Vocabulary The bulk of the vocabulary, especially more formal or technical language etc. is the same – i.e. written with the same characters but pronounced in Cantonese: ‘library’: ‘hospital’: ‘conference’: ‘city centre’:
图书馆 医院 会议 市中心
M: tú shūguǎn
C: toùh-syù-gún
M: yīyuàn
-yún C: yī -yún
M: huìyì
C: wuih-yíh
M: shì zhōngxīn
C: síh jùng-sàm
Central to Cantonese are a number of words which are different and cannot be written in standard Chinese characters or read out in Mandarin. These are marked in red. Shared words are in green. ‘I like her’:
我喜欢他
M: W ŏ xǐhuan tā.
C: Ngóh (hóu hóu)) jùngyi kéuih.
If Mandarin words are simply read out with their Cantonese pronunciation it sounds to a Cantonese listener like reading out formal written Chinese. e.g. 我喜欢他, above, would be read in Cantonese as Ngóh héifùn ta. This is not spoken Cantonese and would be used for instance for reading aloud from a book. Songs also use some Mandarin elements such as the possessive 的 dìk . The reverse is not possible: characters which exist only to write Cantonese cannot be read out with a Mandarin pronunciation. Some words exist in both dialects but are used differently: ‘eat/food’: 食
Mandarin: shí ; Cantonese: sihk Used in Mandarin in nouns only: 食物 shíwù ‘food’, shítáng ‘food hall’, shípǐn ‘foodstuffs’. Used in Cantonese as nouns and as the verb ‘to eat’: sihk faahn – ‘to eat rice’. àn. Read out in Cantonese In Mandarin, the verb is 吃 chī - ‘eat rice’ is 吃 饭 chīf àn pronunciation this would be hek faahn, which sounds like reading a book aloud, not spoken Cantonese. 食饭 shí fàn is not possible in Mandarin. “Thank you” M: 谢谢 the Cantonese equivalent is not used. C: 多谢 dòjeh (‘many thanks’) can also be used in Mandarin: duōxi è. Cantonese also has the expression mh gòi for saying ‘thank you’ for services. Mandarin has no equivalent.
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The personal pronouns in Mandarin and Cantonese:
I, me
Manda rin wŏ
you
nǐ
he, she, it
tā
plural
-men
Standard green
characters
in
我 你 他，她， 它 们
Cantonese
Special Cantonese Canto nese characters charact ers in red
ngóh néih
我 你
kéuih
佢
-deih
哋
The verb ‘to be’ is haih. The use of a word beginning beginning with h- for ‘to be’ is characteristic of southern Chinese dialects. -3-
Written Cantonese Cantonese is primarily a spoken dialect without the status of a national language. It has no status outside Hong Kong. In Hong Kong its status is uncertain – the national languages are stated as English and “Chinese”. It is possible to represent spoken Cantonese in a mixture of 1) standard Chinese characters for the many shared words, 2) specially invented characters for the specifically Cantonese words, 3) standard Chinese characters used only for their sound and 4) Roman letters where no character can be found or invented. Examples of specially invented characters (2): 唔 mh ‘not’, the Cantonese equivalent of bù 不:
̀
‘not good/let’s not/don’t…’ 唔好 mh hóu hóu… …
̀
冇 móuh, ‘not have’, the Cantonese Cantonese equivalent of 没有 méiyŏu: ‘I have no money’ C: Ngóh móuh chìhn. 我冇钱。 M: W ŏ méiyou qián . 我没有钱。 时间唔 唔去。 heui.. 冇时间 ‘No time, let’s not go’ C: Móuh sìhgaan mh heui M: Méiyou shíjian bú qù. 没有时间不去。
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Special Cantonese characters cannot be read by a Mandarin speaker who does not know the Cantonese Cantonese words wor ds they represent. Examples of use of Roman letters where no character has been invented (4): 去 wet wet ((hoei wet ) ‘go partying’ 佢想 dup 我 (Kéuih séung dahp ngóh) ‘He tried to clout me’. Written Cantonese appears in HK in sociolinguistically lower level writing and where it is important to represent the local local vernacular vernacular e.g. cartoons, adverts, gossipy columns, text messaging etc. For serious writing, Cantonese is not used. It is translated into Mandarin, replacing Cantonese words such as móuh, mh and jùngyi with their Mandarin equivalents: méiyou, bù and xǐhuan respectively, and changing the vocabulary and style in the process. A Cantonese speaker reading aloud a book written in standard Chinese may reverse the process and re-word it extensively to render it in colloquial Cantonese.
