Putonghua-ization or Cantonization in Guangdong?

[Ian_Lee]

Has Guangdong been completely overwhelmed by Putonghua?

It seems so judged by the omnipresence of Putonghua speakers in Guangzhou.

But on the other hand, it seems that Cantonese has also standardized all dialects inside Guangdong province. Most of the Hakka speakers who used to live in Dongguan and the hilly region as well as the Chaozhouese speakers in eastern Guangdong, especially the younger generation, seem now all know Cantonese to some degree.

In the long run, which language will be on the lead in Guangdong?

[Koneko]

Chaozhouese

Also known as Teochew in Malaysia & Singapore.

In the long run, which language will be on the lead in Guangdong?

Needless to say, it's going to be Mandarin. It's funny that we have the opposite situation in Malaysia, people prefer to speak Cantonese in public despite they are capable to speak Mandarin, this phenomenon is even more prevalent in Kuala Lumpur.

K.

[Quest]

Cantonese is still pretty active, I don't know how long it can hold with the constant migrations. ~10Mil is a scary and big enough number, but in China the more the merrier.... I for one will always refuse to speak Mandarin when I am in Guangzhou.

[wannabeafreak]

I for one will always refuse to speak Mandarin when I am in Guangzhou.

Thank God there are people like you. :

As I'll be in GZ for the next 4 days, I will refuse to use English.

[pazu]

I found Cantonese still very prevalent in Guangzhou, but people there tend to switch to Putonghua if they found out that you are an outsider, which gives people an impression that Cantonese is diminishing.

But I do found the situation in Guangzhou quite confusing, sometimes I don't know what language to start. People in Guangzhou don't expect everyone to speak Cantonese, that's why people from other provinces don't really need to learn it. But in Hong Kong, every newcomer is expected to learn some Cantonese if they plan to stay in HK for long, because HKer's Mandarin are just incomprehensible.

[pazu]

Quest, and I do agree with you, I never really want to use Mandarin when I know we can both speak this language, there's almost a priority, first Cantonese, Mandarin comes second. That's why I found the situation in Guangzhou can be a bit confusing sometimes, I don't know which language to start. But one thing I do notice, many (but not all) security guards are from other provinces and speak no Cantonese, and many just gave me a cold face when I asked for the directions in Cantonese.

[atitarev]

It's interesting that Cantonese speakers are more proud of their dialect than other speakers, I only once heard an opinion of a person from Guangzhou - don't learn Cantonese, learn Mandarin but other dialect speakers don't have the same feelings.

Last week I had two encounters on the train home:

1) A Shanghai immigrant to Australia, he discouraged my curiosity in Wu. He said it was too hard and not worth it.

2) Young Taiwanese tourists - I practiced my Mandarin with them, they said Taiwanese dialect was dying and they didn't regret it.

[studentyoung]

People in Guangzhou don't expect everyone to speak Cantonese, that's why people from other provinces don't really need to learn it.

Yes, you are right Pazu. People in Guangzhou don’t expect everyone to speak Cantonese, but that’s not the reason for people from other provinces don’t really need to learn it. In fact most people from other provinces just take Guangzhou as a place to work and earn some money, not a place to settle down forever. Once they think they have earned enough money, as 30,000RMB, to build a house or run a little shop in their home town, they will leave Guangzhou.

But one thing I do notice, many (but not all) security guards are from other provinces and speak no Cantonese, and many just gave me a cold face when I asked for the directions in Cantonese.

