Cantonese, Is It A Language, Or A Dialect?! Linguistics Cant See Eye To Eye!

[Sugar&Spice]

I love linguistics. And I love to debate them. I have not seen a linguistic debate on what I'm about to bring up, so I thought I would post it up. It is a basic, and most argued about topic among people who love linguistics. So I wanted to see how many people like to debate linguistics here as well. So let me hear everyones take on this topic. Ok?! Here we go.

Cantonese in my opinion is a dialect. It is from the sino-tiben family. Many like to say that it is not a dialect but rather a language. So the vote is split.

People who speak the Wu, Min, and Hakka. Dialect insist that they are speaking a language. Now we have to look at the grammer, phonology, and prody. Of these dialects and how widespread they are.


When we compare Mandarin to Cantonese, we can see that not only is Mandarin more widespread, but it is said to be spoken by the Han dynasty, making it the offical language of china. With its own written language as well.

Cantonese is not as widespread as Mandarin. And that says alot in terms of which class to put it in. Because with a dialect, it is usually only spoken in a certain area, of a certain providence, or area. Also the fact that it shares its written language with Mandarin, instead of having its own written system. Shows it to be a dialect.

And the Wu(which is said to be the oldest dialect. But has not been proven yet), Ming, and Hakka dialects, fit into the same catgory as Cantonese. You will find these dialects, in only certain areas, of china. And not spoken by as large amount of people as Madarin.



Although, sharing the same written language, the way the characters are precieved in Mandarin as oppossed to Cantonese are differnet. The characters, take on a slightly different meaning, depending on which one you speak.

There is aot of pride that gose into whether people want to say when a language/dialect, is a language or not. But those factors don't hold up when you look at other aspects. So I have stated, some of why I feel that Cantonese is a dialect instead of a language. I would like to hear everyone elses opinons. And keep in mind, I did not bring up this debate to say that Cantonese is in anyway inferior to Mandarin. I think that the Cantonese language is just as beautiful. So native speakers of Cantonese, please don't take offence. Let me hear those opinions people!!:D

[orangeman]

I just think of Cantonese as a sister of Mandarin, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

My definition of language is if it's used in a whole, e.g. Russian= Russia, French=France, Japanese=Japan, etc. Dialect would be more of accents, different variations.

A beautiful language i think is French. Sounds smooth. Due to the excessive amounts of asians in my school, who take canto or mandarin constantly, I only speak English in school. Even taken spanish instead of Mandarin. Just can't stand it. No offense to the chinese languages, but hearing it everywhere does have a toll on my English.

^^Off-topic response, but it just felt like it was needed to be said.

[*meow]

I just think of Cantonese as a sister of Mandarin, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
erm. it's not really used in taiwan...

anyway. i love cantonese. but. i think it's a dialect. it can't be considered a language because it's like just a variation of Chinese/Mandarin, like Hokkien, Hakka etc. though hokkien is also quite widely used in asia, it's not a language too. variations shouldn't be considered as language. yah. i don't know what else to say. ^^" lol.

[dazzlette]

I'm not sure I follow your argument. :? Just because something is spoken more widespread doesn't grant it the status of language or dialect.

The boundaries of a language are commonly determined by mutual unintelligibility. So, based on my own personal experiences, I'm more of the opinion that Cantonese is a language rather than a dialect. Although I speak Mandarin but I initially found it difficult to comprehend Cantonese.

There are 2 main reasons for the confusion:

1. Many people who can speak Mandarin can sort of understand Cantonese and vice versa. If speakers of one language attempt to learn the other, they usually can pick it up faster than people who have no prior knowledge. My argument for this would be to look at the Romance languages of French, Spanish and Italian. Speakers of one Romanace language can also sometimes understand other Romance languages even though they have never formally learnt them.