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Traditional vs. simplified characters Traditional characters are often falsely equated with Cantonese. The choice of script is not related to the dialect except by the association between Hong Kong and traditional characters. Mandarinspeaking Taiwan also uses traditional characters, as did the PRC and Singapore before 1956. Simplified characters date from 1956 when they were introduced into the PRC and Singapore with the aim of promoting literacy. The number of characters and the number of strokes were reduced. Traditional characters are used in HK and Taiwan Taiwan because the governments governments of these places never followed suit. The two character sets are equivalent and merely indicate where the text was produced, nothing linguistically significant. -4-
‘library’:
Traditional: 圖書館 (Tw/HK) M: tú shūguǎn (PRC/Tw/Sing.)
Simplified:图书馆 (PRC/Sing.) C: toùh-syù-gún (HK)
Simplified characters are based on running script, fast handwriting style ( xíngsh ū). Traditional characters characters are the form standardised c. 420 AD ( k āishū) with little or no change. Examples of simplified characters vs. traditional:
shū ‘book’
Traditional: 書
Simplified: 书
bǐ ‘pen, brush’
Traditional: 筆
Simplified: 笔
huà ‘draw’
Traditional: 畫
Simplified: 画
The bulk of simplifications involve regular changes to the radical affecting all the characters with that radical. For example the traditional ‘food/eat’ radical 飠 becomes running script 饣: fàn ‘rice’
Traditional: 飯
Simplified: 饭
yǐn ‘drink’
Traditional: 飲
Simplified: 饮
The traditional ‘gold’ radical 釒 becomes running script 钅: qián ‘money’
Traditional: 錢
Simplified: 钱
tóng ‘bronze’
Traditional: 銅
Simplified: 铜
A further simplification method is to choose a phonetic element with fewer strokes:
zhōng ‘clock’
Traditional: 鐘
Simplified: 钟
Some simplifications are unique to particular particular characters: ge (count word)
Traditional: 個
Simplified: 个
lóng ‘dragon’
Traditional: 龍
Simplified: 龙
wàn ‘10,000’
Traditional: 萬
Simplified: 万
guǎng ‘broad’
Traditional: 廣
Simplified: 广
chǎng ‘factory’
Traditional: 廠
Simplified: 厂
Another method of simplification is to use another, less common, character which has fewer strokes. The common word hòu ‘behind’ is written in traditional characters with its own character 後; in simplified script it is written 后, using the character which in traditional script is half the name of the Goddess of the Sea, Tin Hau 天后. In some cases, a number of traditional characters have been subsumed subsumed under one o ne simplified character, reducing the overall number of c haracters greatly.
-5-
Vocabulary The bulk of the vocabulary, especially more formal or technical language etc. is the same – i.e. written with the same characters but pronounced in Cantonese: ‘library’: ‘hospital’: ‘conference’: ‘city centre’:
图书馆 医院 会议 市中心
M: tú shūguǎn
C: toùh-syù-gún
M: yīyuàn
-yún C: yī -yún
M: huìyì
C: wuih-yíh
M: shì zhōngxīn
C: síh jùng-sàm
Central to Cantonese are a number of words which are different and cannot be written in standard Chinese characters or read out in Mandarin. These are marked in red. Shared words are in green. ‘I like her’:
我喜欢他
M: W ŏ xǐhuan tā.
C: Ngóh (hóu hóu)) jùngyi kéuih.