I feel sorry for your experience in Guangzhou, Pauz. I would like to explain on it. A lot of outcomers 外地人 come to Guangzhou and take humble and low-paid jobs like security guards and sweatshop workers. Social welfare system in China is base on the户口 “document of registered residence” system, which means you can only receive the welfare from where your 户口 is. Of course, the social welfare is different from place to place, city to city, base on the local economic development. No doubt, China’s social welfare system is the main cause for the mobile population from poor area to rich area. And the wrong population policy made by Chairman Mao years ago is another main reason that makes the whole thing even worse. Because they have no 户口 in Guangzhou, they can’t share the local welfare like local Cantonese. Humble jobs, low salary, no social security, are the main reasons to make local Cantonese people look down upon them and make them feel the hostility among local Cantonese. The worst of all is that these outcomers are usually the main victims in all kinds of industrial accidents and back salary. In Guangzhou, you can usually hear that many people try to commit suicide by jumping off the top of a building (or at least threaten to do so) because of back pay or the lack of compansation after industrial accidents, especially on the eve of Spring Festival.

I think I am lucky, because I am a local Cantonese in Guangzhou. I hope more and more local Cantonese people can respect these outcomers or, at least, be kind to them, because their personal freedom and dignity are same with the local people, no matter what a poor place they come from, no matter how different their culture might be, and no matter how bad the social conditions and the management of our government might be.

Sigh ~ ~!

Thanks!

[pazu]

I'm going to open a small shop with a Thai friend in Tibet, he did ask me what language he should learn, guess what? I told him to spend his time learning Mandarin Chinese, because Cantonese is useless for him.

I am very proud of being able to speak Cantonese, well, of course, haha, but for a foreigner who doesn't plan to stay in Hong Kong or Guangzhou or other Cantonese speaking areas for long, I see no reason why he should spend his time to learn it except for some linguistic concern.

Mandarin is definitely more useful, but I spent some time to learn Thai before too. So...

[grimacekid]

Well, i think in the long run, Cantonese will dominate in Guangdong province.

We are in the age of mass media, when the Chaozhouese or Hakka people bought a TV in their village and watched with their countrymen, the foreign culture had intruded. It is inevitable that they are learning the most popular language in the province when they are watching the programm.

And when the young go out from their countryside to the big city like Guangzhou to receive education or find a job, they need to communicate with the ppl there that speak Cantonese and that's why the young Chaozhouese can speak good cantonese rather than the olds.

As for Mandarine, Cantonese is easier to learn for the people who speak Chaozhou language or Hakka becuase more or less they share some similarities. And it is also a culture thing. My tutor who from the very north of China used to ask us why we Cantonese didn't like to watch CCTV (China Central Television), the responds of us were:

1. The old people cannot understand Mandarine.

2. CCTV is boring and too serious. (Guangdong people is much more open than the people from other provinces)

3. HK channel and the local Television are more intersting and close to people's life.

For some native Cantonese, Mandarine is just the language that they have to learn, like it is compulsory to give lecture in school in Mandarine. It is just for schooling.

Even though my parent is from Hunan and we speak Mandarine at home, i was born in Guangdong and educated here. I feel that Cantonese is my mother language, i prefer to use Cantonese rather than Mandarine, like i can express myself better in Cantonese and i can make funny jokes in Cantonese but i can't do the same level in Mandarine.

Hello studentyoung!

I feel the same way as you do and i completely agree with u. The situation of the workers from other province in Guangdong are quite sad, isn't it?

[studentyoung]

Hello studentyoung!

I feel the same way as you do and i completely agree with u. The situation of the workers from other province in Guangdong are quite sad, isn't it?

Thanks so much for your kind words, grimacekid! I hope I can help people to understand each other and bring them something just deep under surface. Anyway, thanks again for your sympathy for those poor workers in Guangdong who are from other provinces !

Thanks!

[gato]

Even though my parent is from Hunan and we speak Mandarine at home

Grimacekid, how come you speak Mandarin with your parents instead of Hunan-hua? I've heard people speak Hunan-hua. It's completely different from Mandarin.

[Koneko]

Why not?

I also use Mandarin with my parents althought I am Chinese Hakka.

But I used Hakka to communicate with my grandparents, aunties when I was young.

K.

[bhchao]

Me too. I speak Mandarin with my father even though he is a Cantonese speaker.

