# Is Cantonese closer to Classical Chinese?



## parakseno

Browsing over the resources about Chinese language on the Net I came across a page which said that Cantonese is more closer to Classical Chinese than Mandarin. In what way is it closer? Its grammar? Its pronounciation?
  And since I'm trying to learn Mandarin... Is Mandarin extremly different from Classical Chinese? Will I be able to read, let's say Tang dynasty poems in original if I know Mandarin?
Thanks!


----------



## melop

Cantonese is closer to classical Chinese in the way of its pronunciation and some grammar. But you'll see that classical Chinese is so concise that it doesn't really look like either dialect very much.

Because the exact pronunciation of classical Chinese is unknown (some what like Latin), we usually read poems and classical literature with modern tongues, so don't worry about that. However, sometimes using mandarin to read poems you may find some places don't rhyme well, if you use read in Cantonese or Hakka it may work perfectly, which shows that the pronunciation of southern dialects are closer to classical Chinese. 

But don't worry, you can still appreciate the poems using mandarin!


----------



## Brioche

In the olden days, the educated elite in China wrote in a literary language, quite different from the spoken languages.

This can be compared to the practice in Europe, where, up to the 18th century, education was in Latin, and Latin was the language of science and political affairs.

Classical Chinese is different from spoken Mandarin, just as Cicero's Latin is different from its modern descendant Romanian.


----------



## conniemeng2005

If u just wanna use the language, u do not need to care about the Classical Chinese coz as Chinese most of us dont know the Classical Chinese, and actually I haven't found any problem when I read poems and classical literature with mandarin 

in ur case, u have to consider where u will live in China, if u will live in Guangdong, Hongkong, Macao, maybe u should learn Cantonese.


----------



## vince

Brioche said:
			
		

> In the olden days, the educated elite in China wrote in a literary language, quite different from the spoken languages.
> 
> This can be compared to the practice in Europe, where, up to the 18th century, education was in Latin, and Latin was the language of science and political affairs.
> 
> Classical Chinese is different from spoken Mandarin, just as Cicero's Latin is different from its modern descendant Romanian.


Very interesting comparison. Here is the comparison extended to the present day China and Europe:

Imagine that everyone who speaks a Romance language (Portuguese, Castilian, Catalan, Occitan, French, Italian,  Romanian, etc) was forced to write in French, but are told that this written language is actually not French, but "New Latin", as to not convey the sense that French is superior to the other Romance languages in this framework.

And then they are told that the only difference between French and their vernacular language was pronunciation of the words and the existence of some slang vocabulary and usages. Therefore their languages are all dialects of "New Latin".

Everyone speaking Romance languages is allowed to speak as they once did, but whenever they write, they must write in "New Latin" - based grammatically and lexically upon French. Writing in Spanish, Italian, or Romanian is frowned upon because these are spoken DIALECTS, the only correct written language is New Latin.

Of course the fact that most Romance languages use an alphabet makes it hard to understand how one can convince Spanish speakers that French words can be pronounced in Spanish, e.g. the New Latin "feuille" would be pronounced as "hoja" in Spain, but using a writing system similar to Chinese characters this comparison would be easier to see.

In the above paragraphs, replace "New Latin" with "Standard Chinese", "French" with "Mandarin", and "Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, and Romanian" with "Cantonese, Taishanese, Taiwanese, Shanghainese, and Hakka" to understand the Chinese linguistic situation.


----------



## elyssia

parakseno said:
			
		

> Browsing over the resources about Chinese language on the Net I came across a page which said that Cantonese is more closer to Classical Chinese than Mandarin. In what way is it closer? Its grammar? Its pronounciation?
> And since I'm trying to learn Mandarin... Is Mandarin extremly different from Classical Chinese? Will I be able to read, let's say Tang dynasty poems in original if I know Mandarin?
> Thanks!


  No need to worry about that , if you can speak very good Mandar , you will be able to read The poems although reading poems require that you understand the meaning and rythm of the poems!  nearly all poems are written in mandarin !


----------



## melop

elyssia said:
			
		

> No need to worry about that , if you can speak very good Mandar , you will be able to read The poems although reading poems require that you understand the meaning and rythm of the poems!  nearly all poems are written in mandarin !



Well, I have to say I'm not agree with elyssia. Poems from old times are usually writen according to the pronunciation of that period. The pronunciation of classical Chinese is different from modern mandarin. That's why some poems seem to be not rhyme in mandarin.


----------



## elyssia

Actually what I meant is if you have a good fundation of the Mandarin , then it is easier for you to learn the Classical  poems or works !  I can't say that I learn the classical works well ,but I am sure I can read and understand ,but I know nothing about the Cantonese !

There is no direct relation between classical works and cantonese!
 Many experts  on classical works know nothing about Cantonese in my city !


----------



## vince

Yes but what people say is that Cantonese is a more conservative  language, it preserves more of the phonology of Classical Chinese (I  don't know about the grammar) than Mandarin does.

For example, Cantonese preserves the original 4 Classical Chinese tones,  even splitting Classical Chinese Tones 1, 2, 3 into two tones each (Yin  and Yang), and Tone 4 into 3 tones. Mandarin lost Tone 4 but split Tone  1, so that it still has 4 tones in total. So some of the tones of  Classical Chinese won't match up in Mandarin while they will in  Cantonese.

Mandarin, unlike most southern Chinese languages, lost the final  consonants in Classical Chinese. (Reminds me of how French lost the  final syllable off most Latin words while other Romance languages keep  them to some degree). So there are many more homophones in Mandarin that  would really diverge from the original pronunciation of the poem. Also,  Mandarin, like French, has palatized many initial consonants, g -->  j, k --> chi, s --> sh, and simplified others (ng, m --> w),  plus Mandarin does the Basque/Castilian initial f --> h shift, again  changing the sound relative to Classical Chinese.


----------



## melop

Thank you Vince for explaining! Yeah, it really reminds me of the  Romance languages, the situation is just like that Italian and spanish  preserve more pronunciation of Latin while in French too much has  changed. If you read a Latin poem in French method, that maybe quite  funny(accents on the last syllable etc.), but if you use the Italian  method, it will sound much better.

I sometimes find Hakka even rhymes better than Cantonese.


----------



## vince

You are familiar with the Romance languages? Great, you being familiar  with both Chinese and Romance, I would greatly appreciate your opinion  on my other post in this thread, the comparison of the Chinese  linguistic situation to Romance languages.

