area, where there were fights in the 1880's and he said when he was younger he remembered some of the old Hakka people wouldn't talk to the Puntis. I think the term might be used in Sze-yap too, but it would be pronounced "pun-i" or something like that.One of the words in this category - so my friend related to me - was using the word "pun-ti-wa" to refer to the language they spoke at home (for what we in English would call "Cantonese"). Apparently, this was the *only* term he used to refer to "Cantonese". I had never heard this term before, and we surmised that it was probably "本地話", and we speculated that this "本地" might have been in contrast to "客家". I told my friend that as far as I knew, Cantonese speakers in Malaysia referred to the language as "kong/kung-fu-ua" and themselves as "kong/kung-fu-ien".
The usual term for Toisanese in Penang was Sin-ning 新寧 as far as I know, but that name passed out of use in China in the 1920's"
Quite right. You can tell the difference like this:t'oi san" and "se yap", but were in fact speaking Cantonese with a strong "t'oi san" and "se yap" accent (when I was listening to them), whereas if they were to speak actual "t'oi san" or "se yap", it would have sounded very different.
any t in Cantonese is dropped 多 = wo
any th becomes h 聽 = hiang (or is it "hen", I forget) T'oisaan is Cantonese, they say it "Hoisan"
Cantonese used to distinguish ts- and ch-, ts' and ch', but this has disappeared within the last 80 years
any ts (in old Cantonese) becomes a t 走 = tau
any ts' (in old Cantonese) becomes a t' 清 =t'en
Cantonese also used to distinguish s from sh (saam 三 and shaam 衫), all the initial S's in old Cantonese became hl- in Toisan. In Penang Sin-ning they seem to have lost this sound, which is funny, because in Sze yap Hakka, and southern Kongsai 廣西 Hakka, they have picked up the sound!
As far as I know, it is Paak-wa 白話, and this is used to refer to the very similar varieties spoken in each city up the west river (Nanning, Wu-chou 梧州 and all the large cities in between)4. What term do the older long-term residents of Guangzhou use for their language, when speaking "Cantonese"?
As for Hong Kong
My Malaysian Chinese friend married a Hong Kong Chinese, and I remember when I was there, one of our HK friends commented that he said 本地話 pun-tei-wa and that it was funny, because no-one in HK says it. Most of them say 廣東話 kwong-tung-wa. Saying Paak-wa marks you out as a recent arrival from the PRC, and most people when I opened my mouth to speak Cantonese said 你嘅中文講得好好！Calling it "chung-man" which I was quite happy about, since it is just as Chinese as any other sort of Chinese.
Anyone who dared to reply in Mandarin received this in reply 做乜嘢同我講國語？我係鬼佬唔係北佬啦！(What are you speaking to me in Mandarin for? I"m a damned foreigner, not a damned northerner!)
I had a bit of a discussion with my friend's Malaysian relatives, who are convinced that Malaysian style Cantonese is "wrong" just because some of the words are different. I'm glad it hasn't filtered back to change the way people speak in KL though. I did enjoy getting my prices in "khau".
Re: Hoklo on Bali, reports from the field
While I do not dispute that in general, there exist a substantial number of ‘Cantonese’ terms used in greater Kuala Lumpur and other Cantonese-speaking parts of Malaysia are technically incorrect, the 'correctness' or otherwise, in my opinion, does require some degree of qualification. Let me explain:
There exists a generally-accepted mindset among the general speakers that the de facto standard for Cantonese is Hong Kong Cantonese. But we have to bear in mind that Hong Kong Cantonese itself has evolved and absorbed a number of English-originated words (one example that immediately comes to mind is kÔ-lí, taken from the first two syllables of ‘qualification’). Also, quite a number of non-standard and etymologically-incorrect characters have been created or adopted.
The officially-recognised standard for Cantonese today is the variant of 廣州 Guangzhou. But even then, like many of the ‘recognised standards for regionalects’(e.g. Amoy for Minnan, Shanghainese for Wu), Cantonese in Guangzhou has suffered its own share of intrusions by Mandarin. The use of Modern Standard Chinese for writing in Hong Kong has also had a similar effect, particularly for technical terms and speech in more formal contexts.
Paraphrasing an article (http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_1998/yax-126.htm) that I read, Singapore attempts to emulate China in order to maintain its ‘Chinese-ness’, but the paradox is, China itself is constantly changing, and bears little resemblance to the ‘traditional' China as the overseas Chinese fore-fathers knew it. This could very well be extended to Mandarin and the Southern dialects. The dialects on the mainland are constantly being influenced by Modern Standard Chinese, and Modern Standard Chinese itself was in a state of flux for much of the 20th century (with all the to-ing and fro-ing of the character simplification process, and determining what words of non-Peking origin were to be admitted into the standard lexicon).
