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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: More Essentialist Explanations
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Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 02:58:40 GMT
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Bravo!

Now, what I'd really like to see are essentialist descriptions of Chinese
dialects.  I've heard plenty of Southerners describe Mandarin as
"barbarian Chinese" or "Chinese spoken by Mongols"; so how do the
Mandarin speakers describe Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hoklo?  How do these
describe each others' speech?

While it's not quite an "essentialist" description parallel to the others
presented, the book _Snow Crash_ does include the following
characterisation of Cantonese:  "The man was speaking on the phone in
Cantonese, which is to say he was shouting."

I'm also trying to think how I would characterise Korean.  "Essentially
bad Japanese spoken by Mongols"?  Or is Japanese just Korean in the mouths
of little children?

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