Hey guys,
When I write my blogs I will often to refer to things as Cantonese or as Mandarin, then other things as simply Chinese. Some of you may not know what I'm talking about exactly, so let me provide some brief background knowledge. I am in Hong Kong, China. Hong Kong used to be a British colony, but was handed back over to China in 1997. Ok. But Hong Kong remains a automonous region of China, so HK has its own curriencies, legal system, the whole nine yards. AND they drive on the left, which indicates previous British imperialism. So when I refer to mainland China, I am NOT referring to Hong Kong. I'm referring to the big ass country that you see on the map.
Ok. So, the official dialect of China (mainland China) is Mandarin. The Chinese language has several, several dialects, and Mandarin was made the standard dialect that all of mainland China should speak, in addition to their native dialect. Now, as I said, there are mad dialects in China. In fact, each province may have its own distinct dialect. The dialect that I will focus on now is Cantonese. Cantonese is the dialect native to the Guangdong (Canton) province in southern China. Now, this happens to be the very province that Hong Kong is in, technically. So, Hong Kong people are Cantonese in origin (mostly) and speak Cantonese.
Ok. So, when the Communist party took over China, they made Mandarin the official dialect. This meant that all provinces had to acquire Mandarin as well as their own dialects, if that wasn't the case already. So, people in the Guangdong province know Mandarin and Cantonese, even though they are Cantonese and NOT Mandarin. Now this is where HK's unique status comes in. Since Hong Kong was always a British colony, the official languages were always Cantonese and English. HK is geographically in the Guangdong Province, but the Communist gov't, of course, had no jurisdiction over Hong Kong.
But now, Mandarin is being pushed more and more as a language to learn in Hong Kong. Of course this is so, as Hong Kong is China now and Mandarin is China's language. You may not want to admit it, but this post has helped clarify a lot for some of you readers...
My Intro 2 Let U Know
Monday, March 3, 2008
Useful Background Knowledge
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1 comments:
Hi I'm Winston. We met at today's ELC lounge.
You've got an interesting blog here. :-)
I'd just like to add a few words. Actually, whether Cantonese and Mandarin are different dialects of the Chinese language, or distinct languages within a Chinese language family has been a matter of disputes. Of cuz, China wants to maintain that only one Chinese language is spoken across its vast territory, for obvious reasons, but most linguists say otherwise. As you'd have probably noticed while learning Cantonese and Mandarin, the two (let's say) languages are arguably more different than Portuguese is to French -- except that they share essentially the same set of characters. (but then the Korean language used to share this same set of characters too)
A probably lesser known story: when the old Republic of China was set up circa 1910s, there was a vote in the then Congress on the official dialect/language of China. Since the newly formed Republic was dominated by politicians from the South, in particular Guangdong (the place where China first met the West...), Cantonese was almost made the official language...only losing by one (although some claim three) vote. Gosh!
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