Talk:Written Cantonese

"on corruption"

I quote: On the other hand, some of the characters have only been corrupted in Cantonese, not disappeared in Standard Chinese. For instance, the common word leng3 (meaning pretty) is usually written with the character 靚 in Cantonese (the character has another meaning in standard Chinese). The word should rather be written with the character 令, as 令 used as an adjective to mean "pretty" still survives in the idiom 巧言令色 (roughly meaning "skillful talk and pretty manners")."

I don't know if corruption is a NPOV statement. Also, 靚 can be pronounced Liang4 . The word 靚女 in mandarin means "a pretty woman." It isn't very colloquially however, and probably has classical roots. It may very well be that 靚 and 令 share the same root in the spoken language. BTW--The idiom you are citing comes from the Analeccts, and there are very few situations where "ling" mantains that meaning in modern standard Chinese.

207.76.182.20 20:15, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I started on a few changes but there are still a lot I want to do. I'll work more on it tomorrow. Here are some notes about the stuff I just did:

• Removed instances of characters that are not necessary (like the use of 字 and 詞 in the headings). Remember that this is an English site so most users cannot read Chinese anyway. The article should be written with that in mind.

• 是/不 and 係/唔 don't really mean yes/no. The better translation is probably "to be" and "not," respectively.

--Umofomia 08:18, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Diu"

"Examples: The word "diu", meaning "fuck" does not exist in standard Chinese". I suppose that's not exactly correct, as the word is written as 屌 or sometimes 鳥 in standard Chinese, though the characters are usually used as a noun to mean "penis".--K.C. Tang 04:38, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, 屌 means "dick" or "prick" in northern China, where "鳥" is used as a slang alternatively.

屌 can be a verb in southern China.

屌 can be an adjective in Taiwan, which means cool. -- Jerry Crimson Mann 06:33, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

So could I correct the article? :-D--K.C. Tang 09:31, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Be bold. :-) -- Jerry Crimson Mann 05:51, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

嘅

In anicent Chinese it was written as 忌, but I can't find the poem where it was mentioned.

geckokid 82.39.41.172 00:03, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I would have thought that 嘅 evolved from 個 as that character is used as a possessive in quite a few dialects as well. Also, some cantonese people still sound like they're saying 個 instead. But the use of 忌 is very interesting, hope you find it :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.147.43.82 (talk) 05:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

From Kangxi Zidian: 《正韻》吉器切，𠀤音懻。語助辭。《詩·鄭風》叔善射忌。"Zhengyun: Fanqie of 吉 and 器 (gei3), and sounds like 懻 (kei3). Grammatical particle. Poem by Zhengfeng: It is that uncle is good at shooting."As far as I know 嘅 is an actual possessive marker, while 個 is just a counter in the possessive construction SUBJECT+COUNTERofOBJECT+OBJECT.Micro01 (talk) 23:26, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

無 / 冇

The proper tone for 冇 is mou2, not mou5. I believe it's evolved from 唔有, m5 jau2 -> mau2. -spetz- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.44.195.34 (talk • contribs) 02:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC).

No, that's not true. 冇 is pronounced mou5, not mou2. 有 is also jau5, not jau2. 唔有 is not attested historically either. 冇 has its roots from 無 (mou4), a word that has been around for thousands of years, but the tone shifted to mou5 in order to align with the the tone of 有. Such tone alignment occurred in other Cantonese words as well, such as the pronouns 我 (ngo5), 你 (nei5), and 佢 (keoi5). I don't remember the reference where I originally read about this, but I believe 佢 used to be 4th tone (陽平) instead of 5th (陽上) as well. —Umofomia 05:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the confusion may possibly stem from the fact that 2nd and 5th tones are currently undergoing a merger in Hong Kong Cantonese. (Bauer, R., Cheung, K.-H., and Cheung, P.-M. 2003. Variation and merger of the rising tones in Hong Kong Cantonese. Language Variation and Change 15:211-225.) Mike barrie 07:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I always thought that 冇 mou5 evolved from 没有 (trad. 沒有) mut6 jau5. --71.141.156.137 (talk) 01:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

沒有 is a relatively new term in Chinese language comparing to 無. It is unlikely it is the root of 冇. — HenryLi (Talk) 04:35, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Which is understandable since the word "無" is homophonic in Mandarin to a bunch of other words. Hillgentleman (talk) 20:48, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

mess

this page is a mess, there's inconsistant romanization and misinformation I'm going to bookmark this and maybe fix it sometime —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.102.130.58 (talk • contribs) 17:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC).