Found a good resource:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wbaxter/etymdict.html

It provides a list of Middle Chinese pronunciations of today's Mandarin  syllables. It clearly shows Middle Chinese's similarities to southern  Chinese languages in terms of phonology. I believe Middle Chinese was  the proto-language for the Chinese "dialects", spoken in the 6th to 9th  centuries AD. Notice the presence of the glottal stop (like Modern  Arabic) in many syllables of Middle Chinese.


----------



## EConan

parakseno said:


> Browsing over the resources about Chinese language on the Net I came across a page which said that Cantonese is more closer to Classical Chinese than Mandarin. In what way is it closer? Its grammar? Its pronounciation?
> And since I'm trying to learn Mandarin... Is Mandarin extremly different from Classical Chinese? Will I be able to read, let's say Tang dynasty poems in original if I know Mandarin?
> Thanks!



To be honest, this is related to the Han Chinese (real Chinese) compared with the Non-Han Chinese history in China. Majority of the population in China is Han Chinese even as of today. Song Dynasty is the Dynasty that is considered speaking Classical Chinese. At the end of Song Dynasty, Mongols invaded China and killed more than 50 percent of the Hans. Mongols are from the North and the are attacking China from north down to south. So most of the Chinese flee south unless they are too old to leave, don't have the ability to leave, or unable to leave. Staying north is dangerous due to the violence the Mongols do to people (being races against, look down upon, treat like slave, and beaten to death). It was also common sense for people to leave a dangerous area for a better life. Therefore, most Chinese immigrated to the south. Due to a great amount of people dying and the Chinese empire was taken over, the Chinese language slowly changed and it became some of the major dialects in the South. Although, study showed that Yue and Min dialects are closest to the older Chinese, we don't really know how close it is to the real Chinese. The northern mongols in the Royal family also learned the culture of china and they eventually learn the Han Chinese language but with their accent and style of talking. So even after Ming Dynasty took control, the people that lived in the north continue to have that accent and style of talking. Later on, the Manchu Qing Dynasty took over the Ming Dynasty. The Northern accent continue with the outsider's accent; therefore, the accent and style of the north of China is different from the original and older Chinese. If you do linguistic study, you will realize that northerner have similar accent and tone compared with Northern non Chinese races in the north such as Mongols. So you can say that the Han Chinese move towards south from the north and some Han Chinese Flee to southern countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Philippine and etc. So the southern Chinese dialect sounds compatible with the ancient Chinese in poems, literatures, and others. Even in the study of Hans dialects, most of the time, you will see people use most of the southern dialects (14) and only about two northern dialects. Mandarin was called Mandarin because they are referring to Manchu not Chinese Han.  Even though now, China made Mandarin the official language, it is not really the Han Chinese that the Han Chinese are not speaking. I guess it does not matter. Languages changes over time regardless and there was so many invasion as well. That is how come Cantonese is one of the main branch of the ancient Chinese/Classical Chinese. In other words, these southern dialects has more traditional values than Mandarin if you like to study history or Chinese.


----------



## Skatinginbc

EConan said:


> study showed that Yue and Min dialects are closest to the older Chinese


I haven't done a literature review, but I intuitively think the Wu language also has preserved many features of the old.  To escape from northern invaders, the ancient Han Chinese seemed to pick the Wu region as their first choice.  For instance, the Eastern Jin dynasty had its court in Nanjing, and the Southern Song dynasty in Lin'an (now Hangzhou).  The southern dialects were not immune from foreign influences, either, such as Tai-Kadai and Austroasiatic languages.


----------



## jokingbad

Only if you list the reasons why Cantonese has closer relation with Classical Chinese, comparing with other dialects,otherwise, your conclusion from net or from others’ saying is only the Cantonese self-praise out of economic advantage and political preference.

Classical Chinese has too many variations,it is much safer to say that different dialects preserve different features of classical Chinese.

From Baidu I found “there are 8 dialectalregions in China by far, and except northern dialect, which deeply influencedthe later formed classical written Chinese; the remaining: Wu (mostly inShanghai, Jiangsu province, and Zhejiang province), Xiang (Hunan province), Gan(Jiangxi province), Hakka (Fujian province), Cantonese (Guangdong, Hongkong,Macau, and some ethnic Chinese from this area), Min (Fujian and other places).

What’s more, there are several other methods of dividing dialectal region. I couldn’t list them one by one.


----------



## retrogradedwithwind

Classic Chinese？
Well, which/what classic Chinese Contonese is closer to? When you say "classic Chinese", you refer to the WRITEN classic Chinese or the Spoken?


----------



## SuperXW

It's quite difficult to define the parameters if you want to compare them. Anyway, I think Cantonese indeed keeps more elements of classic Chinese, whereas modern Mandarin Chinese focuses more on “practicality”, deliberately reducing those elements when they are "hard to learn and use".


----------



## Ghabi

As others have said above, the question is really too vague to be given a meaningful answer. But I want to reply specfically to the often claimed conservative phonology of Cantonese. I think when it comes to sound business, Cantonese is innovative, and in some cases Mandarin is actually more conservative than Cantonese, when Middle Chinese is used as a reference point.

Take the words 苦/虎/府, which are pronounced differently in Mandarin, reflecting three different Middle Chinese initials (溪/曉/非), but have become homophones in Cantonese (all pronounced fu2). (This is due to the fact that most 曉母合口 and some 溪母合口 words have become /f/-words in Cantonese.) Indeed many Cantonese words have completely lost their Middle Chinese initials (日母 like 日 jat6, 疑母細音 like 魚 jyu4, 匣母合口 like 禾 wo4).

When it comes to the glides, Cantonese is also untrammeled. The -y- has been lost completely, while -w- has only survived after the velars (gw-, kw-).

The vowels of Cantonese are notably characterized by diphthongization:
i-->ei e.g. 地 dei6
u-->ou e.g. 布 bou3
y-->ɵy e.g. 女 neoi5

Finally, when it comes to the finals, it is well known that Cantonese has preserved n/m/ng/t/p/k intact. But it is only part of the picture. The -m and -p have actually changed to -n and -t respectively when the initials are labial (b/p/f), due to a supposed process of "dissimilation". The change is clear when Cantonese is compared with Hakka or even better Sino-Vietnamese:



xCantoneseHakkaSino-Vietnamese凡faanfamphàm法faatfappháp品banpinphẩm

Of course what is said above concerns only Cantonese, not all of the Yue dialects.