2. All Chinese "dialects" for the most part share a common writing system. Because of Qin Shih Huang, Chinese has a mostly unified script. However, there are still variations in the writing system from "dialect" to "dialect". The written Chinese script is best matched with Mandarin and it doesn't capture other Chinese languages as well. There are some things which are only spoken in Cantonese but are never really written down. Yes, a lot of Mandarin and Cantonese grammar is similar. But the same can also be said for the Romance languages. Similiarity does not make 2 tongues part of the same language, but rather, it shows the historical relatedness of the 2.

I'm in no way an expert on the issue because I've only taken one linguistic course in my life. I think whatever stance people take depends more on personal experiences with the languages and there is not really a right answer.

[orangeman]

erm. it's not really used in taiwan...

I'm not too certain on the demographics of these languages. But most people I know from Taiwan/HK speaks Cantonese, so I just assumed it.

[pepprmint]

well im a cantonese speaker, and ive always assumed it was a dialect. i think it can only be a language if it has a country of origin. honestly, mandarin had to have originated from somewhere within china too. when people ask me what ethnicity i am, i dont say im cantonese, im chinese. since im chinese, i speak chinese. what type of chinese? would be cantonese. or mandarin. saying that canto or mando is their own language would be saying that its not chinese.

[hk-kc-jc]

i've always thought that cantonese was a language.. it originated from Canton (Guangdong... hence guang dong hua!!) which is near hong kong and that's why they speak it there...

cantonese is what i speak.. not that well but i do understand ... but i REALLY REALLY want to learn mandarin.. since i think its a cool language and because the majority of people in China speak it and so does Jay Chou.. it's better if i do learn it coz then i can understand his songs better and during tv interviews.. etc.. coz at the mo i don't get most of what he or other mandarin- speaking people are saying... i can pick out bits of what they're saying but it just takes a while to think of what it is if it was in cantonese.. :S

[Sugar&Spice]

Orangeman- People in Taiwan speak Mandarin, and Ming Nan. I very rarely hear them speaking Cantonese. But that ok man, that dosen't mean that some don't speak it there. But it is rare.


Dazzlette- I enjoyed your post. It gave some good points. But as I have studied linguistics, I have learnt that the more widespread, it is the more it is determined whether it is a language or not. It has alot to do with history, and the background of the language as well. For instance, the Mandarin language was said to have been spoken by chinese dynasties. Which made it more of a language, instead of a dialect. Because people wanted to make offical what they believed to be a language that high esteemed dynasties spoke.That is one reason the a certain language is considered to be a language rather then a dialect. But thats only one reason. Let me quote another one.

You brought up the fact that chinese dialects basicly share the same writting system. But the comprehention of the characters take on different meanings depending upon which dialect is reading it. You also brought out that the written characters really match better with the Mandarin language.

My take on this is basicly the same. But do you see how Mandarin is determind to be a language as oppossed to Cantonese, just from this example?! Let me explain...

Cantonese cannot be considered to be a language as you have stated before. The fact that the writting system matches best with the Mandarin language, as oppossed to Cantonese, shows that Cantonese derived from the Mandarin language. (This point that I have stated is highly debated, but I can explain my stand on this.) The reason why the grammer between Cantonese, and Mandarin are simular, is because Cantonese branched from Mandarin, so it was possible for it to sound different, when not written down. But could not successfully create its own written form, because of the simularities of the two. Dialects do not have their own written language, and if they do, it was derived from another spoken and written form of another Language.

The fact that it has a written and spoken form, dose not determin it to be a language. Because that stands to be the case with alot of languages and dialects. In english there are alot of words used, that people do not use in a written form. So you can find that in any language/dialect. The fact that you have said other chinese dialects share the same wrting system, shows that they are not a language.Cantonese is grouped with, Wu, Min, Hakka. And these are dialects.


You used the romance languages as an example. Good move, but they have brought up this aspect before. Let me explain...

