4 ms·

> Instead of an ad hominem, That touched a nerve, didn't it? Let me guess, you don't speak any of these Chinese dialects: Cantonese, Taiwanese, or Mandarin.

> Instead of an ad hominem, That touched a nerve, didn't it? Let me guess, you don't speak any of these Chinese dialects: Cantonese, Taiwanese, or Mandarin. Because if you did, you would know there's massive overlap between them, phonetically. Are they mostly "mutually unintelligible"? For sure. But to claim that they are more distant from one another than the Romance languages? Complete and utter bullshit. You probably don't speak any Romance language outside of English, do you?

ryan_j_naughton 6y ago
> That touched a nerve, didn't it? Not at all. I'm simply asking you to actually make arguments based upon facts then attacks on a person. Thus, the conversation is meaningful and worth each of our time. > Let me guess, you don't speak any of these Chinese dialects: Cantonese, Taiwanese, or Mandarin. My wife is Taiwanese and knows Mandarin. Her father was born on the mainland and his family had to flee to Taiwan when he was 2. He speaks Mandarin and Taiwanese. His parents only spoke Mandarin. We've been together for 15 years and discuss linguistics quite often. > You probably don't speak any Romance language outside of English, do you? (1) English isn't a Romance language. It is a Germanic language. Romance languages are direct descendants of Latin. They include Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and many smaller languages. (2) I actually do speak Spanish, and I studied Latin for 11 years. My wife's mother is Latina and her parents (both the Chinese father and Latina mother) live in Latin America. They don't speak English. Thus, my primary way of communicating with them is Spanish. > you would know there's massive overlap between them, phonetically Languages sounding the same in no way makes them the same language or closer together linguistically. A great example is the vowels in Spanish and Japanese are identical to one another, purely by coincidence. This makes it much much easier for a native Spanish speaker to become aurally proficient in Japanese and vice versa despite the two languages not being related to each other at all. > Are they mostly "mutually unintelligible"? For sure. But to claim that they are more distant from one another than the Romance languages? Complete and utter bullshit. (1) Literally the definition dialects vs separate languages is mostly derived from mutual intelligibility. It is simply a fact that many Romance languages are mutually intelligible to one another. Spanish speakers can understand Italians and vice versa. Portuguese can understand Spanish and Italian, but not the other way around. These are simply facts. Thus, by linguistic definitions, it is indisputable that the Romance languages have less variation from one another / are closer to each other than the Chinese languages are from each other. Please see this enumeration of which languages are mutually intelligible with one another: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility#List_of_mutually_intelligible_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility#List_of... (2) You didn't respond to any of my citations above including one by Fu Maoji, who was a Chinese linguist. On the Wikipedia page discussing "Mutually intelligible languages or varieties of one language", it states "In addition, political and social conventions often override considerations of mutual intelligibility. For example, the varieties of Chinese are often considered a single language even though there is usually no mutual intelligibility between geographically separated varieties."[1] Translation -- that the PRC has overridden the linguistic definition of what defines languages vs dialects and replaced it with its arbitrary definition that all Sinitic languages are dialects of a single language for political purposes. The reason - the PRC wants to pretend that there is one China and homogenize the people of China into a single entity. It is why it is forcefully reeducating the Uighurs, why it pretends minorities don't exist in China, and why it has been pushing a Mandarin agenda for decades. However, the government realizes that Shanghainese, Taiwanese, Cantonese, etc aren't going away. Thus, it instead likes to pretend like they are all simply dialects of Chinese in order to make the differences seem less pronounced. This aids in supporting Han ethnic nationalism over regional linguistic pride. This can be seen clearly by the government's