----------



## river7

Ghabi, I have heard that the current mandarin in use came from LIAO officials.  The line is that since Mongols conquered the Song dynasty they need Liao officials to manage rest of Song China.  So the language used by the Liao officials became the official language.  This language spoken by the Liao officials---does it have any ties to the language spoken in Han or Tang dynasties?  Liao, as I understand it, came from beyond the wall.  I was told that Han dynasty spoke a tongue similar to that of Min-Nan Hwa.  Old timers say that mandarin is a tartar language and Chinese enslaved were forced to speak it.  Kind of like "elite diffusion", as in---if Japan had taken over China in wwii, we would be speaking Japanese.  Thanks for your thoughts.


----------



## fyl

river7 said:


> Ghabi, I have heard that the current mandarin in use came from LIAO officials. [...]



This is completely fake. It is possible that Mandarin has been affected by Liao, Jin and Yuan, but it is definitely Chinese, just as Indian English is English, not Hindi. Liao and Mongols are not the same thing, Tartar is yet another thing. Don't mix them up. Liao, Mongols and Tartar speak different Altaic languages which are completely different from any Sino-Tibetan languages, so no tie to Chinese Han or Tang dynasty. In Liao dynasty, Chinese language was not forbidden. In fact it was widely used and learnt even by Liao people (that's probably how it's affected). Liao emperors speak Chinese and use Chinese as well as their own language Kitan. All of them have Chinese names. Several Liao emperors were actually very good at Chinese literature.

There is no doubt that Mandarin is Chinese. You can never read ancient articles or poems in a language other than Chinese. But with Mandarin you can read them with perfect fluent grammar, correct number of syllables, good rhyme and harmonic tones, just as all other modern Chinese languages. There have been studies and clear records of Chinese linguistics since thousands of years ago. With all ancient records and modern Mandarin dialects, it is very clear that Mandarin evolved from Middle Chinese.

Chinese in Han dynasty is typically classified as "Old Chinese". It is true that Min-Nan Hwa keeps some features of Old Chinese which do not exist in Mandarin or Cantonese. But keeping some features does not imply being similar. Whenever you see someone claims a modern language is close to an ancient one, that is fake. Last but not least, if you are familiar with Chinese history, especially Bei Wei, Liao, Jin, Qing etc, you will be thinking that Japan will be speaking Chinese if they had taken over China in WWII.

*Edit: Sorry I may have misunderstood some parts of the question.* If you mean Liao or Jin people learnt Chinese, and their descendants spread their accent during Mogols' time, then this is at least logically possible. But I still don't think this is the truth. There has been a long tradition that in most places the top official must not be local (still true in mainland China). This is to prevent the official from having too much social relations (otherwise he is easily corrupted). So the official in every county speaks an accent different from the local people. But that does not change anything. There are also sayings like "皇权不下县" (central power did not go below county), which means the smallest official is the head of a county and in small villages people were self-managed. A county is too big for a few officials (without TV, internet, speech) to spread their accent. Moreover, Yuan dynasty had relatively loose control to local places compared to other dynasties. So I don't think this is the truth, but I don't have solid evidences.


----------



## river7

fyi, thanks for the tidbits.


----------



## kenosdi

It could be a bold claim to say that Cantonese is closer to the classic Chinese (or ancient Chinese). Purely anecdotal experience from me, I found that southern dialects usually preserve some words from ancient Chinese, such as 吃水，饮茶 (in comparison with 喝 in Mandarin). If this is what you meant, I believe more serious research should be needed before we can conclude.


----------



## river7

I maybe pissed if it were indeed the case that mandarin is something that is foisted on us by an invader, but I am resigned to the polyglot nature of our genes, considering how much mixing there was through out the ages.  We are not pure and cannot be, due to the nature of invasions.  So is our language which must be the result of much interaction.  Hence we cannot afford to be racist.  As a terminology, "Mandarin" is a bad choice of word for Chinese.  It may be a derivative of Chinese, but it also connotes something very recent.  One translation of the word "mandarin" is Mahn-Dah-Zn, or Mr. Mahn Big Person.  It smacks a lot of Manchu in that verbiage.  Yet I know that the Manchus have their own tongue that is very similar to Korean.  Someone please comment on this.  Thanks


----------



## fyl

river7 said:


> I maybe pissed if it were indeed the case that mandarin is something that is foisted on us by an invader, but I am resigned to the polyglot nature of our genes, considering how much mixing there was through out the ages. We are not pure and cannot be, due to the nature of invasions. So is our language which must be the result of much interaction. Hence we cannot afford to be racist. As a terminology, "Mandarin" is a bad choice of word for Chinese. It may be a derivative of Chinese, but it also connotes something very recent. One translation of the word "mandarin" is Mahn-Dah-Zn, or Mr. Mahn Big Person. It smacks a lot of Manchu in that verbiage. Yet I know that the Manchus have their own tongue that is very similar to Korean. Someone please comment on this. Thanks



Sorry this is a bit long and may be harsh. But this is not to you, it is my comment to the person who invented jokes like "Mandarin=Mahn Big Person".

You may want to take a look at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese#Name to see if Mandarin is a transliteration of "Manchu something". The translation of Mandarin is 官话 (official language) in Chinese, nothing to do with Manchu at all.

Manchu is not close to Korean. Manchu is an endangered Altaic language that only a few thousand people can speak now. (Most Manchu have become completely pure Chinese.) Korean is probably Altaic, but this is under debate and there are different views saying Korean is an isolated language. Two languages belong to two language families can not be similar.
There is no relation between Manchu and Mandarin, either.

It is true that Chinese have been affected because of mixing or invasions. But that is completely not the way you think. There are a few things that I want to say.

First, in China there is a history of 文化认同(culture identifying). Some of those "invaders" are completely pure Chinese now. There are also views considering some of the "invasions" as civil wars. Kitan people, who established Liao dynasty, have completely disappeared. The only possibility is that they have merged into Han people. Here are some examples.