Even though the romance languages, can be slightly understood by one another. It is not by a great amount. And they do not share the same written structure. As dose Cantonese with Mandarin. The only thing that they share in common is that written down their language is romanized. That is why they are apart of the Germatic language group. But the fact that the written structure is not the same. And if written down their language would be uncomprehensible to eachother unless they studied it. Shows that they are seprate languages. They have their own form of wrtting, and have not derived from eachothers written system. That is not the case with Cantonese verses Mandarin.

I'm no expert either. But I love to study languages. And that is a hobby of mine. But if anyone wants to bring up anything that I might have missed. Feel free to give some input.:D

[dazzlette]

I'm not that good at debating but I will try to make my point clear.

I don't agree that the more widespread something is spoken grants it the status of language or dialect. For example, there are native American languages that are spoken by very few people today and yet linguists still regard them as languages in their own right.

I'm not sure if Cantonese is really derived from Mandarin. It is equally possible that both of them are derived some another common ancestor and therefore they share similarities.

I said that I consider Cantonese a language in its own right because for the most part it is mutually unintelligible to Mandarin. The same goes for the other Chinese "dialects". The common writing system that chinese "dialects" share was because of Qin Shih Huang. Because the capital was in the north, written Chinese was well adapted to Mandarin, the language spoken in the north. This does not mean that other languages cannot adopt the same writing system. For example, for a long, long time, Korean used the Chinese writing system until the invention of Hangul.

You say that Mandarin and Cantonese can be understood by a great amount unlike the Romance languages. What do you have to back this up? If Wu, Cantonese, Min, Hakka and Mandarin were all part of the same language, then speakers of all these "dialects" should be able to understand each other. It is rare to meet someone who can speak all the "dialects" of Chinese. I might be able to understand Mandarin and some Cantonese, but I'm sure I will not be able to make out any Wu.

China is of course unwilling to grant all these different tongues the status of language, because that might imply that China is made up of many different ethnic groups. I don't think this is the case at all. We can all be ethnically Chnese but speak different languages.

[zhy378]

i say it is both, dialect and a language.
the reason for dialect is because mandarin is the official chinese language, so cantonese being one of chinese dialects.
however i also say it is also a language because when you tell people you're chinese they will ask you "mandarin or cantonese?" if it isnt a just a dialect, then how come they dont ask 'mandarin or shanghainese, etc?"

hmm..maybe im supporting cantonese more as a language. while mandarin got its own pinyin, so does cantonese..but im not sure if other chinese dialect got their own pinyin.:glug: also look at the english speaking world-american english, british english, austrialian english, etc. most of them consist of the same words and but some phrases are different like cantonese words to mandarin.

doesnt matter as long as we all respect cantonese as part of chinese culture.:happy:

[Sugar&Spice]

Zhy378- Of course we respect Cantonese as a part of chinese culture. As a matter of fact it is drenched in chinese culture, and is as old as Mandarin. I like the Cantonese dialect, and want to learn it once I get Mandarin down-pat. But whether it is a language or a dialect, makes for a very good debate. You know what?! Some linguistics have come to the same conclusion as you have, and just call Cantonese a language and a dialect.


Dazzeltte- I think you must have misunderstood me when I spoke of the romance languages. You brought up the fact that they are considered languages, but they are simular to eachother in speech. I merely brought up the fact that their sopken language may be simular. But what sets them apart as seperate languages, is the fact that the structure, and grammer, are very different. Expecially when in written form.

So I never made a statement that they where less understood. As opossed to Cantonese and Mandarin. If I would have said that, I would have had hell trying to back that up, because that would be a big blunder on my part.:D

I do agree that there are native Americans that speak a language that is known by a few people, but still holds the title of language. But that brings us back to the language having its own written system, its own set of grammer structure, and syntx. And whether it has a country that it originated from. History plays a big part of whether their language is a dialect or not. And the fact that it was not derived from any other spoken, form. But linguistics also shows that alot of those smaller languages, are losing their battle for survival, and may be dying out. And a new language is being put up in its place. But that is another debate.