The point I am making is that, while it is true that much of what passes today as Cantonese as spoken by the younger generation of Malaysians is heavily adulterated, one must not forget that on the flip-side, there exists a number of Cantonese terms inherited from pre-modern China (brought over by the migrant Cantonese before the turn of the 20th century) that may have dropped out of the common Guangzhou or Hong Kong lexicon. One example that I used to hear my late grandaunt (she was born in Malaya around 1910, and fully-educated in Chinese via the Cantonese dialect) use was 往擺 wōng-baái for 以前 ‘in the past’.
To hark back to Minnan (not forgetting that this is, after all, the Minnan forum!). One of our Forum members has posted elsewhere a commendable list of Penang Hokkien words inherited from pre-modern China, many of which I am sure are no longer common in mainland China or Taiwan. The examples are legion, but one that pops in my head (being an engineer!) is 原子囊 gŏan-cū lÓng for ‘plastic bag’. Science has caught up with us; today, 原子 in Modern Standard Chinese carries the definition 'atom', not 'plastic'.
In conclusion, I believe that the very concept of 本地話 as applied to ‘Cantonese’ or ‘Hokkien’ is subjective. Given the Chinese diaspora that exists today, where (and I do not just mean geographically, but temporally, too) do you define as ‘local’? That is why I believe it is perfectly valid to embrace the many variants of Minnan that exist today, and not just the de facto Amoy standard. Paradoxically, even in Malaysian-ised Cantonese and Hokkien, one will find pearls from old China's rich dialectal past.
My two-cents...
There exists a generally-accepted mindset among the general speakers that the de facto standard for Cantonese is Hong Kong Cantonese. But we have to bear in mind that Hong Kong Cantonese itself has evolved and absorbed a number of English-originated words (one example that immediately comes to mind is kÔ-lí, taken from the first two syllables of ‘qualification’). Also, quite a number of non-standard and etymologically-incorrect characters have been created or adopted.
The officially-recognised standard for Cantonese today is the variant of 廣州 Guangzhou. But even then, like many of the ‘recognised standards for regionalects’(e.g. Amoy for Minnan, Shanghainese for Wu), Cantonese in Guangzhou has suffered its own share of intrusions by Mandarin. The use of Modern Standard Chinese for writing in Hong Kong has also had a similar effect, particularly for technical terms and speech in more formal contexts.
Paraphrasing an article (http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_1998/yax-126.htm) that I read, Singapore attempts to emulate China in order to maintain its ‘Chinese-ness’, but the paradox is, China itself is constantly changing, and bears little resemblance to the ‘traditional' China as the overseas Chinese fore-fathers knew it. This could very well be extended to Mandarin and the Southern dialects. The dialects on the mainland are constantly being influenced by Modern Standard Chinese, and Modern Standard Chinese itself was in a state of flux for much of the 20th century (with all the to-ing and fro-ing of the character simplification process, and determining what words of non-Peking origin were to be admitted into the standard lexicon).
The point I am making is that, while it is true that much of what passes today as Cantonese as spoken by the younger generation of Malaysians is heavily adulterated, one must not forget that on the flip-side, there exists a number of Cantonese terms inherited from pre-modern China (brought over by the migrant Cantonese before the turn of the 20th century) that may have dropped out of the common Guangzhou or Hong Kong lexicon. One example that I used to hear my late grandaunt (she was born in Malaya around 1910, and fully-educated in Chinese via the Cantonese dialect) use was 往擺 wōng-baái for 以前 ‘in the past’.
To hark back to Minnan (not forgetting that this is, after all, the Minnan forum!). One of our Forum members has posted elsewhere a commendable list of Penang Hokkien words inherited from pre-modern China, many of which I am sure are no longer common in mainland China or Taiwan. The examples are legion, but one that pops in my head (being an engineer!) is 原子囊 gŏan-cū lÓng for ‘plastic bag’. Science has caught up with us; today, 原子 in Modern Standard Chinese carries the definition 'atom', not 'plastic'.
In conclusion, I believe that the very concept of 本地話 as applied to ‘Cantonese’ or ‘Hokkien’ is subjective. Given the Chinese diaspora that exists today, where (and I do not just mean geographically, but temporally, too) do you define as ‘local’? That is why I believe it is perfectly valid to embrace the many variants of Minnan that exist today, and not just the de facto Amoy standard. Paradoxically, even in Malaysian-ised Cantonese and Hokkien, one will find pearls from old China's rich dialectal past.
My two-cents...
Re: Hoklo on Bali, reports from the field
Sim,
Here is the link again to "the Vietnam papers":
http://csds.anu.edu.au/volume_4_2010/contents.php
As an aside ... I think somebody (was it Ah-bin) reminded us recently that the name Vietnam was actually handed down to VN by a Qing emperor... I recall that an acquaintance of mine -- Hokkien, from Saigon -- once took me to go eat "Anlâm chài" 安南菜. Then, as now, I wasn't sure if he meant Vietnamese food in general or Vietnamese food from some part of VN, but now I tend to think Anlâm was just the word he uses in Hoklo to refer to VN.
Here is the link again to "the Vietnam papers":
http://csds.anu.edu.au/volume_4_2010/contents.php
As an aside ... I think somebody (was it Ah-bin) reminded us recently that the name Vietnam was actually handed down to VN by a Qing emperor... I recall that an acquaintance of mine -- Hokkien, from Saigon -- once took me to go eat "Anlâm chài" 安南菜. Then, as now, I wasn't sure if he meant Vietnamese food in general or Vietnamese food from some part of VN, but now I tend to think Anlâm was just the word he uses in Hoklo to refer to VN.
Re: Hoklo on Bali, reports from the field
Sometimes I meet HK people that don't know what a 白話 is.1. How many different terms are there for what we in English call "Cantonese", and are the different Cantonese speakers aware of one another's terms?
The English word "Cantonese" is pretty ambiguous. Does it take in Hoisan, etc.? Actually the terms 廣東話 Kwongtung-wa and 粵語 Yuet-yu are the same way.
A Hakka shopkeeper in Panamá asked me where I learned "Pun2-tei7"3. Is "pun-ti" just "本地". Is this in fact the most common / only way to refer to Cantonese in Hong Kong?
. Like all sinkheh Hakka in Panamá, she was from a suburb of 廣州 called 花県. I think she was actually one of the few people in Panamá who "initiated dialog" w/ me in Hakka. I've heard/read that Hakka was the main language spoken in the HK area before the 20th century. Also, lots of people in Sabah trace their ancestry to Pou On 保安, or what is today 深圳, and they are all Hakka.
I think so, definitely! In the N. American churchscape, Tn̂glâng from all parts of Asia tend to attend services in Mandarin. The Cantonese, though, tend to "say no to Mandarin" and always have services in Cantonese. This is a sore point for one Mandarin-speaking minister I know -- he thinks there's something wrong with the Cantonese, like they're unpatriotic or something!5. Is there a "Cantonese identity"?
The interesting thing is that the "Cantonese identity" is pretty open to outsiders, on the condition that they speak Cantonese and have a vaguely Chinese, Indochinese, or Eurasian look. "Cantonese" communities all over the world, inc. Cantonese congregations at churches in N. Amer., tend to be made up in large part of Teochew, Hakka, etc., with VNese and Shanghainese lurkers! In this sense, the Cantonese community is very open to "Asian" outsiders. On the other hand, like the Siamese, the Cantonese seem to have a built-in "resistance" to black folk, white folk, Indians, etc.
I think this is a strong yes.6. And even if "real" "t'oi san" and "se yap" are very different from the Cantonese in Hong Kong, are they still considered to be "Cantonese"?
More on "Paak-wa".
It seems that Hoisan-type Cantonese is "definitely not Paak-wa". In this sense, Paak-wa is actually "what we usually mean when we talk about Cantonese". The Seiyap (Yanping) folk I met in S. Amer. were very clear on this. They referred to Canton Cantonese as Paak-wa, while their own language was Yanping-wa. All the men spoke both... So did the young women... Only the older women could not speak Paak-wa. And they definitely wanted their America-raised sons to be able to speak both Seiyap and Paak-wa. I don't think they'd be upset, though, if their kids grew up speaking Paak-wa but not Seiyap -- something that has happened over and over. "LANGUAGE SHIFT FROM HOISAN TO PAAK-WA" would be a great thread for "that other forum".
I always find that Kwongsai and western Kwongtung are great contexts for finding out the true nature of anything Paak-wa-related, and put any armchair theory to the test. If I'm not mistaken, most of the "Cantonese" spoken there is much more similar to Canton Cantonese than Seiyap is, and the people call it Paak-wa. There are places where different types of Cantonese are spoken side by side, even different types of Paak-wa... If I'm not mistaken, the whole "Cantonese" family of languages may have sprung up somewhere around what is now the Kwongsai-Kwongtung border?
And, yeah, I agree with Mark's main point: "Urban Malaysian Cantonese" is not inherently "less pure" than the Cantonese spoken in Kwongtung today, esp. in the prestige centers, Heungkong and Kwongcau.
If I was a linguist in search of "the purest Cantonese", I would probably stay away from HK, Kwongcau and KL alike.
I would head for the back-country of Kwongtung-Kwongsai, Cambodia, and M'sia ... in search of "the Bagansiapiapi of Cantonese".