>>>>> On 10 Mar 91 03:13 GMT, k…@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Kok Yong Tan) said:
Kok> One interesting thing is that those are dialects of Chinese, not
Kok> separate languages. That means that the written forms mean
Kok> exactly the same but the pronounciation is different. This is
Kok> difficult to understand with a romanised language that has
Kok> alphabets but in a hieroglyphic (i.e. picture-based) language
Kok> like Chinese, it is possible. The closest analogy would be the
Kok> word "tomato": the Americans pronounce it "to-may-to" whilst the
Kok> British pronounce it "to-mah-to" (it’s spelled the same way but
Kok> pronounced differently).
This applies only to the written style of the language, which is
pretty close to one "dialect"’s (Mandarin) spoken form. For the
spoken forms of the various "dialects", a substantial number of the
words are not commonly the same root between the "dialects". To sum
up: many Chinese "dialects" are mutually unintelligible to the ear.
—
Dan_Jacob…@ATT.COM Naperville IL USA +1 708 979 6364
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
Dan_Jacob…@ATT.COM writes:
>>>>>> On 10 Mar 91 03:13 GMT, k…@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Kok Yong Tan) said:
>Kok> One interesting thing is that those are dialects of Chinese, not
>Kok> separate languages. That means that the written forms mean
>Kok> exactly the same but the pronounciation is different. This is
>Kok> difficult to understand with a romanised language that has
>Kok> alphabets but in a hieroglyphic (i.e. picture-based) language
>Kok> like Chinese, it is possible. The closest analogy would be the
>Kok> word "tomato": the Americans pronounce it "to-may-to" whilst the
>Kok> British pronounce it "to-mah-to" (it’s spelled the same way but
>Kok> pronounced differently).
>This applies only to the written style of the language, which is
>pretty close to one "dialect"’s (Mandarin) spoken form. For the
>spoken forms of the various "dialects", a substantial number of the
>words are not commonly the same root between the "dialects". To sum
>up: many Chinese "dialects" are mutually unintelligible to the ear.
>–
Here is an example: In mandarin EGG sounds something like "dan"
but in HAKA it is prounced "lawn". No resemblance at all but
same written word.
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>Dan_Jacob…@ATT.COM Naperville IL USA +1 708 979 6364
Actually, the written forms of Chinese dialects correspond only to the
extent that the morphemes are cognate. For example, the Mandarin and
Cantonese words for "I",woo, are cognate and are written with the
same character. The words for "he", ta and koei, are not cognate and
are written with different characters, when Cantonese is written, that is.
A Cantonese speaker can learn to read Mandarin with little difficulty,
but it is not strictly true that he or she need merely pronounce the
characters in Cantonese.
Bill
David Hansen writes:
…
>Here is an example: In mandarin EGG sounds something like "dan"
>but in HAKA it is prounced "lawn". No resemblance at all but
>same written word.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
…
That’s not correct. There are two Chinese charaters meaning `egg’, _dan4_
and _luan3_. In _ke4jia1 hua4_(Haka), they use _luan3_, which is unusual
for people who speak northern dialects such as Mandarin.
–
Shufeng Tan
Department of Chemical Engineering
Northwestern University
Email: t…@sunny.chem-eng.nwu.edu
Kok Yong Tan writes:
> the written forms mean
> exactly the same but the pronounciation is different. This is
> difficult to understand with a romanised language that has
> alphabets but in a hieroglyphic (i.e. picture-based) language
> like Chinese, it is possible. The closest analogy would be the
> word "tomato"
Numerals come close (as unrelated illustrations, not as explanations).
"7" doesn’t tell you how to say it, and it means what it means whether
you say it "seven", "sept", "siedem", "nana",…
–
Tom Wachtel (wach…@canon.co.uk)
In article <1991Mar12.200327.22…@garfield.cs.mun.ca> dav…@garfield.cs.mun.ca (David Hansen) writes:
>Here is an example: In mandarin EGG sounds something like "dan"
>but in HAKA it is prounced "lawn". No resemblance at all but
>same written word.
I think the Hakka word that you’re talking about is the word that’s pronounced
luan3 in Mandarin. This word is what is used in Korean. The Mandarin word
for ‘egg’ (dan4) is pronounced [t'an] in Hakka according to the Hanyu Fangyin
Zihui.
Jean Kim
>>>>> On 17 Mar 91 06:30:59 GMT, jinz…@garnet.berkeley.edu (Jean Kim) said:
Jean> In article <1991Mar12.200327.22…@garfield.cs.mun.ca> dav…@garfield.cs.mun.ca (David Hansen) writes:
>Here is an example: In mandarin EGG sounds something like "dan" but
>in HAKA it is prounced "lawn". No resemblance at all but same
>written word.
Jean> I think the Hakka word that you’re talking about is the word
Jean> that’s pronounced luan3 in Mandarin. This word is what is used
Jean> in Korean. The Mandarin word for ‘egg’ (dan4) is pronounced
Jean> [t'an] in Hakka according to the Hanyu Fangyin Zihui.
Guess what? In our variant of the Hakka language/dialect, the
corresponding word for the Mandarin word [dan4] is not used in daily
conversation. The word we use is [chun], which is written with the
same word as `spring’ in Mandarin. Also, the [lawn] word is used only
when you swear. It means `testicle’ in our version of the
language/dialect.
So, is our variant a dialect of the Hakka language/dialect
Khun Yee
—
—-
Name: Khun Yee Fung
Email: clip…@csd.uwo.ca
Paper Mail: Department of Computer Science
Middlesex College
The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, N6A 5B7 CANADA