push for all Children to simply learn Mandarin in school. The PRC wants to kill diversity as diversity is seen as a threat to their unified control. "Indeed, promoting Mandarin Chinese among Hong Kong students has been a political task for the Hong Kong government since 1997, when control of the former British colony was returned to China. The Hong Kong government launched a scheme 10 years ago to incentivize schools to use Mandarin instead of Cantonese in Chinese language classes and has spent 180 million in Hong Kong dollars ($23 million in U.S. currency) in assistance to schools since the effort began. According to official figures, over 70 percent of Hong Kong’s primary schools now use Mandarin in Chinese-language classes. ... 'A dialect cannot be considered a ‘mother [tongue]’,' wrote the former official at China’s Ministry of Education and the State Language Commission. He asserted that since most Hong Kong people belong to the Han ethnicity, their mother tongue 'should be the hanyu (Chinese).' But Cantonese and languages spoken in southern China such as Hakka and Min are in fact regarded as languages rather than dialects by linguists, said Stephen Matthews, a linguistics professor at the University of Hong Kong. And since a 'mother tongue' is the first language that a child hears from his or her mother, 'it does not make sense to consider written Chinese as the mother tongue of a Cantonese speaker,' said Mr. Matthews."[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility#Mutually_intelligible_languages_or_varieties_of_one_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility#Mutuall... [2] https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/06/05/can-cantonese-survive https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/06/05/...
- UIZealot 6y ago
  Thank you for your reply. That's an impressive list of credentials. But it confirmed my suspicion: you don't speak Cantonese, Taiwanese, or Mandarin. >> You probably don't speak any Romance language outside of English, do you? > (1) English isn't a Romance language. It is a Germanic language. Romance languages are direct descendants of Latin. > (2) I actually do speak Spanish, and I studied Latin for 11 years. I stand corrected. >> you would know there's massive overlap between them, phonetically >Languages sounding the same in no way makes them the same language or closer together linguistically. A great example is the vowels in Spanish and Japanese are identical to one another, purely by coincidence. No. I meant that the same word (or more precisely, character) in Cantonese, Taiwanese, or Mandarin often sound the same or similar, not often enough that they are mutually intelligible, but often enough. Again, you'd have to speak at least two of these to know that. > (1) Literally the definition dialects vs separate languages is mostly derived from mutual intelligibility. Let me guess, some euro-centric linguists came up with that definition. It's probably a fine definition in the study of European languages, but it's by no means the only definition. I will concede, however, that judging by this definition, these Chinese dialects may be more distant from one another phonetically than the Romance languages. What you are forgetting (and what those euro-centric linguists failed to account for) though, is the shared written form of the Chinese language. Even when a word sounded wildly different in Cantonese, Taiwanese, or Mandarin, they all know it's the same word. > why it pretends minorities don't exist in China That's a straight up lie. China has long celebrated diversity and the 55 or so ethnic minorities. These minorities even get special privileges, e.g. not being subject to the one-child policy imposed for decades on the majority Han ethnicity, preferential placement in schools, etc. > Indeed, promoting Mandarin Chinese among Hong Kong students has been a political task for the Hong Kong government since 1997... The Hong Kong government launched a scheme 10 years ago to incentivize schools to use Mandarin instead of Cantonese in Chinese language classes. Promoting and incentivizing? What unspeakable evil? Honestly how is this worse than Quebecois or Puerto Ricans having to learn English? > the PRC wants to pretend that there is one China and homogenize the people of China into a single entity. China is what it is today because of the shared language, culture, values, heritage, and history. It behooves you to understand that, instead of simply being outraged because China claims your wife's homeland as part of its territory.