[grimacekid]

QUOTE]Grimacekid, how come you speak Mandarin with your parents instead of Hunan-hua? I've heard people speak Hunan-hua. It's completely different from Mandarin.[

Hi Gato!

It is funny that my mom is from 郴洲 and my dad is from 礼陵, even though they all belong to Hunan, but the accents are quite different from each other.

They can understand each other when they talk in their own mother language (Hunan Hua sounds like Mandarine but the intonation is a bit different), but neither can my mom speak my dad's Hunan Hua nor my dad can speak my mom's, so they give up using Hunan Hua at home, and me myself cannot speak Hunan Hua at all.

[gato]

That's interesting, grimacekid. I thought that might be the case. Parents who are not native Mandarin speakers would typically only use Mandarin at home if the parents don't share the same dialect and have to use Mandarin as the common dialect.

But I do see some cases in Shanghai where mom and dad would speak Shanghainese to each other but Mandarin to their kid. I'm not sure the reason. Maybe they are afraid that the kid would fall behind in school if Shanghainese is used at home.

[Koneko]

My case is quite funny.

Both my parents can understand each other's dialect.

My Dad's Hakka; my Mum's Teochew.

We all use Mandarin at home, my parents rarely use Hakka with me at home.

If we go to see my Grans (paternal), we will automatically switch to Hakka.

I can speak and understand Hakka naturally.

My Mum didn't teach me how to speak Teochew when I was young, so my ability is now limited to listening, I still cannot speak Teochew.

We use Mandarin at schools and I learnt Cantonese from telly and friends.

The place where I grew up, is made up of a mixture of Chinese speaking different dialects. Hakka, Teochew, Cantonese, Hainanese,Hokkien, Fuchew...

I cannot understand Hainanese & Fuchew at all.

K.

[Mark Yong]

I am Hakka by birth, but am a native Cantonese speaker by upbringing. I personally find Cantonese a much more flexible spoken language compared to Mandarin. My reason for saying so lies in the Cantonese dialect's conservatism - it has retained the most number of endings (e.g. -k, -m, -p, -t) that have been lost in Mandarin, and has many more tones than Mandarin.

These two features resolve much of the ambiguities created by 異義同音 homonyms (different words having identical pronunciations), a problem that plagues the Mandarin dialect to a much greater extent, and a personal source of annoyance for me when I am communicating with someone who speaks Mandarin at very high speed.

While I concede the practicality of choosing Mandarin as the standard spoken vernacular for the country, I have deep objections towards the marginalisation and eventual eradication of the other dialects (notice I am implying that Mandarin is a dialect, too) in order to meet that end.

Swiss German has co-existed alongside High German in Switzerland, without risk of eradication. I do not see why this cannot be the case in China. After a century of widespread use of 普通話 Putonghua in schools and public life, there should be little risk of 'regionalism', right?

[Koneko]

Bravo, Mark Yong!

Why can't Mandarin possess a more live and let live attitude towards other dialects?

K.

[Mark Yong]

pazu wrote: I found Cantonese still very prevalent in Guangzhou, but people there tend to switch to Putonghua if they found out that you are an outsider, which gives people an impression that Cantonese is diminishing.

When I was in Shanghai recently, I sat in a van where the driver was from Guangzhou. We started off the conversation in Mandarin (naturally), but when I found out that he was from Guangzhou, I immediately switched to Cantonese.

Now, I am not sure if it was because of my accent (I am from Malaysia) or because I told the driver that I was neither a Chinese national nor from Hong Kong, but within 3-4 sentences, he ended up switching back to Mandarin again. One thing to note is that this chap was in his early-20's, so he may belong to the generation of Cantonese who are more exposed to Mandarin. But it seemed pretty obvious to me that both of us were comfortable speaking in Cantonese.

Anyway, I would weep for the day when Hong Kong decides to (or is cajoled to) do away with their colourful and vibrant Cantonese in favour of Mandarin. That, to me, would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing in the linguistic sense.