Re: CHAT: IPA Question

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 12:37:10PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> H. S. Teoh scripsit:
>
> > Perhaps. I suppose it's a similar thing when Americans who have learned
> > Mandarin walk up to me and start speaking to me in this unnaturally thick
> > Beijing accent and wonder why I have trouble keeping myself from smiling.
>
> Hey, at least you understand Mandarin.  Here in NYC I would never assume
> that an ethnic Chinese person spoke anything but highly old-fashioned
> Taishan-style Cantonese, complete with the quadruple-long vowels
> at the end of a sentennnnnnnnnnce.
Actually, the Chinese-speaking population in Toronto used to be
predominantly Cantonese; but over the past few years, due to the influx of
immigrants from mainland China, I'm starting to hear Mandarin on the
streets, in the stores, etc..

> > Then there are subtle things like Hokkien tone 2 being 35 instead of 52 in
> > my hometown: pronouncing it as 52 is a "foreign accent"  and no local
> > would do such a thing. [...]
>
> All languages have things like that.  The question is, does everybody
> agree on what the topmost pronunciation is or not?
[snip]

Don't know about that. The locals are pretty proud of their own dialect,
and regard mainland Hokkien as archaic, Taiwanese as odd, and Singaporean
as just [ki~a5su1]. :-) (OK, I'm kidding... Singaporean Hokkien is
probably the closest thing to Penang Hokkien, so we're pretty much on
equal terms in that respect.) And of course, the Taiwanese have trouble
understanding us, and think that we're wayyy out there; and the
Singaporeans think we speak funny. So none of the groups really agree with
each other as to what is "right".

But, as is common among immigrant Chinese populations, the predominant
attitude is indifference. Each group just want to get the communication
across, who cares about linguistic nitpicks.  (Of course, when they get
home, they then proceed deride the other party for speaking funny and
boast of the feats they've to go through to figure out what the other
party was saying.)  The older folks may say mainland Hokkien is the most
"authentic", but the younger people think it's just out of date.


T

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