ryan_j_naughton 6y ago

> That touched a nerve, didn't it? Not at all. I'm simply asking you to actually make arguments based upon facts then attacks on a person. Thus, the conversation is meaningful and worth each of our time. > Let me guess, you don't speak any of these Chinese dialects: Cantonese, Taiwanese, or Mandarin. My wife is Taiwanese and knows Mandarin. Her father was born on the mainland and his family had to flee to Taiwan when he was 2. He speaks Mandarin and Taiwanese. His parents only spoke Mandarin. We've been together for 15 years and discuss linguistics quite often. > You probably don't speak any Romance language outside of English, do you? (1) English isn't a Romance language. It is a Germanic language. Romance languages are direct descendants of Latin. They include Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and many smaller languages. (2) I actually do speak Spanish, and I studied Latin for 11 years. My wife's mother is Latina and her parents (both the Chinese father and Latina mother) live in Latin America. They don't speak English. Thus, my primary way of communicating with them is Spanish. > you would know there's massive overlap between them, phonetically Languages sounding the same in no way makes them the same language or closer together linguistically. A great example is the vowels in Spanish and Japanese are identical to one another, purely by coincidence. This makes it much much easier for a native Spanish speaker to become aurally proficient in Japanese and vice versa despite the two languages not being related to each other at all. > Are they mostly "mutually unintelligible"? For sure. But to claim that they are more distant from one another than the Romance languages? Complete and utter bullshit. (1) Literally the definition dialects vs separate languages is mostly derived from mutual intelligibility. It is simply a fact that many Romance languages are mutually intelligible to one another. Spanish speakers can understand Italians and vice versa. Portuguese can understand Spanish and Italian, but not the other way around. These are simply facts. Thus, by linguistic definitions, it is indisputable that the Romance languages have less variation from one another / are closer to each other than the Chinese languages are from each other. Please see this enumeration of which languages are mutually intelligible with one another: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility#List_of_mutually_intelligible_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility#List_of... (2) You didn't respond to any of my citations above including one by Fu Maoji, who was a Chinese linguist. On the Wikipedia page discussing "Mutually intelligible languages or varieties of one language", it states "In addition, political and social conventions often override considerations of mutual intelligibility. For example, the varieties of Chinese are often considered a single language even though there is usually no mutual intelligibility between geographically separated varieties."[1] Translation -- that the PRC has overridden the linguistic definition of what defines languages vs dialects and replaced it with its arbitrary definition that all Sinitic languages are dialects of a single language for political purposes. The reason - the PRC wants to pretend that there is one China and homogenize the people of China into a single entity. It is why it is forcefully reeducating the Uighurs, why it pretends minorities don't exist in China, and why it has been pushing a Mandarin agenda for decades. However, the government realizes that Shanghainese, Taiwanese, Cantonese, etc aren't going away. Thus, it instead likes to pretend like they are all simply dialects of Chinese in order to make the differences seem less pronounced. This aids in supporting Han ethnic nationalism over regional linguistic pride. This can be seen clearly by the government's push for all Children to simply learn Mandarin in school. The PRC wants to kill diversity as diversity is seen as a threat to their unified control. "Indeed, promoting Mandarin Chinese among Hong Kong students has been a political task for the Hong Kong government since 1997, when control of the former British colony was returned to China. The Hong Kong government launched a scheme 10 years ago to incentivize schools to use Mandarin instead of Cantonese in Chinese language classes and has spent 180 million in Hong Kong dollars ($23 million in U.S. currency) in assistance to schools since the effort began. According to official figures, over 70 percent of Hong Kong’s primary schools now use Mandarin in Chinese-language classes. ... 'A dialect cannot be considered a ‘mother [tongue]’,' wrote the former official at China’s Ministry of Education and the State Language Commission. He asserted that since most Hong Kong people belong to the Han ethnicity, their mother tongue 'should be the hanyu (Chinese).' But Cantonese and languages spoken in southern China such as Hakka and Min are in fact regarded as languages rather than dialects by linguists, said Stephen Matthews, a linguistics professor at the University of Hong Kong. And since a 'mother tongue' is the first language that a child hears from his or her mother, 'it does not make sense to consider written Chinese as the mother tongue of a Cantonese speaker,' said Mr. Matthews."[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility#Mutually_intelligible_languages_or_varieties_of_one_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility#Mutuall... [2] https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/06/05/can-cantonese-survive https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/06/05/...

UIZealot 6y ago
Thank you for your reply. That's an impressive list of credentials. But it confirmed my suspicion: you don't speak Cantonese, Taiwanese, or Mandarin. >> You probably don't speak any Romance language outside of English, do you? > (1) English isn't a Romance language. It is a Germanic language. Romance languages are direct descendants of Latin. > (2) I actually do speak Spanish, and I studied Latin for 11 years. I stand corrected. >> you would know there's massive overlap between them, phonetically >Languages sounding the same in no way makes them the same language or closer together linguistically. A great example is the vowels in Spanish and Japanese are identical to one another, purely by coincidence. No. I meant that the same word (or more precisely, character) in Cantonese, Taiwanese, or Mandarin often sound the same or similar, not often enough that they are mutually intelligible, but often enough. Again, you'd have to speak at least two of these to know that. > (1) Literally the definition dialects vs separate languages is mostly derived from mutual intelligibility. Let me guess, some euro-centric linguists came up with that definition. It's probably a fine definition in the study of European languages, but it's by no means the only definition. I will concede, however, that judging by this definition, these Chinese dialects may be more distant from one another phonetically than the Romance languages. What you are forgetting (and what those euro-centric linguists failed to account for) though, is the shared written form of the Chinese language. Even when a word sounded wildly different in Cantonese, Taiwanese, or Mandarin, they all know it's the same word. > why it pretends minorities don't exist in China That's a straight up lie. China has long celebrated diversity and the 55 or so ethnic minorities. These minorities even get special privileges, e.g. not being subject to the one-child policy imposed for decades on the majority Han ethnicity, preferential placement in schools, etc. > Indeed, promoting Mandarin Chinese among Hong Kong students has been a political task for the Hong Kong government since 1997... The Hong Kong government launched a scheme 10 years ago to incentivize schools to use Mandarin instead of Cantonese in Chinese language classes. Promoting and incentivizing? What unspeakable evil? Honestly how is this worse than Quebecois or Puerto Ricans having to learn English? > the PRC wants to pretend that there is one China and homogenize the people of China into a single entity. China is what it is today because of the shared language, culture, values, heritage, and history. It behooves you to understand that, instead of simply being outraged because China claims your wife's homeland as part of its territory.