![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muckefuckRecently, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pne mused:
But first of all, a clarification: It's a common misconception that the Chinese writing system "unifies" the dialects. In other words, everyone writes the same, but substitute the local pronunciations of the characters when they read aloud. Well, they do all write more-or-less the same, but that's only because the Chinese situation is a classic case of diglossia. Standard Chinese is the written language everywhere, no matter what the local vernacular is. But turning something written into spoken language requires more alterations than pronunciation substitutions. Imagine, say, being given an Italian text and having to read it aloud as Spanish, and you'll get some idea of what's involved.
Now on to the examples. I'll skip over loanwords, which are both two numerous to mention and difficult to identify with certainty, and on to borrowed grammatical morphemes:
I'm not surprised to see "formal" and "literary" registers equated in this way--that practically follows from the definition of diglossia. It is interesting, however, to find that this register is common in song texts (by which I assume the author means those syrupy love ballads which flood the airways and karaoke parlours under the name of Cantopop). I wonder how many of these are composed in Standard Chinese (the language of all the but the most informal writing) and then modified more-or-less on the fly when sung.
pne mused:Oh, and I wonder whether spoken Cantonese is influenced by the written language?Is there any spoken language that isn't? (That is, any spoken language coexisting with near-universal literacy; the Pirahã certainly never need worry about spelling pronunciations and calques.) Philip knows this already, so I took it as a request for concrete details. Fortunately, there are some scattered throughout Yip and Matthews' Cantonese: a comprehensive grammar and I had the free time last night to find them.
But first of all, a clarification: It's a common misconception that the Chinese writing system "unifies" the dialects. In other words, everyone writes the same, but substitute the local pronunciations of the characters when they read aloud. Well, they do all write more-or-less the same, but that's only because the Chinese situation is a classic case of diglossia. Standard Chinese is the written language everywhere, no matter what the local vernacular is. But turning something written into spoken language requires more alterations than pronunciation substitutions. Imagine, say, being given an Italian text and having to read it aloud as Spanish, and you'll get some idea of what's involved.
Now on to the examples. I'll skip over loanwords, which are both two numerous to mention and difficult to identify with certainty, and on to borrowed grammatical morphemes:
The Mandarin word -men [們], read in Cantonese as mùhn, may be used in formal register, e.g. tùhnghohk-mùhn 'fellow students'. (p. 80)[Comment: 們 men is a collective suffix, used in Mandarin with both pronouns and animate nouns. The corresponding Cantonese morpheme is 哋 deih, which however is limited to pronouns and proper names.]
dīk is the Cantonese reading for Mandarin de [的] and is used in formal Cantonese, for example in songs: Ngóh dīk yāt sāang [我的一生] 'my whole life'. (p. 107)[Comment: The corresponding Cantonese morpheme is 嘅 ge.]
bāt, the Cantonese reading for the Mandarin negative marker bù, is heard in some fixed expressions adopted from Mandarin, such as: bāt tìhng gám haam [不停噉喊] 'cry without stopping' bāt hó sī-yíh [不可思議] 'unthinkable'.There are also syntactic influences, most notably in the passive. [Both Mandarin and Cantonese form passives with 被 bèi/beih, but only Spoken Cantonese grammar requires an explicit agent, supplying the generic 人 yàhn "person" when necessary.]
bāt may also be substituted for m̀h to give a literary quality, for example in songs: Ngóh bāt sé dāk léih [我不捨得你] (p. 248)
Passives without an agent are occasionally used under the influence of Mandarin, for example in news reporting or in a literary context: Júhngguhng yáuh ńgh go chaahkyàhn beih bouh [總共有五個賊人被捕] 'Altogether five thieves were arrested' Kéuih ge tīnchòih yātjihk beih màaihmuht-jó [佢嘅天才一直迷殁被咗] 'His talents have always been hidden'. (p. 150)They also suggest (p. 202) that the Cantonese use of 喺度 háidouh "be [in a place]" before a main verb to express the progressive aspect is due to Standard Chinese influence. (The corresponding aspect in Standard Chinese is expressed by placing 在 zai "be [in a place]" to the main verb. Cantonese--but not Mandarin--can also express the progressive by suffixing 緊 gán to the main verb.)
I'm not surprised to see "formal" and "literary" registers equated in this way--that practically follows from the definition of diglossia. It is interesting, however, to find that this register is common in song texts (by which I assume the author means those syrupy love ballads which flood the airways and karaoke parlours under the name of Cantopop). I wonder how many of these are composed in Standard Chinese (the language of all the but the most informal writing) and then modified more-or-less on the fly when sung.
Tags: