Taiwanese, Shanghainese, and Mandarin

[Strawberries513]

im a begginer in Mandarin but i was wondering... how close are Taiwanese, Shanghainese (sp?), and Mandarin? i always assumed the people from taiwan and beijing could understand eachother perfectly. is this right? and is shanghainese that diffrent too?

im wondering because well, im learning the standard beijing dialect of mandarin, but the chinese music i listen to comes from taiwan (jolin tsai, cyndi wang etc). so am i hearing and listening to completly diffrent languages?

[Ncao]

Taiwanese belongs to the Minnan(southern Fujian) dialect group. But Mandarin is the official language on Taiwan. Shanghainese belong to a dialect group called Wu.

[Long Zhiren]

If Shanghainese is 上海话, Taiwanese is 台灣话 and Cantonese is 廣東话, what exactly is Mandarin? 普通话, 國語 or 漢語? Is there a more proper or precise term?

Isn't calling Mandarin "普通话," "國語" or "漢語" somewhat imposing like inhabitants of the US calling themselves "Americans" when technically Mexicans, Canadians, Chileans, etc are also "Americans" but much less than the "Native" Americans are?

[Ncao]

If Shanghainese is 上海话, Taiwanese is 台灣话 and Cantonese is 廣東话, what exactly is Mandarin? 普通话, 國語 or 漢語? Is there a more proper or precise term?

Isn't calling Mandarin "普通话," "國語" or "漢語" somewhat imposing like inhabitants of the US calling themselves "Americans" when technically Mexicans, Canadians, Chileans, etc are also "Americans" but much less than the "Native" Americans are?

In my opinion,it's more or less like the Roman empire.

[Quest]

im a begginer in Mandarin but i was wondering... how close are Taiwanese, Shanghainese (sp?), and Mandarin? i always assumed the people from taiwan and beijing could understand eachother perfectly. is this right?

If the person from Taiwan speaks Mandarin (the official language), yes. If he/she speaks Taiwanese a.k.a. MinNan, no. Shanghainese and Beijingese/Mandarin? no.

im wondering because well, im learning the standard beijing dialect of mandarin, but the chinese music i listen to comes from taiwan (jolin tsai, cyndi wang etc). so am i hearing and listening to completly diffrent languages?

No you are not, they sing in Mandarin.

[winnipegli]

I was told by my taiwanese friends that today most teenagers in Taiwan only speak Mandarin even if he/she is a 本省人. though they still use many local taiwanese word, no big troubles for mainlanders to understand.

[Jizzosh]

The musical aspect is simple economics.

The music is in Mandarin because that reaches an audience of well over 1.3 million potential listeners, just as many singers/songwriters would sing in English/Spanish even if their home country/audience are not speakers of that language. You shoot for the larger consumer base.

With languge on the streets, it's much the same thing. In larger cities, you're more likely to hear Mandarin for most conversations, and the longer a family has been residing in larger cities that are closer to the business world, the more likely that their conversations will be mostly Mandarin. In Taipei, you'll perhaps hear more local dialects when the speaker is cursing or rattles off something for effect, but not for everyday conversations. In some of the smaller cities, the non-mandarin dialects are much more pronounced. It's the same in Shanghai, Guangzhou, etc. The more the people have to deal with foreigners (whether from other provinces or other countries), the more you'll hear Mandarin. Once you get outside that protective bubble, the chance of hearing foreign dialects greatly increases.

[Goujian]

Taiwanese is Min Nan 閩南語 or 'Hokkien' 福建話. Taiwanese is very distantly related to Fuzhou dialect, but more closely related to Teochew, Hainanese and Hokkien.

Shanghainese is Wu Chinese 吳語. But many call it 'Jiangnanese' 江南話 or 'Jiangzhe-ese' 江浙話, very few call it Wuyue-ese 吳越語. Its closest relatives are the many dialects of Jiangnan (Northern Zhejiang + Southern Jiangsu) as well as the dialects of Southern Zhejiang and Southern Anhui.