If Mandarin words are simply read out with their Cantonese pronunciation it sounds to a Cantonese listener like reading out formal written Chinese. e.g. 我喜欢他, above, would be read in Cantonese as Ngóh héifùn ta. This is not spoken Cantonese and would be used for instance for reading aloud from a book. Songs also use some Mandarin elements such as the possessive 的 dìk . The reverse is not possible: characters which exist only to write Cantonese cannot be read out with a Mandarin pronunciation. Some words exist in both dialects but are used differently: ‘eat/food’: 食
Mandarin: shí ; Cantonese: sihk Used in Mandarin in nouns only: 食物 shíwù ‘food’, shítáng ‘food hall’, shípǐn ‘foodstuffs’. Used in Cantonese as nouns and as the verb ‘to eat’: sihk faahn – ‘to eat rice’. àn. Read out in Cantonese In Mandarin, the verb is 吃 chī - ‘eat rice’ is 吃 饭 chīf àn pronunciation this would be hek faahn, which sounds like reading a book aloud, not spoken Cantonese. 食饭 shí fàn is not possible in Mandarin. “Thank you” M: 谢谢 the Cantonese equivalent is not used. C: 多谢 dòjeh (‘many thanks’) can also be used in Mandarin: duōxi è. Cantonese also has the expression mh gòi for saying ‘thank you’ for services. Mandarin has no equivalent.
̀
The personal pronouns in Mandarin and Cantonese:
I, me
Manda rin wŏ
you
nǐ
he, she, it
tā
plural
-men
Standard green
characters
in
我 你 他，她， 它 们
Cantonese
Special Cantonese Canto nese characters charact ers in red
ngóh néih
我 你
kéuih
佢
-deih
哋
The verb ‘to be’ is haih. The use of a word beginning beginning with h- for ‘to be’ is characteristic of southern Chinese dialects. -3-
Written Cantonese Cantonese is primarily a spoken dialect without the status of a national language. It has no status outside Hong Kong. In Hong Kong its status is uncertain – the national languages are stated as English and “Chinese”. It is possible to represent spoken Cantonese in a mixture of 1) standard Chinese characters for the many shared words, 2) specially invented characters for the specifically Cantonese words, 3) standard Chinese characters used only for their sound and 4) Roman letters where no character can be found or invented. Examples of specially invented characters (2): 唔 mh ‘not’, the Cantonese equivalent of bù 不:
̀
‘not good/let’s not/don’t…’ 唔好 mh hóu hóu… …
̀
冇 móuh, ‘not have’, the Cantonese Cantonese equivalent of 没有 méiyŏu: ‘I have no money’ C: Ngóh móuh chìhn. 我冇钱。 M: W ŏ méiyou qián . 我没有钱。 时间唔 唔去。 heui.. 冇时间 ‘No time, let’s not go’ C: Móuh sìhgaan mh heui M: Méiyou shíjian bú qù. 没有时间不去。
̀
Special Cantonese characters cannot be read by a Mandarin speaker who does not know the Cantonese Cantonese words wor ds they represent. Examples of use of Roman letters where no character has been invented (4): 去 wet wet ((hoei wet ) ‘go partying’ 佢想 dup 我 (Kéuih séung dahp ngóh) ‘He tried to clout me’. Written Cantonese appears in HK in sociolinguistically lower level writing and where it is important to represent the local local vernacular vernacular e.g. cartoons, adverts, gossipy columns, text messaging etc. For serious writing, Cantonese is not used. It is translated into Mandarin, replacing Cantonese words such as móuh, mh and jùngyi with their Mandarin equivalents: méiyou, bù and xǐhuan respectively, and changing the vocabulary and style in the process. A Cantonese speaker reading aloud a book written in standard Chinese may reverse the process and re-word it extensively to render it in colloquial Cantonese.
̀
Traditional vs. simplified characters Traditional characters are often falsely equated with Cantonese. The choice of script is not related to the dialect except by the association between Hong Kong and traditional characters. Mandarinspeaking Taiwan also uses traditional characters, as did the PRC and Singapore before 1956. Simplified characters date from 1956 when they were introduced into the PRC and Singapore with the aim of promoting literacy. The number of characters and the number of strokes were reduced. Traditional characters are used in HK and Taiwan Taiwan because the governments governments of these places never followed suit. The two character sets are equivalent and merely indicate where the text was produced, nothing linguistically significant. -4-