standard chinese

"The development of new Cantonese characters is interesting linguistically, because they have never been subject to government standardization, in contrast to Standard Chinese, which has been regulated for over 2000 years. Therefore, a better understanding can be gained of the linguistics of how Chinese writing evolves, and how the script is modelled perceptually by the Chinese reader." What exactly is "standard chinese" in this paragraph? If it means standard mandarin, then no, definitely not for 2000 years! If it means "classical chinese", I have doubts that it has been regulated so strictly also

Simplified vs traditional

One thing that isn't clear from the article but obviously needs to be mentioned... I believe it's the case that most written Cantonese (particularly in Hong Kong) still generally uses the traditional form of characters from Standard Mandarin correct? Nil Einne (talk) 16:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

That was certainly my impression too. --FeralOink (talk) 20:37, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

merge

Way too much info at Standard Cantonese, more than here, which is supposed to be the 'main article'. Some should be moved here. kwami (talk) 21:30, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Newzebras plopped the entire thing at the end of this article. Am moving it here so that it can be properly merged.

material to merge

Cantonese is usually referred to as a spoken dialect, and not as a written dialect. Spoken vernacular Cantonese differs from modern written Chinese, which is essentially formal Standard Mandarin in written form. Written Chinese spoken word for word sounds overly formal and distant in Cantonese. As a result, the necessity of having a written script which matched the spoken form increased over time. This resulted in the creation of additional Chinese characters to complement the existing characters. Many of these represent phonological sounds not present in Mandarin. A good source for well documented Cantonese words can be found in drama and opera (大戲 daai hei) scripts. Written Cantonese is largely incomprehensible to non-Cantonese speakers because written Cantonese is based on spoken Cantonese which is different from Standard Mandarin in grammar and vocabulary.

"Readings in Cantonese colloquial: being selections from books in the Cantonese vernacular with free and literal translations of the Chinese character and romanized spelling" (1894) by James Dyer Ball has a bibliography of works available in Cantonese characters in the last decade of the nineteenth century. A few libraries have collections of so-called "wooden fish books" written in Cantonese character. Facsimiles and plot precis of a few of these have been published in Wolfram Eberhard's "Cantonese Ballads." See also "Cantonese love-songs, translated with introduction and notes by Cecil Clementi" (1904) or a newer translation of these Yue Ou in "Cantonese love songs : an English translation of Jiu Ji-yung's Cantonese songs of the early 19th century" (1992). Cantonese character versions of the Bible, Pilgrims Progress, and Peep of Day as well as simple catechisms were published by mission presses. The special Cantonese characters used in all these was not standardized and shows wide variation.

With the advent of the computer and standardization of character sets specifically for Cantonese, many printed materials in predominantly Cantonese speaking areas of the world are written to cater to their population with these written Cantonese characters. As a result, mainstream media such as newspapers and magazines have become progressively less conservative and more colloquial in their dissemination of ideas. Generally speaking, some of the older generation of Cantonese speakers regard this trend as a step "backwards" and away from tradition. This tension between the "old" and "new" is a reflection of a transition that is being undergone by the Cantonese-speaking population.

Standard written Chinese is, in essence, written Standard Mandarin. When standard written Chinese is read aloud with Cantonese sound values, the result sounds stilted and unnatural because it is different from normal spoken Cantonese. Written Cantonese is spoken Cantonese written as it is actually spoken. Unusual for a regional (i.e., non-Mandarin) Chinese language, Cantonese has a written form, developed over the last few decades in Hong Kong, and includes many unique characters that are not found in standard written Chinese. Readers who understand standard written Chinese but do not know Cantonese often find written Cantonese hard to understand or even unintelligible as it is different from standard written Chinese in grammar and vocabulary. However, written Cantonese is commonly used informally among Cantonese speakers. Circumstances where written Cantonese is used include conversations through instant messaging services, letters, notes, entertainment magazines and entertainment sections of newspapers, and sometimes subtitles in Hong Kong movies, and advertisements. It rarely finds its way into the subtitles of Western movies or TV shows, though The Simpsons is a notable exception. Cantonese Opera scripts also use the Cantonese written vernacular.