You say that you don't agree with the fact that being widespread makes it a language. Well thats your right. Your not alone on that. The opinions are split on that aspect. Same linguistics feel the same way you do, and some feel the same way I do. So there is really no concrete evidence as to who is right. So your not wrong, and neither am I. Because that is still up in the air as to who is right etc.

Now there was an earlier post that meantioned the fact that Cantonese originated in Gunagdong, and Canton.

But that is because they seperated from the North, and made their way down south as it were, to create their own dialect. It never just started there. Rather it started when people migrated there and brought with them different dialects of chinese. And in that dialect they have different versions of that dialect. So Cantonese is concentrated in Canton, and Guangdong. But by migration.

zhy378-The reason, people ask which form of chinese do you speak, Mandarin, or Cantonese? Is because you very rarely run into someone that speaks shanghinese(at least where I'm at) But rather they speak, either or. Because Mandarin is a language, and Cantonese is the most spoken in terms of dialect. Shanghi, has adapted Mandarin as one of its offical languages. So you would meet someone from Shanghi, and they would be able to speak with you in Mandarin, but rarely Cantonese. And yes I can back that up. I know a girl, who is from Shanghi, and she dose not know any Cantonese, she said that not many people from her country speak Cantonese, but rather speak, Mandarin, and shanghinese. Which by the way, is seen as by their native speakers, as a unattractive language. I begg to differ. They have replaced tv shows, and news broadcast, music. With Mandarin. And when in terms of dialects, Cantonese is the most spoken dialect that people speak. 17 million people speak that dialect. So that is why people ask, which one. Cantonese or mandarin?

Dazzlette- I never thought that chinese people could speak all of these different dialects. That was never in debate. Nor was it in question that Cantonese is not ethnicly chinese. I know that it is. But is it a language or not?! Thats the question brought up.

I hope no one thinks I'm bringing down the Cantonese dialect. That is not my intention. Being a dialect dose not mean that it is any less then Mandarin. It is still rich with culture, and is still chinese.

[KendoTiger]

I believe that Cantonese was a completely distinct language, although I would refer to it as a dialect currently. I believe that Mandarin is also a dialect, it is as indistinct as Cantonese, or any other Chinese dialect. By being unified by a common writing system (which was a conjunction of the existing Chinese languages previously in existance), we lose the ability to call it a language. For that reason alone, do I say that Cantonese (and Mandarin) is a dialect.

Mandarin is only the "official" spoken language of China because of the Communists. If you want to make a claim for it's validity as the "original" Chinese language, you can go wave your red flags and burn in hell. *cough* Well, I apologize if that was rude, it wasn't at any particular person.

---now for debates---

The fact that the writting system matches best with the Mandarin language, as oppossed to Cantonese, shows that Cantonese derived from the Mandarin language. (This point that I have stated is highly debated, but I can explain my stand on this.) The reason why the grammer between Cantonese, and Mandarin are simular, is because Cantonese branched from Mandarin, so it was possible for it to sound different, when not written down. But could not successfully create its own written form, because of the simularities of the two.

I personally do not believe that Cantonese Branched from Mandarin. I find it close to blasphemy for someone to make such a brazen statement, but I will give you the opportunity to list your sources before I say anything else.

It is true that Cantonese and Mandarin share similar grammatical structures, but I do not believe one "created" the other. From Chinese history, characters that were "shamanesque" were the first written records found, and probably represented part of the "common" language at the time. More likely is that different tribes had variations of a common Chinese language, that grew more distinct over time; developing into distinct languages that were conjoined later on.

Cantonese did have it's own written language: most "dialect", including Mandarin, had a very variable set of their own characters. The current Chinese language is a combination of these preexisting characters, not a "copy" of "the Mandarin written language".

But that is because they seperated from the North, and made their way down south as it were, to create their own dialect. It never just started there. Rather it started when people migrated there and brought with them different dialects of chinese. And in that dialect they have different versions of that dialect. So Cantonese is concentrated in Canton, and Guangdong. But by migration.

Chinese civilization actually originated between (and around) the two main rivers. It did not start in the North and move down, it moved UP. I am not going to argue this fact, look it up on your own if you don't believe me. Also, Mandarin was influenced/created by the conjoining groups of Northern Chinese and Manchurians, then supported as the "new language". Cantonese is actually more closely linked to traditional* Chinese characters. Later on, to unify China, the writting system was created to bridge all of the different Chinese languages - this was not created by "Mandarin People" to "teach" the rest of China how to *write* Chinese.

The simple fact is that there was already a written language for all "dialects" present in China - including Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, etc. The problem was that too many characters lead to unreliable information and a lack of comprehension (when you have over 10 ways to write one word, things get confusing). Therefore, they either chose certain characters, or simplified/combined existing ones into a common definition.

*By "traditional", I do not mean traditional and simplified Chinese characters, but rather the precurser characters that lead to the established Chinese written system.
---------

The height of irony is a linguist who doesn't spell, nor use proper grammer. Lol.

[dazzlette]

*sigh*

I hate to get involved in a debate because I'm not good at debating.

Okay, let's start by stating that the terms "language" and "dialects" are distinctions only some linguists choose to adopt in trying to classify different forms of spoken communication. There are linguists out there who do not care for this distinction because they think a lot of it is arbituary and might even be subjective. These linguists care more about describing what is spoken rather than classifying what is spoken.

Ok. Let's move on to definitions. What is a language and what is a dialect? Most linguists define the boundaries of a language by mutually unintelligibility. Simply put, if I understand and speak A but I cannot understand B, then A and B are separate languages. On the other hand, if I understand A but I can understand C because I know A, then A and C are more likely dialects of a common language.

Ok, here comes the problem with this definition. How can I say that I know C because of A? What if A and C are totally different phonologically? For example, around the border of Germany and Holland, Dutch and German are mutually intelligible. However, the Dutch in Amsterdam and the German from Munich would certainly have considerable problems understanding each other.

On a similar vein, some people claim that Cantonese are dialect of Mandarin because they can understand both. Well, look at the prior experiences of those people. It is very likely that they have been exposed to both of these languages in some form. If you were a new learner of Mandarin, it is very unlikely you can make out Cantonese based on what you know about Mandarin. However, if you were a new learner of the Mandarin spoken in Beijing, you would be able to (for the most part) make out the Mandarin spoken in Taiwan. Both of these are true dialects of each other as defined by linguists.

As I have said, how widespread something is spoken is really irrelevant in this discussion. A language is never defined in this way. As I have said, there are Native American languages that are spoken by very few people today and yet they are still widely considered as languages.

But that is because they seperated from the North, and made their way down south as it were, to create their own dialect. It never just started there. Rather it started when people migrated there and brought with them different dialects of chinese. And in that dialect they have different versions of that dialect. So Cantonese is concentrated in Canton, and Guangdong. But by migration.


Now, what makes you so certain that Cantonese separated from Mandarin? As KendoTiger has mentioned, you need to back this up. It is equally possible (and far more likely) that both of these originated from a common ancestor. In the North, the number of tones were reduced (Mandarin has 4)but as the language moved south, the number of tones increased (Cantonese has about 8). Wouldn't it be more parimonious (as KendoTiger has suggested) to have the ancestor of these "dialects" orginate in the middle?

Dazzlette- I never thought that chinese people could speak all of these different dialects. That was never in debate. Nor was it in question that Cantonese is not ethnicly chinese. I know that it is. But is it a language or not?! Thats the question brought up.

My point in bringing this up was to suggest that if these chinese languages were all true "dialects", people would have no problem in understand them all given that they understand just one of them. Because this doesn't happen, these "dialects" do not fit the definition of a dialect. It is relevant in this discussion because it serves to prove that these are not dialects but distinct languages in their own right. And I think a large problem in China's unwillingness to recognize Cantonese (as well as other "dialects") as languages is because of what it would imply. This is also the source of so much confusion. The people in power and experts (namely the linguists) do not use the same terms.

