You're right, losing languages isn't funny. However, it's sometimes of the accord of the sole person. I'm not saying that Lee Deng Hui chose to forget Hakka and only use MinNan, but these forces aren't necessarily from someone outside. The people who use the language of another person's, is the man who conforms to their system, so he should be blamed for that problem. If this person's child on the other hand, doesn't even know the language that his/her parent hasn't used towards him/her, then that would be the fault of the parent.
The issue with the "chicken scratch" is a different one. The Communists often say that it's a form of "progression of their written text", as Chinese words have been going through for thousands of years. From pictographs, to wavy words, to the crane-like words we had in use in pre-'97 Hong Kong, and still in the Republic of China (Which includes TaiWan, the pescadores, quemoy, & Matsu [the last three are seperate from the TaiWan county]), to the now simplified chicken scratch we see in Mainland China and Singapore *. Is progression bad? Maybe we should be writing in the ancient way the people during Han times and before wrote. Maybe not.
I'm not advocating the use of the chicken scratch. It looks ugly. If you look at this topic:
http://www.chinalanguage.com/forum/read ... =400&t=400
You'd definately see I don't advocate the use of Chinese for Cantonese at all. It's just that this is a pretty controversial issue, if you think deeper about it.
*I'm not sure how Macau people write Chinese*
Retaining Hokkien Language
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ppk
Re: Retaining Hokkien Language
quote
You'd definately see I don't advocate the use of Chinese for Cantonese at all. It's just that this is a pretty controversial issue, if you think deeper about it.
too bad, cantonese write in chinese characters, just that those are obselete characters in modern mandarin.
You'd definately see I don't advocate the use of Chinese for Cantonese at all. It's just that this is a pretty controversial issue, if you think deeper about it.
too bad, cantonese write in chinese characters, just that those are obselete characters in modern mandarin.
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James Campbell
Re: Retaining Hokkien Language
About Hakkas speaking Minnan:
It's not surprising that Li Deng Huei speaks Minnan or chooses to speak it like so many other Hakkas in Taiwan do. In fact, I think he even enjoys speaking Japanese more than the Chinese languages, since this is the language he used as a child. But generally speaking, Hakkas are reared in the house to learn their language very well, and in order to prevent persecution from the main population (like so many waishengren put up with), they too learn Minnan very well. And usually not like Minnan speakers themselves learn to speak it, but they usually learn it even better in that they know the literary side of the language and the various readings of characters as well.
James
It's not surprising that Li Deng Huei speaks Minnan or chooses to speak it like so many other Hakkas in Taiwan do. In fact, I think he even enjoys speaking Japanese more than the Chinese languages, since this is the language he used as a child. But generally speaking, Hakkas are reared in the house to learn their language very well, and in order to prevent persecution from the main population (like so many waishengren put up with), they too learn Minnan very well. And usually not like Minnan speakers themselves learn to speak it, but they usually learn it even better in that they know the literary side of the language and the various readings of characters as well.
James
Re: Retaining Hokkien Language
Personally, I think that Hokkien (Minnan) should be official in Singapore instead of Mandarin, as there are more native speakers of Hokkien than any other language but Singlish (which everybody knows except a few of the educated elite)
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ppk
Re: Retaining Hokkien Language
singapore is following china. in china minnan speaker are minority. mandarin is the majority. its all about business calculations. besides, the singaporean govt probably wanted the local chinese to forget about their chinese roots so that they can have a unified country.
Re: Retaining Hokkien Language
@PPK:
gahmen want all forget dialect lah
However one, got more Hokkien, lots more hokkien-speaking than got mandarin-speaking one, so why use Mandarin ah? 28.8 per-sen of people in S'pore talk Hokkien, if you consider all Minnan then is 45.9 persen of poperlashin what! Also best figger, 22 per-sen talk Mandarin, that also people who learn Mandarin foreign language one, many time Chinese always talk Hokkien to other Chinese they see, have no porblem cause so many Chinese speak Hokkien, however also this from Ah Beng types easy to spot in crowd leh.
I thin best solution is, kiasu gahmen stop worry an make Hokkien official with Malay, Tamil, Singlish, an English lah. I think it time for Singlish to recognise in S'pore as well what.
Mark
gahmen want all forget dialect lah
However one, got more Hokkien, lots more hokkien-speaking than got mandarin-speaking one, so why use Mandarin ah? 28.8 per-sen of people in S'pore talk Hokkien, if you consider all Minnan then is 45.9 persen of poperlashin what! Also best figger, 22 per-sen talk Mandarin, that also people who learn Mandarin foreign language one, many time Chinese always talk Hokkien to other Chinese they see, have no porblem cause so many Chinese speak Hokkien, however also this from Ah Beng types easy to spot in crowd leh.
I thin best solution is, kiasu gahmen stop worry an make Hokkien official with Malay, Tamil, Singlish, an English lah. I think it time for Singlish to recognise in S'pore as well what.
Mark
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Chao Zhou Ren Pengyou
Re: Retaining Hokkien Language
Whatever the reasons for preserving one's mother toungue are, one thing I would urge you guys to aware is that by using the word "Min Nan Hua" it means a lot. It's not totally wrong to use "Min Nan" for "Taiwanese Hokkien", but it's not right to hesitate the existence of other "Min Nan Hua" subgroups.
"Chao Zhou Hua" or "Teochiu" (or called something else) is another important one in this group and widely spoken in both Mainland China's Guangdong and Southeast Asian countries, though not very prominent in the US (one reason is that they all can speak other dialect esp Cantonese since they are in Guangdong too!, so they only speak it at home).
