Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Chinese dialects (was "re-formed" Latin Scripts)

From:Jonathan Chang <zhang2323@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 9, 2000, 19:40
In a message dated 2000/05/09 11:14:27 AM, Kou wrote:

>Given that much of the mutual unintelligibility of the dialects is primarily >grounded in pronunciation and word choice, wouldn't "'different' as Spanish >is from Portuguese" or some such be a more accurate analogy? With the unity >of the written form and the ever-tauted five thousand years of Chinese >history which most Han plug into, why place 'dialect' in quotes? If "Wu" and >"Yue" were still their own countries, I might be inclined to call them >separate languages for political reasons, but since they're not, and for the >most part, it's relex action, why bother? > >>Kou >
points conceded. truer analogy: as different as Portuguese & Spanish (& Italian?). =} <= wry smiley. re: politics, hehe: some Cantonese dream of an Autonomous Southern China (the hatred of the Manchus sometimes also includes the Mandarins. These Cantonese see the Mandarins as puritannical, authoritarian & a lil too much Confucianist... while the Mandarins have traditionally seen the Cantonese as voracious eaters ["Ah! Those rascaly Cantonese will eat anything not moving!!"] and as being a lil too smart(ass) for their own good.) zHANg