Historically, written Cantonese has been used in Hong Kong for legal proceedings in order to write down the exact spoken testimony of a witness, instead of paraphrasing spoken Cantonese into standard written Chinese. Newspapers have also done likewise to capture more exact quotes. Its popularity and usage has been rising in the last two decades, the late Wong Jim being one of the pioneers of its use as an effective written language. Written colloquial Cantonese has become quite popular in certain tabloids, online chat rooms, and instant messaging. Some tabloids like Apple Daily write colloquial Cantonese; papers may contain editorials that contain Cantonese; and Cantonese-specific characters can be increasingly seen on advertisements and billboards. Written Cantonese remains limited outside of Hong Kong, even in other Cantonese-speaking areas such as Guangdong, where the use of colloquial writing is discouraged. Despite the relative popularity of written Cantonese in Hong Kong, some disdain it, believing that being too accustomed to write in such a way would affect a person's ability to use standard written Chinese in situations that demand it.

Forms of written Chinese in Hong Kong:

1. Standard Written Chinese (traditional characters) used in Hong Kong SAR post-WWII Vernacular Reformation.
2. pakwa 日常白話 Colloquial Written Cantonese - currently used in journals, advertisements, etc. in Hong Kong SAR, overseas Cantonese Chinese communities.
3. Classical Cantonese Chinese - a reconstructed Neo-Classical written Chinese forms widely used in 1900s-90s Hong Kong in Cantonese opera lyrics, Cantonese Chinese poetic forms and especially in 80s cantopop.
4. Classical Chinese known as wenyanwen - a written Chinese form in poems and writings from the dynastic periods.

For colloquial vernacular usage, written Cantonese incorporates an entire range of characters and particles specific to the Cantonese spoken form. This is commonly used in publicity and journalistic writing in Hong Kong and Hong Kong-influenced regions. It reads exactly as formal spoken Cantonese.

For literary and artistic reasons (such as calligraphy), standard literary Chinese, the classical wenyanwan is used.

Records of legal documents in Hong Kong also use written Cantonese sometimes, in order to record exactly what a witness has said.

Colloquial Cantonese is rarely used in formal forms of writing; formal written communication is almost always in standard written Chinese, albeit still pronounced with Cantonese sound values. However, written colloquial Cantonese does exist; it is used mostly for transcription of speech in tabloids, in some broadsheets, for some subtitles, for personal diaries, and in other informal forms of communication such as Internet bulletin boards (BBS) or e-mails. It is not uncommon to see the front page of a Cantonese paper written in hanyu, while the entertainment sections are, at least partly, in Cantonese. The vernacular writing system has evolved over time from a process of modifying characters to express lexical and syntactic elements found in Cantonese but not the standard written language. In spite of their vernacular origin and informal use, these characters have become so common in Hong Kong that the Hong Kong Government has incorporated them into a special Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set (HKSCS), as the same as special characters used for proper nouns.

A problem for the student of Cantonese is the lack of a widely accepted, standardized transcription system. Another problem is with Chinese characters: Cantonese uses the same system of characters as standard written Chinese, but it often uses different words, which have to be written with different or new characters. An example of Cantonese using a different word and a different character to write it: the Mandarin word for "to be" is shì and is written as 是, but in Cantonese the word for "to be" is hai6 and 係 is used in written Cantonese (係 is xì in Mandarin). In standard written Chinese 是 is normally used, though 係 can be found in classical literature and modern legal writing. In Hong Kong, 係 is often used in colloquial written Cantonese and therefore actively avoided and discouraged in formal writing; on the other hand, the use of 係 is relatively widespread in both mainland China and in Taiwan, in government publications and product descriptions, for example.

Many characters used in colloquial Cantonese writings are made up by putting a mouth radical (口) on the left hand side of another more well known character to indicate that the character is read like the right hand side, but it is only used phonetically in the Cantonese context. The characters , 叻, 吓, 吔, 呃, 咁, 咗, 咩, 哂, 哋, 唔, 唥, 唧, 啱, 啲, 喐, 喥, 喺, 嗰, 嘅, 嘜, 嘞, 嘢, 嘥, 嚟, 嚡, 嚿, 囖 etc. are commonly used in Cantonese writing.

As not all Cantonese words can be found in current encoding system, or the users simply do not know how to enter such characters on the computer, in very informal speech, Cantonese tends to use extremely simple romanization (e.g. use D as 啲), symbols (add an English letter "o" in front of another Chinese character; e.g. 㗎 is defined in Unicode, but will not display in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, hence the proxy o架 is often used), homophones (e.g. use 果 as 嗰), and Chinese characters of different Mandarin meaning (e.g. 乜, 係, 俾 etc.) to compose a message.

For example, "你喺嗰喥好喇，千祈咪搞佢啲嘢。" is often written in easier form as "你o係果度好喇，千祈咪搞佢D野。" (character-by-character, approximately "you, be, there (two characters), good, (final particle), thousand, pray, don't, mess, he/she, genitive particle, thing"; translation: "It's okay that you're staying there, but please don't mess with his/her stuff").