As I have said, a similar written language (as in they both adopt characters) says little. Korea used Chinese characters for a long long time and even in Vietnam, the elite adopted Chinese characters in their language. These languages have distinctly different orgins from Chinese and yet they could still adopt the same system.

[judes]

i don't have any background on this, so i'm asking my boyfriend who is majoring in anthropology and has a light background in linguistics particularily in anthropological linguistics, which is what we're discussing here.


Hi,

Dazzlette has hit the nail on the head. In fact, a quick perusing of Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identification_of_the_varieties_of_Chinese) will provide an expanded version of the argument. Perhaps most important is another quote from a related source: "Like other major varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is often considered a dialect of a single Chinese language for cultural or nationalistic reasons" (Wikipedia: Cantonese (linguistics)).

As a last point, it is a fallacy to assume that language cannot exist with a written form: most northern Native American languages do NOT have a written component yet they are in every way a structured, complex language.



but from what i've talked about with him and by reading his ling texts, this is what i could muster:

if you're discussing linguistical, historical, anthropological background of mandarin, there is no possible way to call mandarin "the" determining language of these supposed dialects. i will follow up this point by the following:

just simply stating that "i believe this way and i am sure there are some people, especially the experts in the field i am claiming that actually believes in my claim" is not enough. it'd be interesting to see if anyone can actually bring up any sources that state that in order for a language to be a language it has to be:
a) widespread
b) has its own written system

those are the two outrageous claims that even with my limited knowledge of linguistics find that it's a bit of a stretch. just because there may be a limited number of people speaking a language that has no written system of expression does not make a language any less of a language.

let's talk about the claim that a language has to be "widespread" in order for it to be considered a language. what does "widespread" mean? does widespread mean in terms of geography or in terms of number of people speaking this language? that's one general statement that does not have any background whatsoever. bringing up the example of native american languages has already made the point that it has to be geographically widespread and/or number of people moot. so no, no other linguists, at least not commonly accepted people in the field will support that idea.

and the example regarding the girl from shanghAi doesn't contribute anything to the discussion. there's a reason why mandarin is the most prominent in china and it doesn't have anything to do with whether it is a "language" in itself.

there are two statements here: one says that cantonese is derived from mandarin and the other says that mandarin and cantonese were once separate "languages". now one side says that because of the change in tonality, cantonese did not develop from mandarin. now what does the other side say to refute that? now sources or at least examples have to be provided to show that cantonese derived from mandarin.

from what i've read and the brief overview of which is given on wikipedia:

Cantonese sounds quite different from Mandarin, mainly because it has a different set of syllables. The rules for syllable formation are different; for example, there are syllables ending in non-nasal consonants (e.g. "lak"). It also has a different set of tones.

Cantonese preserves many syllable-final sounds that Mandarin has lost or merged. For

it is commonly agreed that mandarin and cantonese were both derived from older variations of the chinese language and therefore cantonese could not possibly have derived from the "mandarin" as we know it. just by analysis of the tones that are present in the two languages, like dazz wrote, it could be seen that the two languages have the same origins but some aspects of it are preserved and others were discarded.

the incorrect historical background of history of that region has been discussed by kendo.

dazz, i have to say that i agree and disagree with you in the respect that cantonese is it's own language, but i completely agree that it's not a true dialect in that it is not mutually intelligible. (my source is "language, an introduction to culture, linguistic anthropology and society" by saltzmann...and since you're at the same uni as i am, you may have used this text heh)

the problem with that definition is that there are so many factors that play into determining whether a language is a language in itself besides mutual unintelligibility. that's why i'm not completely sold on the idea that cantonese is a complete language by itself but so far there is no solid supporting evidence that cantonese is merely a dialect. this distinction is dangerous because i find it difficult to understand "newfie" (newfoundland, canada) english and would even call it unintelligible to someone, but...

i'm leaning more upon the idea of cantonese primarily as a language, but a spoken language that can be put into a written form by the use of chinese characters and shares enough common aspects with regards to grammar and tonality to classify it as a "chinese language".

i believe the idea of romance languages is very applicable, because one could argue that the structures of grammar that distinguishes them from one another could be applied to cantonese/mandarin/taiwanese, or you could once again argue it from the perspective of difference in tonality, which is just as admissable as structure in this argument.

this may be because of my own personal experiences as someone who speaks, mandarin, reads and writes "standard" mandarin and can understand/speak a bit of taiwanese, and can also understand a limited amount of cantonese. if we're speaking from a character accompanied by a grammar perspective, and you're watching cantonese movies that have been translated into mandarin, you will see that the words don't exactly match up because the structure of grammar is not the same, and there are certain characters that are only applicable to cantonese that is not applicable to mandarin. same with taiwanese. which is why i am further convinced that cantonese is more of a language than a dialect.

i shouldn't even be on JCNET. but good discussion everyone.

[happifruit]

quickie off-topic:
Dazzlette actually...China IS made up of a ton of 'similar-different' ethnic groups...it's shown even in the five stars of the Chinese flag
I really enjoyed your posts though =D


My thoughts here are based purely on personal experience as a fluent speaker of both Mandarin and Cantonese.


Growing up with both, I have always felt that 'Chinese' is a language composed of many different dialects, among them Mandarin and Cantonese.

In a lot of ways you can say that Cantonese is almost a different language because the structure and the grammar can be very very different from Mandarin. Personally, however, I don't feel that it's strong enough to stand alone as a language, because although the way it's spoken and written is different, the history, expressions and the culture, for example, are shared with some other dialects like Mandarin. I don't know the history of the two 'dialects', but I somehow don't think that any of them are derived from each other. It might have to do with isolation more than anything else (for example compare Cantonese with any of the Min Nan dialects, of which Hokkien is spoken in Fujian which is right next door).
As well, I read somewhere Cantonese has kept more of 'Classical Chinese' than Mandarin even today.
Mandarin is the accepted standard for the Chinese language, and that's exactly what it is, accepted. It's convenient to call the 'dialect' spoken around the nation's capital the standard 'language'.

Personally, I would not call any of the Chinese 'dialects' separate languages.
However, do take this from someone who has been exposed to three of them for most of her life.

[dazzlette]

Actually for me to think of Cantonese (and all other Chinese "dialects") as a langauge is a real paradigm shift for me. I grew up in Singapore, where Mandarin is simply referred to as Chinese and everything else (Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka etc.) was refered to as dialects. I accepted this distinction all my life until recently. Even now when I talk to people from Singapore, I would still refer to Cantonese as a dialect. I just hope that in this discussion people can be open enough to realize that sometimes what you have believed all your life might not be right or accurate.

Ok, moving on....

judes haha you're quoting Wikipedia, a website I visit far too often these days... >.<

the problem with that definition is that there are so many factors that play into determining whether a language is a language in itself besides mutual unintelligibility. that's why i'm not completely sold on the idea that cantonese is a complete language by itself but so far there is no solid supporting evidence that cantonese is merely a dialect. this distinction is dangerous because i find it difficult to understand "newfie" (newfoundland, canada) english and would even call it unintelligible to someone, but...

So what would define a language? (I don't know the answer but I'm just putting it out.) Mutual unintelligibility is usually the factor that distinguishes a dialect from a language. Now the problem with this definition (and I believe is the source of the confusion) is that mutual unintelligibility is subjective. So I will mention my second reason for thinking that Cantonese is more of a language. Many words in Mandarin are phonologically very different from Cantonese. However, differences in dialects (let's say American English and British English) are usually differences in vowel sounds and the stress positions. Controlling for these two variables (and of course regional differences in word use), two dialects would sound the essentially same.

my source is "language, an introduction to culture, linguistic anthropology and society" by saltzmann...and since you're at the same uni as i am, you may have used this text heh)

unfortunately I did not use that textbook. A lot of what I wrote is based on my own readings on the topic, after I was challenged in my LING 101 course to do a paradigm shift. Anyhow, I share your experiences with Chinese media and that was how I became even more convinced in my stance

happifruit I'm glad you liked my posts. :happy: Normally I don't appear here because I don't think I can contribute anything useful.