In Zhou dynasty, 楚国(Chu State) was originally not considered as 诸夏(Chinese), but later on they followed Chinese culture so they were no longer considered as 蛮夷(foreign barbarians); 郑国(Zheng state), which was originally 诸夏, didn't follow Chinese manner, so they were considered as foreigners later on. (From Wikipedia http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中華思想)
In Liao dynasty, they have claimed their country as "诸夏". There is also an interesting story: “大辽道宗朝，有汉人讲《论语》，……至‘夷狄之有君’，疾读不敢讲。则曰：‘上世獯鬻、猃狁，荡无礼法，故谓之夷。吾修文物彬彬，不异中华，何嫌之有！’卒令讲之。”
Brief translation: During Daozong emperor of Liao dynasty, there was a Han person teaching 'Analects'. When they reach some bad words towards foreign barbarians in that book, the teacher simply read very fast and didn't dare to explain it to the "foreign" emperor. But the emperor said, in ancient times those foreigners didn't follow the Chinese civilization, that's why they are considered as "foreigners". We now learnt and carried out the civilization. We are now well-mannered and educated. We are not different from Chinese. There shouldn't be any discrimination now. And he commanded the teacher not to skip that. This is also from Wikipedia http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/辽朝#cite_note-44
In Qing dynasty (established by Manchu). They did foist some of their own culture on Chinese people at the beginning, the braid and their clothes. But just these two simple things (just haircut style and clothes style in modern views) caused unbelievable rebels. So there were many massacres such as 扬州十日、嘉定三屠 and millions of people killed.
After this, how can the Manchu even think of changing the language of Chinese people? In fact, all Qing emperors were extremely well educated in Chinese culture. They almost spent their whole lives studying Sinology. They were good at calligraphy, poems, history, etc. One apparent example is, starting from Kangxi, all emperors give their children only Chinese names which follow the Chinese rule (the middle character in name indicates generation). All ordinary Manchu people quickly merged into Chinese, too. (That's why the Machu language is endangered.)
Yuan (the Mongols) may be the only exception, and they can be considered as the true invaders.
What I want to say is, when we feel uncomfortable with those ancient "foreign invaders", why don't we ask ourselves: Are we better than them in inheriting Chinese civilization? If they are not qualified for being Chinese, are we? If they are not pure Chinese, are we? Novels like 红楼梦, operas like Peking opera, are treasures in Mandarin as well as treasures in Chinese civilization. Anyone wants to get rid of the Manchu period from Chinese history is simply ignorant.

Second, every Chinese language, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Min Nan, Wu and whatever, has been affected by their foreign neighbors, and they have also changed a lot within themselves. None of them can be really close to an ancient language. This is also true for any language in the world. Every Chinese language keeps some features of ancient Chinese, and also loses some other features. Mandarin is mostly criticized for losing 入声 (stops as finals). But during Song dynasty 入声 finals -p, -t, -k had been merged into -ʔ, which was the first step of gradually disappearing. See below for an example.
《六么令 用陆氏事，送玉山令陆德隆侍亲东归吴中》 (by 辛弃疾)
酒群花队，攀得短辕*折(-t)*。谁怜故山归梦，千里莼羹*滑(-t)*。便整松江一棹，点检能言*鸭(-p)*。故人欢*接(-p)*。醉怀双橘，堕地金圆醒时*觉(-k)*。
长喜刘郎马上，肯听诗书*说(-t)*。谁对叔子风流，直把曹刘*压(-p)*。更看君侯事业，不负平生*学(-k)*。离觞愁*怯(-p)*。送君归后，细写茶经煮香*雪(-t)*。
I have marked the characters must rhyme in bold red. You can clearly see -p,-t,-k finals had merged during 辛弃疾's time (500 years before Machu).
I have seen some people on the Internet keep criticizing Mandarin for losing -p, -t, -k and claim their own tongue is the ancient one. However, having these stop finals is just ONE feature. Cantonese, for example, loses most medials but Mandarin keeps all medials. Every Chinese language/dialect keeps its own ancient element, and there is no scientific measurement of which (finals or medials) is more important.

Third, let's not use a scientific measure and agree that Southern Chinese (Cantonese, Wu, Min, Gan, Xiang, etc) were closer to the ancient one. Even so, they can be close to only one period in history. The language keeps changing. If they are close to the Chinese in Tang dynasty (Middle Chinese), they cannot be close to Han dynasty (Old Chinese). Every period in history leaves us a lot of treasures. Assume you can read Tang poems in Cantonese with 100% perfect rhymes and tones (which is not true), then you won't be able to read 诗经 in Zhou dynasty, 赋 in Han dynasty, and the great novels like 红楼梦 in Qing dynasty. When you are thinking Tang dynasty as the only authentic Chinese, you are denying all other Chinese periods (before and after) in history. Being close to one short period does not imply anything about "purity". As you said, we are not pure and cannot be. So were our ancestors.

Forth, after all the changes, affections and mixings, the distinction between Chinese and non-Chinese languages are still extremely clear. This is because China has a continuous clear civilization. There are books written in every generation. Every generation was educated using ancient books. Can you read any ancient article in English or Manchu? That is simply impossible. The books, which carry the civilization in literature, shape our language and keep it Chinese. Let me give another example. In Japanese there are some Chinese words, and their Japanese pronunciations keep the 入声s which have been mentioned above. You may have seen 数独=sudoku, in which 独=doku. The ancient sound of 独 is something like "duk" (note the final -k). Japanese keeps that final in the way to make it into a whole syllable "ku". Does that mean Japanese pronunciation is closer to ancient Chinese than Mandarin? Of course not. If one character can have two syllables, we won't be able to read correctly.
Different Chinese languages may sound very different, but when they were written down, they become much similar. Every Chinese language use Chinese characters. The major difference is the way to pronounce them. Every character is exactly one syllable, starting with an initial, then a medial, then a vowel, then a final. They are many different initials and finals in ancient Chinese. Modern Chinese languages merged similar initials or finals, for example, finals -a, -at, -ak, -ap are now the same thing in Mandarin. Every Chinese language has its own way of merging and changing. This is the way that phonology changed in Chinese. Mandarin follows this rule, i.e. the Mandarin initials and finals are mostly merged from the ancient set. As for grammar and vocabulary, the literature works, especially novels in Ming and Qing dynasty, clearly shows that Mandarin has been the most widely used spoken language. There were also works written in Cantonese or Wu spoken language, but none of them have been so important and influential as Mandarin. So Mandarin is no doubt Chinese.


