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Koneko -

Mark Yong,

Blimey, are you my long-lost brother?
We're both are Hakka, Malaysian-born Chinese!

So does your accent really sound Malaysian Chinese?
Hmm... Mine is but I can change easily to blend into Northerner's accent.
A tedious camouflage for my tongue though...

K.



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Koneko -

I came across this interesting article on "Malaysian Chinese? Chinese Malaysian?".
Looks like it's politically incorrect to address ourselves, Malaysian Chinese, Mark Yong.

But I was taught so, even at my Chinese primary to call ourselves 马来西亚华裔 not
华裔马来西亚人.

Accordingly, I still have "immigrant mentality"! Ha ha...

K.










Mark Yong -



Quote:

Koneko wrote: So does your accent really sound Malaysian Chinese?

I assume you are referring to my spoken Cantonese. Well, it really depends on what you define as a
"Malaysian Chinese" accent. There are several possibilities:
1. As many Cantonese speakers in Malaysia are not of Cantonese-origin, many speaking mainly the
閩 Min dialects (Hokkien, Teochew) at home, they end up with distorted tones for the
pronunciation of certain words, and are also unaccustomed to the Cantonese dialect's 'long vowels'
(e.g. the distinction between 'jan' 鎮 and 'jaan' 讚, both having the same tone).
2. Some 'pure' Cantonese speakers in Malaysia are a little over-zealous in their attempt to make
their Cantonese sound exactly like Hong Kong Cantonese, even to the extent of adopting the Hong
Kong intonations and vocabulary.

For me, I adopt the middle road. While I make a conscious attempt to ensure that my pronunciation
and tone is 100% correct, I make no attempt to "Hong Kong-ise" it. For instance, I will not refer
to 'police station' as 'mata-liu' the way many Malaysians do, but neither will I adopt the Hong
Kong terminology 'ch'aai gun' 差館, either. I stick to 'ging-chaat-guk' 警察局. And where
Hong Kong Cantonese tend to drop the ng- beginnings (e.g. 我 becomes 'or'), I stick to 'ngor'.

As for my spoken Mandarin, it is characteristically Southern in accent. Like most "Southerners", I
cannot distinguish the zh-/z- and ch-/c- beginnings, my sh-/s- beginnings are not
well-distinguished, nor is my distinction between tone 1 (high flat) and tone 4 (high falling)
consistent. Vocabulary-wise, I tend not to use characteristically-Northern words, e.g. I prefer
很好 to 蠻好.

And I am darn proud of my Southern identity!










Ian_Lee -



Quote:

but neither will I adopt the Hong Kong terminology 'ch'aai gun' 差館, either. I stick to
'ging-chaat-guk' 警察局.

差館 is not a Hong Kong Cantonese terminology. It is a term that Hong Kong inherited from Song
Dynasty 1,000 years ago.

Let's hear what Mainland bigmouth 王朔 said about 差館:
http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/4a49177c010008kf

王朔：有一种说法，因为他里头好多宋朝的文言，你比如他管警察叫差人，�
��差馆。

Other terms like 银纸 which people in Hong Kong commonly use is also a term inherited from Song
Dynasty.










Mark Yong -



Quote:

Ian_Lee wrote: 差館 is not a Hong Kong Cantonese terminology. It is a term that Hong Kong
inherited from Song Dynasty 1,000 years ago.

Oh, dear... that was a bad mistake on my part.

In answer to the original question of this thread, I guess this is an example of
"putonghua-isation" of the Cantonese dialect (I suppose 警察局 is a modern Mandarin
concoction). And ironically, 差館 may actually be a more 'authentic' term.

In general, Cantonese has been much more conservative than Mandarin, having retained the use of
many basic terminologies that have now become literal in Mandarin. Some examples I can think of
are 食 (eat, Mandarin uses 吃), 飲 (drink, Mandarin uses 喝), 面 (face, Mandarin uses 臉),
行 (walk, Mandarin uses 走).

My rebellious streak often prompts me to use these now-archaic terminologies whenever I correspond
with my mainland colleagues, either via e-mail or instant messaging, e.g. I would often write
飲酒 instead of 喝酒, 不必 instead of 不用, 無 in place of 沒 and 勿 in place of 別
wherever possible.

The effect of the Mandarin-isation of Cantonese seems more apparent in modern terminologies coined
over the last century for technological, commercial and political usage. With Hong Kong retaining
Cantonese as the lingua franca, while keeping in pace with the development of these modern
terminologies, the Cantonese dialect has managed to remain a living language. Regretfully, the
same cannot be said for many of the other dialects, where speakers would generally code-switch to
the Mandarin pronunciation of such modern terminologies in speech.










atitarev -



Quote:

...My rebellious streak often prompts me to use these now-archaic terminologies whenever I
correspond with my mainland colleagues, either via e-mail or instant messaging, e.g. I would often
write 飲酒 instead of 喝酒, 不必 instead of 不用, 無 in place of 沒 and 勿 in place of
別 wherever possible...