I don't mean to oppose anyone's opinion, but just want everyone to recognise the diversity of so-called "Min Nan Hua" in which it contains many subgroups. Even Hokkien itself also has several sub-dialects, to be precise. The one spoken in Taiwan is somehow different from "those" Hokkiens spoken in Fujian province.
I am just playing a devil advocate, raising this issue in order to represent other Min Nan Hua speakers. They are also important in daily life of millions of people and full of culture passing from generation to generation, not different from Taiwanese Hokkien at all. Therefore, they should have the right to be inclusive when people using the word "Min Nan Hua" and should not be forgotten either (though they don't have any chance to claim for "independence" like Taiwan).
I hope everyone is understand and what I am trying to ask for is to be specific if you want to refer to Taiwanese Hokkien or other sub-dialects instead of using a very general term of "Min Nan Hua".
Thank you very much
Choa Zhou Ren Pengyuo
"Chao Zhou Hua" or "Teochiu" (or called something else) is another important one in this group and widely spoken in both Mainland China's Guangdong and Southeast Asian countries, though not very prominent in the US (one reason is that they all can speak other dialect esp Cantonese since they are in Guangdong too!, so they only speak it at home).
I don't mean to oppose anyone's opinion, but just want everyone to recognise the diversity of so-called "Min Nan Hua" in which it contains many subgroups. Even Hokkien itself also has several sub-dialects, to be precise. The one spoken in Taiwan is somehow different from "those" Hokkiens spoken in Fujian province.
I am just playing a devil advocate, raising this issue in order to represent other Min Nan Hua speakers. They are also important in daily life of millions of people and full of culture passing from generation to generation, not different from Taiwanese Hokkien at all. Therefore, they should have the right to be inclusive when people using the word "Min Nan Hua" and should not be forgotten either (though they don't have any chance to claim for "independence" like Taiwan).
I hope everyone is understand and what I am trying to ask for is to be specific if you want to refer to Taiwanese Hokkien or other sub-dialects instead of using a very general term of "Min Nan Hua".
Thank you very much
Choa Zhou Ren Pengyuo
Re: Retaining Hokkien Language
Chaozhou Ren: I'm sorry if it has seemed to you than in our references to "Minnanyu" that it seemed like we thought that Minnanyu and Taiyu or Hokkien are the same thing, however we were simply using Taiyu and Hokkien as examples as they are the most prominent of the Minnan dialects. (however Teochew is also important, as is Chaozhou)
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Mark Williamson
Re: Retaining Hokkien Language
Also, I've forgotten to say to Boon Hong: your figures for Singapore are incorrect, it's actually 45.9% of the total population of Singapore, and a very different figure for the percentage of the Chinese population, I think that percentage is about 60-65% (I'll calculate later)
From what I can see, you've made the same mistake for Malaysia (but most definetly not for Phillipines of Indonesia)
Just curious, perhaps somebody could give us the dialect stats for Vietnam, Thailand, and Brunei? From what I know Vietnam is actually mostly Cantonese (the Chinese population is what I'm referring to)
From what I can see, you've made the same mistake for Malaysia (but most definetly not for Phillipines of Indonesia)
Just curious, perhaps somebody could give us the dialect stats for Vietnam, Thailand, and Brunei? From what I know Vietnam is actually mostly Cantonese (the Chinese population is what I'm referring to)
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ppk
Re: Retaining Hokkien Language
mark:
the singaporean govt will be slapping their own cheeks if they allow dialects to come back
. i am pretty sure they wont risk that.
vietnam is mostly canto and teochew. the 'hoa'(hua, ie. zhonghua) or chinese is around 1mil., largest minority group in vietnam.
chao zhou ren:
in the larger picture, teochew is a branch of min dialects. min dialects oso include min dong(east), min bei(north) besides min nan(south), and each had a few branches under them. taiwanese 'taiyu' accent is almost identical to quanzhou and xiamen(amoy). fuchow ppl usually dont see themselves as fujian(hokkien) ppl. if asked whether a fuchow guy is hokkien, esp the older generation, he'll probably say he's a 'fuchew nin', not a 'fukin nin'. for the south east asian ppl, mostly are associated with minnan and not the rest, so we tend to use minnan as a general term to equate hokkien dialects. all dialect speakers in mainland china add up to around 30+% of the population only(includes min, yue, zhe, su, gan, xiang and hakka). so mandarin(northern dialects, henan, hebei, sichuan, yunnan, beijing, shanxi, shannxi, hangchow and northeast/northwest china) is used as the common tongue.
the singaporean govt will be slapping their own cheeks if they allow dialects to come back
. i am pretty sure they wont risk that. vietnam is mostly canto and teochew. the 'hoa'(hua, ie. zhonghua) or chinese is around 1mil., largest minority group in vietnam.
chao zhou ren:
in the larger picture, teochew is a branch of min dialects. min dialects oso include min dong(east), min bei(north) besides min nan(south), and each had a few branches under them. taiwanese 'taiyu' accent is almost identical to quanzhou and xiamen(amoy). fuchow ppl usually dont see themselves as fujian(hokkien) ppl. if asked whether a fuchow guy is hokkien, esp the older generation, he'll probably say he's a 'fuchew nin', not a 'fukin nin'. for the south east asian ppl, mostly are associated with minnan and not the rest, so we tend to use minnan as a general term to equate hokkien dialects. all dialect speakers in mainland china add up to around 30+% of the population only(includes min, yue, zhe, su, gan, xiang and hakka). so mandarin(northern dialects, henan, hebei, sichuan, yunnan, beijing, shanxi, shannxi, hangchow and northeast/northwest china) is used as the common tongue.