----------



## river7

wow, fyi, it's a pleasure to read your lecture.  Reference to Manchus being different from Koreans--my recollection is that they trace themselves to Wanyan Aguda whose ancestors decamped from Silla of the Korean peninsula.  To get a feeling of the Manchu speech you can listen to the Xibe speech( Xing Jiang)which is very close to Manchu.  Xibe speech, still spoken by almost 40k people, sounds very Korean.


----------



## river7

Ghabi,  How do I get people to listen to the continuity of the oral Chinese without going to Youtube?  Thanks

Hope this is ok.  If you want to listen to how old Chinese is spoken you can go to Youtube, then search for " tuo guan".  You get a sense of how our language has changed.


----------



## retrogradedwithwind

river7 said:


> Hope this is ok.  If you want to listen to how old Chinese is spoken you can go to Youtube, then search for " tuo guan".  You get a sense of how our language has changed.




It seems that you have learned many rumours (much information) about Chinese language and its dialects. But most of them is/are wrong, at least not accurate. 锡伯族/Xibo are primarily descendants of 满族/Manchu, so 锡伯语/Xibo speech/language is a dialect of Manchu language. And they have totally same written language.

As the relation between Manchu language and Korean language, I think it is like the one between English and Geman( maybe French in place of German is more appropriate)

All of above are from 百度. Search 满语 锡伯语 朝鲜语(韩语) and you will get them.


----------



## fyl

river7 said:


> Hope this is ok.  If you want to listen to how old Chinese is spoken you can go to Youtube, then search for " tuo guan".  You get a sense of how our language has changed.


This is a very interesting video but I think the Old Chinese part (Han dynasty and earlier) is not so reliable. The guy was using Zhengzhang Shangfang (a linguist)'s reconstruction, which is just one of the many reconstructions. There were no clear records for Old Chinese pronunciations so there were too many conjectures in those reconstructions. And personally I think he was not reading those sounds fluently. He needed much more practice to sound like ancient people even if the reconstruction was correct. A poem must not sound that difficult. One of the comments of the video says "打死我也不相信上古汉语是有小舌音的".
There were clear pronunciation records for Middle Chinese and later, so those parts are more reliable.

Xibe is indeed very close to Manchu as you said. Thanks for this information.
There are also Manchu speech online. However, it is too subjective to judge the similarity of two languages by the feeling of their sounds. If there were really any solid connections between Korean and Manchu, linguists wouldn't be arguing about the classification of Korean.


----------



## Skatinginbc

river7 said:


> the current mandarin in use came from LIAO  officials...the language used by the Liao officials became the official  language.


When Japan invaded China between 1937 and 1945, the devastation was  truly massive.  As time went by, the destruction has been slowly  repaired, and what is left is a permanent scar in the collective memory  of the Chinese people.  By the same token, when the foreign invaders  occupied China in ancient times, the impact on Chinese languages  especially the northern dialects was truly massive.  It can be  demonstrated by 關漢卿's poetic dramas, for instance, 《哭存孝》米罕整斤吞，抹鄰不會騎。弩門並速門，弓箭怎的射？撒因答剌孫，見了搶著吃。喝的莎塔八，跌倒就是睡。若說我姓名，家將不能記。一對忽剌孩，都是狗養的。   That is hardly Chinese, isn't it?  And yet as time went by, the  language gradually repaired itself, leaving only some permanent "scars" in  Mandarin (e.g., loanwords like 胡同).   As scarred and disfigured as it is, Mandarin is still Chinese  in its bones and blood, thanks to the existence of many Chinese dialects  and the unified writing system in facilitating "language repair".


----------



## river7

Skate what you said is very comforting.  So the Chinese language is pretty much intact.  I think the "unified writing system" you mentioned is the mainstay in this whole affair.  The invaders found the writing system and the knowledge and histories that came with the system so useful that despite their imposition of a foreign tongue and a forced tonsure such as pigtails on all Chinese heads, signalling submission and enslavement, that eventually they merged with the Chinese.  The oral speech may suffer the slings and arrows of invasions but the writing has kept the speech from being hijacked completely.  I couldn't help but think that a determined invader like Japan could have succeeded much as 秦始皇 had succeeded in uniting China.  Look at what Japan had achieved in colonizing Taiwan and korea.  Give Japan another 50 years without  American intervention, it would be a very different picture indeed.  People possess a slavish streak in that they admire winners for what the winners can bring them.  If the loser government were abusive all the more reason to vote with your feet, no matter race,blood or culture.  
I saw this comment  " 韓国 張儀文化。  日本 徐福文化“ on internet.  The latter I get it, but could someone enlighten me on the former?  Beg admin's indulgence if I transgressed, as Koreans and Japanese are so intertwined with our history.


----------



## fyl

Skatinginbc has proposed an interesting theory. But I'm still not very convinced that there were massive destruction during invasions. I've read some works in Qing dynasty before, and I'm sure they are completely authentic Chinese. I don't know much about the works in Yuan dynasty. This poem by 关汉卿 indeed contains too many loanwords. However, I just skimmed a little bit at http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:關漢卿. It seems most of his work are still completely Chinese. Even in this specific 《哭存孝》, it is quite difficult to find another place (I didn't find) that contains foreign element. As for the Japanese period, my grandfather was born during that time, I didn't find any Japanese word when I was talking with him. Maybe he was too young to be influenced. But there were only one or two Japanese soldiers in our town at that time, I can't really see how changes in language can happen.

As for the loanwords in Chinese, I think it is completely natural. Any language has a lot of loanwords. 葡萄美酒夜光杯，欲饮琵琶马上催 is one of my favorite poems, and it contains loanwords like 葡萄、琵琶. Things like "阿耨多罗三藐三菩提", "般若波罗蜜多", "揭谛、揭谛，波罗揭谛，波罗僧揭谛，菩提萨婆诃" can be found in 般若波罗蜜多心经. These are completely not Chinese. But no one will argue that 心经 is not important in Chinese culture, and no one is going to repair it. For words like 米罕, 抹鄰, we don't think they are Chinese mostly because they were not very influential in history at all.

Personally I think the biggest challenge for Chinese culture did not come from outside actually. It was the thoughts and revolutions starting from 五四运动, especially what happened in mainland China later on. It is completely fine to learn something new. But it was too bad to abandon every tradition and criticize them morally.


