Re: modern Mandarin Chinese(s) (was Re: Futurese, Chinese, Hz of NatLangs, etc.)

At 3:39 am -0400 12/5/02, J Y S Czhang wrote:
>In a message dated 05/11/2002 09.29.39 PM, ray.brown@FREEUK.COM writes:
[snip]
>>Maybe J Y S Czhang can enlighten us further on this.
>
>    AFAIK, all of the above is true. And like I wrote just a couple days ago,
>I don't think one can safely say there is one kind of Mandarin as there are
>many variations of/on Mandarin and/or regionalects of _Putonghua_/ _
>guoyu_/_baihua_. Mandarin has mutated almost as much as all the mutant
>varieties of English! I guess just like some say there are different,
>differing "Englishes," there are Mandarins, too ;)
Perhaps it is because both languages are so tolerant of variation that they
are successful and both have so many speakers  :)

[snip]

>    I take after my dad :) but oh so much worse... I sound like an
>Americanized Britisher who learned Mandarin from a Cantonese who grew up in
>Malaysia. In another words, a really truly f***ed Mandarin.
Heehee - sounds as tho your 'Mandarin' is to mainland Chinese Mandarins
what Europanto is to European langs  :))

Pst - keep it quiet & don't tell the auxlangers (otherwise I'll need
several sets of asbestos suits), but Europanto is the only con-IAL worth
taking seriously  :)))

Ray.

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The median nature of language is an epistemological
commonplace.  So is the fact that every general
statement worth making about language invites a
counter-statement or antithesis.
                                 GEORGE STEINER.
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