I heard feedback from my colleagues from mainland China. They say, HKers and Taiwanese can't write
in modern Chinese but we still understand what they write. For them it's harder to understand us,
so we sometimes please them by writing it the old way.










Mark Yong -



Quote:

atitarev wrote: I heard feedback from my colleagues from mainland China. They say, HKers and
Taiwanese can't write in modern Chinese but we still understand what they write. For them it's
harder to understand us, so we sometimes please them by writing it the old way.

Putting aside colloquial written Cantonese in Hong Kong, I had the impression that formal written
Chinese in Hong Kong is based on the grammar of Standard Mandarin. At least, that is what I gather
from the handful of Hong Kong-based magazine articles that I have read in the past. Unless what
you mean is that there are less elements of Beijing influence in the style of writing and the
words used.

On the subject of written Chinese in Taiwan, I gather that while the grammar is also generally
based on modern Mandarin, the writing style has much more elements of the classical language
(grammar and vocabulary) compared to written modern Mandarin on the mainland.










Mugi -



Quote:

Mark Yong wrote: Vocabulary-wise, I tend not to use characteristically-Northern words, e.g. I
prefer 很好 to 蠻好.

Something is not quite right here - did you mean to say that you "tend to use..."? Or perhaps you
"prefer 蠻好 to 很好"?
很好 is standard Mandarin, where as 蠻好 is southern (at least from a northern perspective).
蠻好 is typically used by Taiwanese and native 呉 speakers when speaking Mandarin. I've
personally never heard 蠻好 north of the Yangtze, except from immigrants from the south. 很 is
distinctly Mandarin (in fact I don't know of a cognate in any other dialect group).










atitarev -

I think it's just a matter of what is thought to be acceptable by the majority. Like in any
language - it may not be standard, not traditional, whatever but it's used by majority and it
becomes standard.



Quote:

I had the impression that
written Chinese in Hong Kong is based on the grammar of Standard Mandarin.

I am aware that Hong Kong written form is based on standard Mandarin but it's somewhat different
still. This version of Mandarin may be more standard and better but again, the majority uses a
different standard.

From the learners' practical point of view, which style is best to learn or teach? The one that is
used by majority of companies in China.

So, even Taiwan is affected. Mainland words are well-known now in Taiwan and sometimes replace the
words used before, although the influence may not be as big as in Guangdong or Hong Kong. I talked
to young guys from Taiwan, they were actually treating this as a positive trend.

In my opinion, varieties of standard Mandarin is OK but they probably should be merged and
differences be treated as synonyms or alternatives, except for cases where it should be just one
case, e.g. 新西兰 / 新西蘭 Xīnxīlán or 纽西兰 / 紐西蘭 Niǔxīlán, which version
to use must be agreed on. I am surprised it hasn't become a legal issue yet. In law, documents
should be precised, so are Hong Kong and PRC's documents mutually accepted?










Jive Turkey -



Quote:

I heard feedback from my colleagues from mainland China. They say, HKers and Taiwanese can't write
in modern Chinese but we still understand what they write. For them it's harder to understand us,
so we sometimes please them by writing it the old way.

What a crock, especially regarding Taiwanese people. Sure, a good number of HKers seem to have
some trouble writing good SMC since they don't really know its corresponding spoken language, but
to say that HKers can't write SMC is a wack generalization. I suspect your mainland colleagues are
just being snobs. Keep in mind that many Chinese see the use of SMC and PTH as elements of
modernization. To them, saying that people from a certain place can't write SMC or speak PTH
(regardless of whether it is true or not)=that place is a backward shithole. By my standards, some
places or practices in Taiwan or HK are backward, but hardly so when compared to the mainland.


Quote:

In my opinion, varieties of standard Mandarin is OK but they probably should be merged and
differences be treated as synonyms or alternatives, except for cases where it should be just one
case, e.g. 新西兰 / 新西蘭 Xīnxīlán or 纽西兰 / 紐西蘭 Niǔxīlán, which version
to use must be agreed on. I am surprised it hasn't become a legal issue yet. In law, documents
should be precised, so are Hong Kong and PRC's documents mutually accepted?

Why in the world would it be a legal issue? Nobody gets confused if you use one or the other. Why
try to control something that not only defies attempts to control it but also does not need to be
controlled?












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