----------



## retrogradedwithwind

《哭存孝》米罕整斤吞，抹鄰不會騎。弩門並速門，弓箭怎的射？撒因答剌孫，見了搶著吃。喝的莎塔八，跌倒就是睡。若說我姓名，家將不能記。一對忽剌孩，都是狗養的。 

Those are loanwords. More than half of English words are said to loan from foreign languages, then is English English? 

Of course Chinese language is badly impacted by others. But how badly? fyl has already given many examples to illustrate that question, and I think it's persuasive enough.

I don't know why river you have so much confidence in Japanese influence on Chinese language if they had ruled China for more than fifty years. I personally cannot be as optimistic as you. 
First, before the end of ww2, Chinese characters were still more widely than today used in Japan. There was a bigger possibility that Japanese would used Chinese in China. I hear that even today in Japan the capability of recognizing characters shows out how well one is educated.
Second, could Japanese do better than manchu ? How and how badly manchu influenced Chinese language can be well measured by comparing the literal works in 明 and 清。


----------



## Skatinginbc

《哭存孝》 illustrates more than loanwords.  It contains an atypically high  percentage of object-fronting clauses (e.g., 米罕整斤吞; 抹鄰不會騎; 弓箭怎的射), a  feature of the Altaic languages (i.e., SOV word order, like 我功課寫完了).   The basic word order in Archaic and Middle Chinese is SVO (like 我寫完功課了);  although focused fronting does exist, it is typically marked by a  particle (e.g., 唯, 之, 是 as in 敗臣是憂) or associated with certain  constructions (e.g., interrogation, patient-verb constructions, etc.).  

Another example: 元劉唐卿《降桑椹》「哥也，俺打剌孫多了，您兄弟莎搭八了俺牙不約兒赤罷。」   My point: Those dramas, like TV shows or movies, were prepared for a  live audience, who could not stop the performance and yell, "Hold on.  I  don't understand that word."  I mean, instant comprehension is  required.  Those dramas therefore reflect the extent of foreign  influences on daily language at that time.

Re: Japanese
Taiwan was ruled by the Japanese between 1895 and 1945.  Children were educated in Japanese.  Many if not most people were bilingual.  And yet I don't see too many Japanese footprints on the Taiwanese language.  Yes, there are a few loanwords.  Big deal!  Time heals all wounds.


----------



## retrogradedwithwind

鸟有巢于低枝，其鷇可俯而窥也。
Fortunately I can put forward an example. The above sentence was written by 苏轼。

Full context: 予少时书室前，竹柏杂花，众鸟巢于上。武阳君恶杀生，婢仆不得捕取。数年间，鸟有巢于低枝，其鷇可俯而窥也。此无它，不忮之诚，信于异类。


----------



## fyl

Skatinginbc said:


> 《哭存孝》 illustrates more than loanwords.  It contains an atypically high  percentage of object-fronting clauses (e.g., 米罕整斤吞; 抹鄰不會騎; 弓箭怎的射), a  feature of the Altaic languages (i.e., SOV word order, like 我功課寫完了).   The basic word order in Archaic and Middle Chinese is SVO (like 我寫完功課了);  although focused fronting does exist, it is typically marked by a  particle (e.g., 唯, 之, 是 as in 敗臣是憂) or associated with certain  constructions (e.g., interrogation, patient-verb constructions, etc.).



I don't think it is SOV order. 米罕 is the object of 吞. This is verb used as passive voice. 我功课写完了 is not exactly the same as 我写完了功课 because they emphasize different things. I would parse it as (我功课)写完了 where 我功课 is one thing, not a subject and an object. I think this widely exists in Chinese. For example, 冯唐易老,李广难封  飞鸟尽,良弓藏,狡兔死,走狗烹  舜有臣五人而天下治....



Skatinginbc said:


> Those dramas, like TV shows or movies, were prepared for a live audience, who could not stop the performance and yell, "Hold on. I don't understand that word." I mean, instant comprehension is required. Those dramas therefore reflect the extent of foreign influences on daily language at that time.



This makes sense indeed. However, it is not always true. One needs be familiar with every piece of lyric and music to appreciate Peking opera for example. There is a word called 生书熟戏. It means that 评书 must tell a new story to attract audience, whereas operas can only attract audience who were already familiar with it. I would say your argument makes sense but it's not solid evidence.


----------



## Skatinginbc

retrogradedwithwind said:


> 鸟有巢于低枝，其鷇可俯而窥也。


食其果 , 其果可食(可 able to + V ==> adj: edible)也 , 其果食?  
俯而窥其鷇 , 其鷇可俯而窥也 , 其鷇俯而窥? 


fyl said:


> 米罕 is the object of 吞.


That's my point: object-fronting.  So the verb is kept in the sentence final position.


fyl said:


> verb used as passive voice...李广难封,良弓藏, 走狗烹, 天下治


In certain constructions, the active voice is used instead of the passive voice (e.g., 李广难封, 筆難寫, 良弓藏,  好弓也就藏起来不用了, 走狗烹, 猎狗就要烹煮着吃了, 天下治, 天下就安定太平了, 天下就治理好了), like English "it is difficult to understand" rather than "it is difficult to be understood".  It is different from object-fronting (e.g., 我殺人了 ==> 我人殺了 ≠ 我人被殺了), where the transitive verb (e.g., 殺 in 我人殺了) is not used in its passive sense and requires an object. 我肉整斤吞 (≠ 我肉整斤被吞), 我馬不會騎 (≠ 我馬不會被騎), and 我弓箭怎的射 (≠ 我弓箭怎的被射) are active, not passive structures.


----------



## fyl

Skatinginbc said:


> 我馬不會騎 (≠ 我馬不會被騎)


OK. I kind of understand what you mean. 我马不会骑 means "I" can't ride horse, whereas 马不会被骑 means the horse can't be ridden. They have different subjects, one is talking about me, the other is talking about the horse.

Then what about this 吾何患焉 found in http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AD%A3%E6%B0%94%E6%AD%8C ? 何 is an object of 患.

Anyway, compared to the overall grammatical differences between classic Chinese and modern Chinese, the 米罕整斤吞 is not a big deal at all. There are also grammar differences between 红楼梦 and modern Mandarin. There are even significant grammar differences between Mandarin dialects.