Mandarin is Guanhua 官話. But it's also called Northern language, or Beifanghua 北方話.

[Shi Tong]

Hold on...

What the Taiwanese call Taiwanese is 福建話 or 閩南語, it's a very distinct dialect away from Mandarin. It has 9 tones, a complicated tone sandhi rule and cannot be understood by Mandarin speakers.

There is also Kejia hua 客家話 Kè​jiā​ spoken in some places in Taiwan, and this is a dialect which belongs to the kejia people.

Taiwan's first language (母语) is, however, Mandarin. They call it 国语 (guoyu) more in Taiwan, but it's basically the same as the Mandarin you would hear in Beijing.

The only thing about Mandarin is that there are two distinct standards- Beijing centric 普通话 pǔ​tōng​huà​, which is controlled by the Chinese government and Taiwan's 国语 (guoyu, which has it's own standard.

However, it's more of a question of accent than anything else (a little like US English and UK English).

Shanghainese is 吳語, but I think that the official mother tongue is supposed to be Mandarin and.. I think a lot of people there speak Mandarin.

What you have to remember about this is that all three places use Mandarin as their first language.

[Lu]

Taiwanese has in fact 8 tones, 2 of which are identical, so in practice it has 7 tones.

There (often) is a difference between mother tongue and official language. Taiwan's official language is Mandarin (Guoyu). Mother tongue varies, there are still a lot of people whose first language is Taiwanese (Minnanese, whatever name you call it), Hakka, or something else, although Mandarin is gaining ground.

[Shi Tong]

Of course, mother tongue really refers to what you were born into- so to speak, therefore if your mother and father speak Taiwanese/ Fujianhua, then you will most probably be speaking that first, even if the official language of the country you are in varies from what you speak in the home.

Mandarin is so prolific in the Northern cities in Taiwan (Taipei and arguably all the way down to Taichung) that the Fujian hua/ Taiwanese spoken there is relatively minimal- most young people either have an accent or cant speak it at all.. my wife speaks Taiwanese, but it's accented, and while it's pretty much fluent, it's also a bit broken.

Taiwanese has in fact 8 tones, 2 of which are identical, so in practice it has 7 tones.

Why have 2 tones the same?! Sounds very odd.

[renzhe]

Why have 2 tones the same?! Sounds very odd.

Likely because they developed from different Middle Chinese tones and/or still have other characteristics that can tell them apart. There is a similar situation with Cantonese, which has between 6 and 9 tones, depending on your view.

[Shi Tong]

Sounds scary and makes me realise how lucky I am to be learning Mandarin and not any other dialect TBH.

[renzhe]

On the other hand, you have to bonus of not having to deal with a neutral tone. (sh)

[Shi Tong]

On the other hand, you have to bonus of not having to deal with a neutral tone.

Hahaha.. I like it! (or go to Taiwan where they use it a lot less.. double (sh))

[Chiao]

Taiwanese has in fact 8 tones, 2 of which are identical, so in practice it has 7 tones.

On the other hand, you have to bonus of not having to deal with a neutral tone.

Taiwanese does in fact have 9 tones: the seven traditional citation tones (1-, the high rising (combination) tone (9) in triple consonants, and a neutral tone (0).

Values (Kaohsiung accent):

• 1 yīnpíng [44]
  
• 2 yīnshǎng [53]
  
• 3 yīnqù [21]
  
• 4 yīnrù [32]
  
• 5 yángpíng [24]
  
• 7 yángqù [33]
  
• 8 yángrù [44]
  
• 9 combination tone [35]
  
• 0 qīngshēng [11]
  

The neutral tone is important in that the preceding word does not undergo tone sandhi.

[Lu]

I learned it with 8 tones (7 in practice), can't remember a neutral tone. But it could be there are different accents or theories.