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I totally agree with you that all these terms are ill-defined and falls apart once you "poke at its seams" as you put it. I think my point was that 1) the forma
by spacehunt 9y ago
I totally agree with you that all these terms are ill-defined and falls apart once you "poke at its seams" as you put it. I think my point was that 1) the formal written form across various regions have slowly converged into roughly the same form over the past century or so; and 2) this "formal written form" might be based on Mandarin, and reads like everyday modern, spoken Mandarin, but is not exactly 100% Mandarin.
For modern Cantopop, the recent putsch to match more closely to spoken Cantonese is due to an increasing dislike of Mandarin among the young in Hong Kong.
- dwohnitmok 9y agoAh, but therein lies the rub. What is "100% Mandarin?" :). Is it broadcast news Chinese? Which essentially is just the written vernacular standard just read out loud? Is it the Mandarin that a Northern shop-keeper uses to talk to (Chinese) out-of-towners? Is it the Mandarin that he uses among his friends? Is it the Mandarin that kids learn in public school curriculum? Once these questions start to be relevant, I'd say that it's all just "Mandarin" for the purposes of this discussion. Ooo... that's interesting. I knew that there's been a rise in regional dialect pride in general and that Hong Kong in general has never really been too fond of the Mandarin-speaking Chinese tourist masses, but hadn't realized it'd spread to modern Canto-pop. Might have to take a gander at some of the latest songs.
- spacehunt 9y agoIndeed I should have been more careful and said "100% Beijingese" or "100% Mandarin as spoken around Beijing" instead. :)