----------



## Skatinginbc

肉整斤吞 = 吞整斤肉
李广难封 = 李广难封候 ≠ 难封李广


----------



## fyl

Skatinginbc said:


> 肉整斤吞 = 吞整斤肉
> 李广难封 = 李广难封候 ≠ 难封李广


Sorry I just updated the previous post.
But I don't agree with this 李广难封 = 李广难封候 ≠ 难封李广. If this is not clear, 良弓藏 is clearly the same as 藏良弓.
Edit: OK. There is indeed a difference between 李广难封 and 难封李广. The latter allows a subject.


----------



## Skatinginbc

飞鸟尽(intransitive 没有了),良弓藏(intransitive 藏起来 like 金子藏於腹中). 


fyl said:


> what about this 吾何患焉


I briefly mentioned "focused fronting" in interrogation (e.g., wh-  questions) in #32.  As I said, focused fronting (including  object-fronting and pronoun-fronting) _does _exist in Archaic Chinese and  Middle Chinese.   

My question is: Is object-fronting more prevalent in Mandarin than in, say, Cantonese?


----------



## fyl

Oh I see, 吾何患焉 is a question. Sorry for bothering again, but I just found another one: 金鼓不聞，旌旗不睹，此謂慢軍 from http://zh.wikisource.org/zh/兵法_(諸葛亮) . According to my understanding, 金鼓不闻 and 旌旗不睹 describe a soldier just as 米罕整斤吞 describes a person, i.e. there is a hidden subject, so they are object-fronting.


----------



## Skatinginbc

Yes, "金鼓不聞，旌旗不睹" is a good example.  The object-fronting is triggered by  identificational focus (information structure) and perhaps negation as well.   Compare: negative 《孟子·滕文公上》吾先君亦莫之行也 (莫 negative, 之 object, 行 verb) vs. affirmative 《孟子·梁惠王二》夫人幼而學之 (學 verb, 之 object).

Anyway, I do not deny the existence of object-fronting in Classical  Chinese and other Chinese dialects.  My impression is that it seems to  be more prevalent in Mandarin and I wonder if it has something to do  with the invasion of the Altaic tribes.  This quantitative difference,  if in existence, is a reflection of how the Altaic tribes have changed  Mandarin speakers' brains, the way how information is structured or  organized in the brain.  It is analogous to the increase of complicated  relative clauses in modern Chinese as a result of contact with Western  languages.  To determine which Chinese dialect is closer to Classical  Chinese, I think we should also examine the discourse level beyond  traditional grammar and phonology.


----------



## Ghabi

I think if one wants to read non-Chinese Chinese, one should go to the Mongolian-Chinese creole/pidgin used in many bureaucratic documents during the Yuan Dynasty, which not only use loanwords but also employ Mongolian syntax. The following is a real example (about female infanticide), only with modernized orthography and punctuation (my highlighting):

 至元十三年七月初二日，欽奉聖旨：亦都護根底，塔海不花、亦捏不花兩個根底，火州呂中禿兒班為頭貳拾肆個城子裡官人每根底，眾僧人每根底，也里可溫每根底，百姓每根底，宣諭的聖旨：哈兒沙沙津愛忽赤旭烈都統奏將來有，「火州城子里人每的媳婦每，若生女孩兒呵，多有撇在水裡渰死了。禿兒迷沙的女孩兒根底水裡撇去間，速安海牙為頭人每拿住，薛闍干、不顏帖木兒兩個根底說呵，他每的言語不肯分間，首告的人每禿兒迷沙根底分付與了。」 麼道奏將來的上頭，速安海牙、塔失海牙狀頭每根底做百姓者。今已後女孩兒根底水裡撇的人每，一半家財沒官與軍每者。首告的人每若是軀奴呵，做百姓者。咱這般說來。這聖旨宣諭了呵，女孩兒根底水裡撇的人面情看覷着，違奉聖旨，管民官每有罪過者。（《通制條格》（元代史料叢刊），黃時鑑點校，浙江古籍出版社，1986，63-4頁）

Note the use of 根底 to make accusative and dative cases (perhaps like Japanese を and に), the use of 有 and 者 at the end of a sentence (probably tense/aspect/mood markers), the use of 呵 in conditional sentences (perhaps like Japanese と), the use of 麼道 to mark quotation (perhaps like Japanese という). It doesn't look much like Mandarin, does it? Personally I can't understand everything.

As to word order, the SOV order is often obligatory in the Wenzhou dialect, which is not a Mandarin dialect. For example, one has to say 我饭吃爻罢 for "I've eaten" (our colleague Youngfun may confirm this; cf. 郑张尚芳《温州方言志》244页). Perhaps the Wenzhou dialect is actually more SOV than Mandarin? I don't know.

In Cantonese one not only fronts the object, but practically anything, thus:

魚呀買咗=買咗魚呀
出咗去呀佢=佢出咗去呀
唔舒服呀個胃=個胃唔舒服呀
做過喇應該要=應該要做過喇
尋日返來咋啱啱=啱啱尋日返來咋

Which is called "right-dislocation" by some linguists (cf. Stephen Matthews and ‎Virginia Yip, _Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar_, p.82). I don't know if this makes Cantonese more or less conservative than Mandarin in terms of syntax.


----------



## Skatinginbc

> 女孩兒根底水裡撇的人面情看覷着...


Object-fronting: 
棄女於水 ==> 女孩兒根底水裡撇 (把女嬰往水裡扔, 把女嬰拋棄在水裡) ==> Object + VP
顧其情面 ==> 面情看覷着 ==> Object + Verb. 


Ghabi said:


> "right-dislocation"...I  don't know if this makes Cantonese more or less conservative than  Mandarin in terms of syntax.


In terms  of object-fronting, Cantonese is more conservative than Mandarin  (劉丹青, 2001, 漢語方言的語序類型比較, 《現代中國語研究》2期).  According to 劉, 粵語受事前置不發達, 處置式不發達, 並有處所後置的特點.  For instance, 
笑至腹鳩 ==> Cantonese 笑到肚都挛, Mandarin 把肚子都笑疼了.
前往上京 ==> Cantonese 去上京, *到上京去; Mandarin 到上京去.
True SOV structures exist in Mandarin dialects (e.g, 蘭銀官話), for instance, 
 此非吾物 ==> 蘭銀官話: 這個東西我的不是.  北京官話: 這個東西不是我的.
吾已喚其来也 ==> 蘭銀官話: 我他哈(object marker)叫来了。 北京官話: 我把他叫来了.


