5 ms·

To add to this (as a Hong Kong native): Hong Kong is definitely a weird, special case, having belonged to Britain until 1997 and basically most people growing u

by nexus2045 8y ago

To add to this (as a Hong Kong native): Hong Kong is definitely a weird, special case, having belonged to Britain until 1997 and basically most people growing up there on some level despise the mainland, communism, and the language. To this day there's a certain level of disdain and judgment against you if you speak Mandarin there, almost like you're branded as "the others". It's also true that provinces with rich cultures far away from Beijing continue to have their local dialects thrive. This is very true of Guangdong and Sichuan/Chongqing (see Sichuan rap). Yunnan also is quite noted for having many minorities and dialects still being preserved. The same cannot be said for Shanghai, where the younger generation have been eager to adopt to just speaking Mandarin as the mainstream thing to do. I had a girlfriend from Wuhan, and she grew up listening to the dialect there but her parents never encouraged her to converse in it, so she only speaks Mandarin.

arghwhat 8y ago
My wife is from Shanghai, but spent the later half of her life in Hong Kong, so she speaks Shanghainese, Cantonese, Mandarin, English fluently and now also Danish and Swedish intermediate. As I am Scandinavian, I am mostly just conveying her knowledge and my brief observations, all while she makes me feel horribly inadequate in the language department. I recall a trip to Shanghai a while back where my wife mentioned that her Shanghainese was rusty, which she felt resulted in her being considered foreign. It would appear to me that people were still preferring Shanghainese, although she did mention that Mandarin words were used at random. Are you talking about a younger generation yet, or might I have been misunderstanding something (very probable)? I'd ask her myself, but she's in Mainland doing research right now, and The Great Firewall makes communication patchy at best. :/
- yorwba 8y ago
  I've spent 2 years in Shanghai as an exchange student, and I think whether you get the impression that the "younger generation" no longer speaks Shanghainese depends a lot on whether you focus on people born in Shanghai to parents both speaking Shanghainese, or all inhabitants of Shanghai in that age group. The former are likely to speak at least a little Shanghainese, but limited due to only using it at home and with some of their friends. The latter don't really have a need to learn Shanghainese, because Mandarin is the language used in school and for all kinds of business. Personally, I only know one native Shanghainese speaker. Because my friends are university students from all over the country, the actual proportions are likely not as extreme, but I still think that Shanghainese speakers are a minority by now.
- Accacin 8y ago
  Similar to my wife, she's from Shantou and speaks her local dialect Teochew (pretty much used by everyone in her hometown), Mandarin and also Cantonese fluently. According to her though, everyone in her city speaks the local dialect, and they only speak Mandarin if needed.

arghwhat 8y ago

My wife is from Shanghai, but spent the later half of her life in Hong Kong, so she speaks Shanghainese, Cantonese, Mandarin, English fluently and now also Danish and Swedish intermediate. As I am Scandinavian, I am mostly just conveying her knowledge and my brief observations, all while she makes me feel horribly inadequate in the language department. I recall a trip to Shanghai a while back where my wife mentioned that her Shanghainese was rusty, which she felt resulted in her being considered foreign. It would appear to me that people were still preferring Shanghainese, although she did mention that Mandarin words were used at random. Are you talking about a younger generation yet, or might I have been misunderstanding something (very probable)? I'd ask her myself, but she's in Mainland doing research right now, and The Great Firewall makes communication patchy at best. :/

yorwba 8y ago
I've spent 2 years in Shanghai as an exchange student, and I think whether you get the impression that the "younger generation" no longer speaks Shanghainese depends a lot on whether you focus on people born in Shanghai to parents both speaking Shanghainese, or all inhabitants of Shanghai in that age group. The former are likely to speak at least a little Shanghainese, but limited due to only using it at home and with some of their friends. The latter don't really have a need to learn Shanghainese, because Mandarin is the language used in school and for all kinds of business. Personally, I only know one native Shanghainese speaker. Because my friends are university students from all over the country, the actual proportions are likely not as extreme, but I still think that Shanghainese speakers are a minority by now.
Accacin 8y ago
Similar to my wife, she's from Shantou and speaks her local dialect Teochew (pretty much used by everyone in her hometown), Mandarin and also Cantonese fluently. According to her though, everyone in her city speaks the local dialect, and they only speak Mandarin if needed.