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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Chinese dialects vs. Indoeuropean languages
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Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 01:35:13 GMT
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In article <4in2bc$qn0@hagar.aspentec.com>,
Tak To <TTO@RANKIN.aspentec.com> wrote:
>In <4imrvp$bps@agate.berkeley.edu> coby@euler.Berkeley.EDU writes:
>
>> In article <DoI2ot.H8o@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>> Daniel von Brighoff <deb5@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> >But Cantonese is the exception that proves the rule.  Despite intense 
>> >pressure from Mandarin, it possesses a standardised written form that 
>> >accurately reflects the spoken one.  
>> 
>> As I understand it, though, this standardized form (a product, I
>> believe, of Christian missionaries) is *not* what literate
>> Cantonese-speakers normally write in. 
>
>When I first read Mr von Brighoff's post, I thought he was referring to the
>informal system used in HK that uses various borrowed and invented characters
>(and sometimes English) to represent sounds in the Cantonese vernacular
>that have no representation in the formal written form.   Now that the
>Christian missionaries system is mentioned, I am confused.  What does Mr
>von Brighoff's "standard" refer to?

The system of writing used in Huang's _Speak Cantonese_, in Kwan's 
_Gw/ongj\auw^a j/in\aahm_, in the subtitles of most HK films, and in
the liner notes of my Leslie Cheung Gwok-wing album.  This "informal
system" doesn't seem to vary much between these different texts, despite
the differences in age (the Huang text is almost forty years old) and 
subject matter.

True, I haven't seen a novel or magazine written in this system, but
I'm hardly in an epicentre of Cantonese-language culture.

>(In any case, I don't think either system is qualified as "standard", since
>their use is very limited.)

The system is "standard" insofar as the same characters are used the
same way in the various applications of it.

>Tracing back a few steps in the thread, I become even more confused on what
>people mean by "standard".  I think at least some of the posts meant a
>standard in the pronounciation; i.e., some dialect/accent being recognized
>as proper or correct.  In this sense, Cantonese has a standard in that
>the Guangzhou/Hong Kong dialect/accent is recognized as the "proper"
>pronounciation; while Wu has no "standard" in that no one set of accent
>is universally recognized as "proper".  None of these have anything to
>do with the written form.

They do in that the written form is based on the spoken standard.  Mandarin
and Cantonese are the only two Chinese languages with both a spoken and
written standard.  Hoklo has the former (Amoy), but not the latter--but
give Ekki and his kin a few more years. ^_^



-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