Ghabi said:


> Perhaps the Wenzhou dialect is actually more SOV than Mandarin?


Yes,  the Wu language, especially the Southern Wu, exhibits more SOV-like  structures than Mandarin does.  It is however not a heirloom of Archaic  Chinese.  According to 劉丹青, it is a later development within the Wu  language motivated by generalization of sub-topicalization (次话题化之泛化).

Conclusion: So far as this syntactic aspect is concerned, Cantonese is indeed closer to Classical Chinese.


----------



## fyl

Skatinginbc said:


> 笑至腹鳩 ==> Cantonese 笑到肚都挛, Mandarin 把肚子都笑疼了.
> 前往上京 ==> Cantonese 去上京, *到上京去; Mandarin 到上京去.


What you are discussing is too professional for me.
However, I want to point out that in Mandarin 笑得肚子疼 is much more natural than 把肚子都笑疼了. And 前往上京、去上京、到上京去 are all very idiomatic in Mandarin. So it should be
笑至腹鳩 ==> Cantonese 笑到肚都挛, Mandarin 笑得肚子疼 (or 笑得肚子都疼了 if you want the 都).
前往上京 ==> Cantonese 去上京, *到上京去; Mandarin 去上京, 到上京去.

And I don't even think the 把 structure should be counted, because it is a special structure. You have ruled out special structures in classic Chinese (...although focused fronting does exist, it is typically marked by a particle (e.g., 唯, 之, 是 as in 敗臣是憂) or associated with certain constructions (e.g., interrogation, patient-verb constructions, etc.)...)

For grammar preference, there are significant differences between *person and person*. Everyone has his/her own speaking and writing style even if they have exactly the same mother tongue. Sometimes it is quite easy to identify a writer using the special grammar structures he or she prefers to use. It is way too unfounded to make any kind of assumptions or conjectures about dialects or languages with just a few examples. Let alone "conclusion".


----------



## Skatinginbc

fyl said:


> Mandarin 笑得肚子疼


What I meant was that it  is possible to place 肚 in front of 笑 in Mandarin by using the 把  construction, but it is not so in Cantonese, and it is possible to place  上京 in front of 去 in Mandarin, but not so in Cantonese.  


fyl said:


> I don't even think the 把 structure should be counted, because it is a  special structure.


When translating a foreign text into Chinese, we all try to employ grammatical structures that already exist in Chinese.   And yet translation works often betray the fact that they are  translations.  Why?  It is not because the structures we use are absent in  Chinese (e.g., relative clauses _do_ exist in Chinese), but  because they are used in a somewhat unnatural or unusual way (e.g., too  complicated, too lengthy, too frequent, etc.).  Although 將 and 把 structures, which are handy tools in translating a foreign SOV sentence (e.g., 女孩兒根底水裡撇 ==> 將女嬰丟入河中, 把女嬰拋棄在水裡), already exist in Middle Chinese, the overuse of them could be a sign of linguistic interference.  

Classical Chinese: 賣國之徒 natural, *將國賣之徒 unnatural. 
Mandarin: 出賣國家的人 natural, 把國家出賣了的人 acceptable.

Classical Chinese: 溺嬰者, *將嬰溺者 
Mandarin: 溺斃嬰兒的人, 把嬰兒溺斃的人.

Classical Chinese: 笑至腹鳩, *將腹笑揪
Mandarin: 笑得肚子疼, 把肚子笑疼了



Ghabi said:


> "right-dislocation"...I don't know if this makes Cantonese more or less conservative than Mandarin in terms of syntax.


Indeed, if we bring other syntactic aspects into the picture, we'll have a hard time determining which dialect is more conservative.  By the way, why is 魚呀買咗 (from 買咗魚呀) considered "right-dislocation"?  To me, it looks like topicalization, a left-dislocation.


----------



## EConan

It is hard to compared the Mandarin and southern dialect right now. The mandarin now has been standardized organized so it is trying to keep as close to the writtens ways and form that it makes it like formal written from the past combine with how modern people are comfortable with. Mandarin was know as the new Chinese language as well and Certain words are added in that was not used in the past. So let say if in the past, if Cantonese was standardized language,  they might change in to more formal speech and it might not be spoken the same way as now in structure wise. Even the Hong Kong Cantonese and Guangdong cantonese are different now. 

Regardless which is more ancient, the current Mandarin and Cantonese will eventually be history at one point due to tonation will continue to varies. If we go back in time just 80 years ago, the Mandarin That was shown at that time might also be different from written Chinese and there structure of how it is used in the colloquial speech might be very different.  It can be more different or more similar to ancient Chinese. Written can be very misleading because in the past,  most people are illiterate and that might speaking different than how they writes. Most of the writing are from scholars. Plus most of the Chinese are killed and even if we combine all the dualects of China,  you will not able to recreate the ancient chinese due to that each dialect does not have anything that is more than 5% of the original Chinese. Even today,  if there are words that you never used in Chinese, they are slowly disappearing and you don't know. New words, colloquial, and slang are affecting today's Mandarin and other dialects. Even the "a" sound, day by day the tone and the ways it supposed to be pronounce is slightly changing without noticing it. If we can travel in time to 100 years, you might see words pronunciation will slightly change and new phrase that you might not even know. This is a world of change,  there is no way things will remains the same. Even a 1000 years from now,  we can't guarantee if America will not change and if the Chinese government will be the same. If it changes, the language might have a big different. As time goes by,  the language will just move farther and farther away from original. Plus, many lisguistic researcher might be biased. If like someone mention,  many lisguistic researcher only study knows Mandarin and not other dialect, then how can they be professional without a true understanding the language they are comparing with. So most of the things mentioned by them are opinion.

For things to make sense,  if you are taught that way,  it will just make sense. So if people are taught "i am home" is "fu d st", once they are taught that,  it just consider make sense while now it does not make so. It is evolution of language. We don't really need to care about it that much. It would be best to keep all the remaining dialect of china for reference try to instead of trying to destroy all other dialects. My only bad opinion about China is that they don't know how to appreciate the dialect that still exist as if it is an art,  historical treasures, and other studies. There is no point of the discussion if the other dialects or Chinese that are not official being disrespected  and leave it to died out.


----------

