I love listening to Cantonese from watching Hong Kong movies. Being a Singaporean I have lately been trying to speak Hokkien to Chinese hawkers when I order food from them. I feel kind of proud of myself when They understand exactly what I want.
Interesting. I learned that Hokkien has ancient roots and gained prominence during the Tang Dynasty in China. It has significantly influenced languages such as Japanese and Korean, making it a legendary or 'mother' language in the region.
Penang Hokkien is going to vanish after 40 years when old people like me passed away. Although my kid can speak Penang Hokkien but I am the only person who speak to him. Most of his friends could not speak Penang Hokkien. Their parents are too emphasise on Mandarin. Even if my kid and his friend, both can speak Hokkien but they will speak Mandarin with each other. Future, their kids will no longer understand Hokkien at all unless I take care of them. Sad but it is reality.
Very true. It used to be you can differentiate Pg hokkien kia with other hokkien lang, noe all speak msian mandarin. Still have remnants on Pg island znd those who hv migrated to KL and other cities in the world. We Pg kia can still be found in places like Vancouver or Victoria!
Very true.. we in medan too. Nowadays medan tenglang kiddos speak more fluently malay/indo and english than their mothers tongue language. Damn, we must keep this legacy alive forever for our identity though it is useless.
Haha even in hokkien province young people no longer speak hokkien anymore as well😢i am a hokkien local, for me and my peers we only switch to hokkien when speaking with elders.
Not really pre-loaded the moment you were born. Most likely due to what you been hearing since the day you were born. Likewise I speak Cantonese and a bit of Mandarin but I CANNOT read or write Chinese, not even my own name. Was I pre-loaded? No, it is just that I have been hearing Cantonese since the day I was born. So if i was adopted by a Hokkien or Tamil speaking family, I too would be able to speak Hokkien/Tamil. Nothing do to with pre-loaded.
Aside from speaking Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, and Mandarin, here in Malaysia, it is easy to pick up simple words from others. Danyavad, Nandri, Kaponkhap, Kam unh, Zeusedinbahdae, Selamat if we make a small effort to practice every time we meet them because they are everywhere. Bangladeshi, Indian, Thai, Myanmar, Philippino.
Linguists do not consider Hokkien and Cantonese as dialects but languages. They may share the same writing system as Mandarin but they are not dialects , just as German is not a dialects of English . Languages with similarities belong to a definite group, e.g. English and German are in the Germanic group while French and Spanish belong to the Romance group. There are different varieties of the languages such as Hong Kong Cantonese, Penang Hokkien.
Hokkien and Cantonese are indeed dialects not languages. Their written script is Mandarin. Mandarin is a language. Both German and English have their own written scripts and are therefore considered languages and not dialects.
Chinese(script) is a language, mandarin is merely one version of chinese and thus it is technically a dialect if you treat hokkien and cantonese as dialects. Although officially it is treated as a language, however this is only because it is recognised by governmental bodies as the official communication medium and thus if we neglect that point, it is debatable whether mandarin is a dialect or a language
@@twilight6460Do your research before commenting. Quanzhou Hokkien or Singapore/Taipei/Klang Hokkien is derived from Ancient Chinese while Mandarin is derived from Middle Chinese. Much has been lost in the transition to Mandarin including the beauty of ancient Chinese poetry and the examples pointed out by the Speaker.
By that measure, ALL Malaysians can't speak ANY language properly. At least that's the case when they are in Malaysia. Malaysia is a melting pot. That's how it is for ages. I just accept it.
Correction, they are dialects not languages because they use the same script. It is like the Cockneys, Yorkshire and BBC English. Orally a little different but with the same script. Even amongst Cantonese there are subdialects like the Shunde versus Jiangmen or Panyu Cantonese.
It is true that there is a lot of debate over the line between languages and dialects nowadays. I would say that it depends on which types of Chinese you are comparing. Mandarin, Cantonese and Hokkien are definitely not dialects in the sense that they are mutually intelligible, or in your words "orally a little different". They are extremely different orally, but similar when written down. But if script were the only deciding factor for whether a language can be considered a dialect, then languages such as Korean or Vietnamese would be considered dialects of Chinese as they can still technically be written with Chinese characters.
@@turboslayer7417 Yep. Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese can be considered as dialects, not languages, because they are in the Sinosphere. They copied quite a lot from the Chinese language Mandarin. 70% of the Japanese characters are in fact Mandarin characters.
@@twilight6460 There is no evidence that Hokkien and Cantonese are dialects. Hokkien and Cantonese have been around for more than a thousand years and Mandarin is merely an Manchurian languages being brought into China in less than 300 years.
Yes indeed. Quite narrow minded. Should do more research on other Chinese dialects. 變調 Tone Sandhi is present in almost all tonal languages. I honestly don’t know why the audience was laughing.