Other common characters are unique to Cantonese or deviated from their Standard Chinese usage; these include: 乜, 冇, 仔, 佢, 佬, 係, 俾, 靚 etc.

The words represented by these characters are sometimes cognates with pre-existing Chinese words. However, their colloquial Cantonese pronunciations have diverged from formal Cantonese pronunciations. For example, in formal written Chinese, 無 (mou4) is the character used for "without". In spoken Cantonese, [冇] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help) (mou5) has the same usage, meaning, and pronunciation as [無] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help), differing only by tone. [冇] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help) is actually a hollowed out writing of its antonym ([[[:wikt:有|有]]] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help)). [冇] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help) represents the spoken Cantonese form of the word "without", while 無 represents the word used in formal Chinese writing (pinyin: wú) . However, 無 is still used in some instances in spoken Chinese in both dialects, like 無論 ("no matter what"). A Cantonese-specific example is the doublet [[[:wikt:來|來]]/嚟] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help), which means "to come". [來] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help) (loi4) is used in formal writing; [嚟] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help) (lei4) is the spoken Cantonese form.

加 = 叻?

I noticed that in the handy little speech particles list, someone claimed 叻 is Singapore. If I am not mistaken, they have got this mixed up with 加. One is "lek" ("smart/clever"), the other is "chia/jia" (add/plus). Whoever put that there, it is wrong. ★Dasani★ 01:01, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Cantonese Words

• Mandarin: 很 (adv. very) - Cantonese: 好

Took the liberty, but Mandarin uses "好" for a similar if not same meaning, too. ex: 好多, 好快, etc.

Hm, like "pretty" in English. — kwami (talk) 12:34, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

唔 is not the Cantonese pronunciation of 不

In Old Chinese, "not" is pronounced as "ma". Source Other Tai-kadai languages uses "mai", "mi" and "me" as the marker of negation.Source. Look at item 37 You can even see it in Tibetan, which they use "ma"མ་ as negation marker. source (from Amdo Colloquial Tibetan) Danielsms (talk) 20:27, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not the pronunciation, but it's the word used: in Cantonese 唔 is used where 不 would be used in Mandarin and Vernacular Chinese. The other words are similar (though 他 is a bit more complex as two other characters in Vernacular Chinese that correspond to 佢). The example given is interesting as although there are relatively few such differences they tend to be very common words, so it's easy to form sentences which feature them as here. So I've restored the Synonyms section as it's perfectly correct as far as it goes.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 20:57, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Similar but not the same thing. The "ma" is not from the word "不". The scholars are still researching what is the original Chinese characters. 他 is 他. 渠 is 渠. That part confuses people that Cantonese just pronounces the words differently. It blinds people from the fact that these are different words. That part is just too misleading. "replaced x with y"..... Actually y is much much older than x, as you can see by the fact that Tibetan are using it. You can see how old it is. 佢 is the variant of 渠, which is also used in Wu (Zhejiang) and Hakka.
Even the Tibetan uses 渠 The pronunciation of 渠：

in Wu (Zhejiang), - gei
in Hakka (Canton area) - Ky
in Cantonese - Keoi (The K in here is acutally a Kh)
In Thai:Khao
In Tibetan: Kho

Also, 哋 is the variant of 等. In Wu and Hakka, "them" is also called "佢等". Danielsms (talk) 21:22, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I've changed it. The wording in the original article seems to imply that Cantonese just love replacing words and sound low-class.Danielsms (talk) 22:03, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I've seen Tibetan use something like "嘅" ge in describing procession. I confirm that Wu also use the same "嘅" but they write as "个". I will write it later.Danielsms (talk) 22:12, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I think your changes are misplaced and unnecessary. The point of that section – in fact of most of the article – is to highlight the differences between Vernacular Chinese and written Cantonese. The former is what many people think of as "written Chinese", as it's not only the written form of Mandarin but it's the written form used even by Cantonese speakers much of the time. But it's not a precise match for spoken Cantonese, so written Cantonese, which exists for various reasons, is different in the ways described.

My problem with your changes is they do nothing to help describe this. You've removed some of the examples of common words that are different between Cantonese and Vernacular Chinese/Mandarin, and added information on other languages with no context to explain why it's relevant. If it's to do with the history that's the previous section, but even there your miscellaneous translations would be irrelevant without much explanation to give context, and so be too much for the section.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 23:27, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I've asked for a third opinion on this, as I don't think we will agree what's needed without it.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 23:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that 'replaced' is a problematic word, as it can imply a historical process which has not happened. The words are not cognate, and so are written with different characters. Also, Tibetan is irrelevant--if the doubts that Chinese is related to Tibeto-Burman pan out, that shouldn't affect the discussion on the difference between written Mandarin and written Cantonese. — kwami (talk) 01:18, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I have studied Chinese dialectology and etymology. Let me take a look at the diffs and see what is helpful information for English-speaking readers of this article about a language that will be unfamiliar to most readers of English Wikipedia. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:23, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Now I've had more time to look at the article, which includes some very interesting information about writings I've seen when visiting Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Let's make sure to distinguish the issue of which words are cognate from the issue of which Han characters are used to write sometimes cognate and sometimes noncognate words among the different Sinitic languages. I'll so some editing of the article in a while. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 22:16, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, "ng" probably evolved from "wu" given many "wu"s in Putonghua are pronounced "ng" in Cantonese. 81.159.181.144 (talk) 03:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Cantonese is older than Mandarin, so that couldn't possibly be true. Mandarin has no ng- initial. All words that started with ng- became w- (我, Cantonese "ngo") or y-(鱼, Cantonese "jyu"; all words that started with ngi- became j- in Cantonese). Cantonese "ng" corresponds to Mandarin "wu" because Cantonese "ng" is actually "ngu"; over time this -u became silent. This also explains how 毋 (mu) became 唔 (m). 76.66.20.221 (talk) 04:04, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to WeijiBaikeBianji for pointing out the need to distinguish between spoken words and written characters. There's related further confusion in the Synonyms section; see discussion below. I hope you or someone who knows the material, as I do not, can clean it up properly. --Thnidu (talk) 15:30, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

In names?

I'm just curious, do Cantonese people ever use written Cantonese characters to name their children? --164.67.190.148 (talk) 22:40, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

No is the short answer. Akerbeltz (talk) 13:55, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Synonyms

This section as written is nonsensical, or at best obscure to a reader who doesn't know Chinese. [Numbering added for discussion.]:

Some characters used to represent words in Cantonese are synonyms of words used in standard written Chinese. For example,

1. the character for "not" (不) is the synonym of 唔,
2. the third-person pronoun (他 "he/she") is a synonym of 佢,

Synonyms are different words in the same language/variety that have almost identical or similar meanings. But the basis of this article is that Cantonese is not the same as Standard Chinese either in spoken or in written form; and therefore we should speak of "equivalents" or "translations", not of "synonyms". From studying the example chart, I think that the writer meant something like this:

1. Written Cantonese uses 唔 (Yale romanization: m̀h) for "not", corresponding to Mandarin 不 (Pinyin: bú). Similarly:
2. Cantonese 佢 (keúih) "he/she" corresponds to Mandarin 他 (tā)

and so on.

The paragraph should be corrected and retitled, perhaps along these lines, by someone who knows Cantonese; and the writing should be checked by someone with a good command of English idiom and the terminology used. --Thnidu (talk) 13:44, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Please cite sources for late Wong Jim as pioneer of written Cantonese

I'm unsure why famous pop singer Wong Jim is described as being a pioneer of written Cantonese. I can think of some scenarios why this might be true. However, since Wong Jim was a singer, there is the implication of oral tradition. Now I do realize that Wong Jim was not a flighty pop star. He was a graduate of LaSalle or a similar college, and WP says that he even studied, perhaps completed a Ph.D. program in sociology. Yet the statement in Section 1: History should be elaborated upon with at least a sentence of explanation. --FeralOink (talk) 20:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Romanisation

The romanisation of Cantonese is pretty inconsistent. Some pages, like this one, are completely in Yale, but others are in Jyutping. Some of the best resources in Cantonese, like CantoDict, are Jyutping-preferred. I would like to change the romanisations on this page to Jyutping, or at least add them alongside the existing Yale entries.

70.190.51.10 (talk) 14:43, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Different translations -- why?

I don't understand the reasoning for this section:

Is it theirs? Language Characters Romanization Transliteration Literal meaning Cantonese 係唔係佢哋嘅？ Yale haih m̀h haih keúih deih ge? Be, not be theirs (s/he plural possessive)? Mandarin 是不是他們的？ Pinyin Shì bú shì tāmen de? Is [the aforementioned thing] theirs (s/he plural possessive)?

Why are the "literal meanings" given different? While, yes, this illustrates that Cantonese uses different words than Mandarin, grammatically, this sentence is the same in both languages. The individual words are all synonyms of each other. Am I missing something?