Anyhow...

Dazzlette actually...China IS made up of a ton of 'similar-different' ethnic groups...it's shown even in the five stars of the Chinese flag

Actually I am aware of that fact. I guess I should have said that if China were to acknowledge all these "dialects" as languages, then it would certain groups of Han Chinese (the ethnic group that China recognizes as true Chinese people) reason to declare itself a distinct and different nation.

Growing up with both, I have always felt that 'Chinese' is a language composed of many different dialects, among them Mandarin and Cantonese.

My question for you then: is there a standard Chinese language that exists?

In a lot of ways you can say that Cantonese is almost a different language because the structure and the grammar can be very very different from Mandarin. Personally, however, I don't feel that it's strong enough to stand alone as a language, because although the way it's spoken and written is different, the history, expressions and the culture, for example, are shared with some other dialects like Mandarin.

Yes, I agree that the history, culture and expressions are shared. But could it be because of the shared written form? Or the fact that they both orginated from a common ancestor?


As well, I read somewhere Cantonese has kept more of 'Classical Chinese' than Mandarin even today.

I think that is due to the modernization (some would argue the "dumbing down" ) of Mandarin by China to make it more accessible to the masses.

[judes]

^ for me too. i always believed that cantonese and taiwanese and mandarin were dialects of chinese. but after reading up on this and reading the book and reading articles, i'm starting to realize that perhaps that my presumptions are not correct and that the only reason i think they are dialects is because of mandarin being so commonly used and proclaimed as the standard.

but if you actually read texts and articles from actual linguists who have analyzed the distinctions between language and dialects, you will see that one of the common theories is that in order for a dialect to be a "true" dialect, speakers have to be able to understand each other overall, such as british english and new york english for instance.

i've brought up the example of newfie english though as something that is confusing, like dazz said, about being able to understand each other.

that definition is really subjective and hard to grasp, i had a lot of trouble really understanding it and even understanding it now. but i think i'm beginning to see why there is that kind of subjective definition of dialects versus language.

i challenge everyone to read up on this topic not only from personal experiences, but also from actual texts.

[Sugar&Spice]

The question was brought up abot what makes a language a language instead of a dialect. BTW we have to be careful when refering to different sites on linguistics. Because people(linguistics) will post up their understanding, and their aspects and that dose not make it right or wrong. Linguists, have debated this for some time now, and have not come to any common ground. So no one aspect is right. And there probably won't be a common ground on this froum either. I wanted to bring this up to see if it would render a good debate. But we can't really prove someone wrong because of a few resources. Resources differ, and so dose linguistics. You really can't find a right or wrong.

This is my stand on it. I will qoute it, and others can make it out to be whatever they want. Or can get out of it whatever they can get out of it.

What is a dialect?

It is determined by these five things.

1. Phonetics

2. Phonological

3. Morphological

4. Syntactic

5. Lexical(semantic)


Tonhono O' od ham and pima are mutyally intelligble varties, yet they are still different languages. Why?!

For the same reason that Mandarin is a Language, as oppossed to Cantonese. Because Political concerns can affect the classification of language varieties. Political concerns plays a magor role in whether is language becomes a language.


Scholars, have been able to gain a great deal of information regarding, Mandarin from an anthology of 305 poems. From the time periods of 1,500 bc to 500 bc. They have been able to study the region of where Mandarin was first spoken, which was in the NORTH. And was able to find sources of the other dialects that was originated in the north and have continued to move south. Thus Dazzelette's statement of Cantonese having 8 tones as oppossed to the five that mandarin possess. BtW cantonese has 9 tones, but like the 5th tone in Mandarin, it is neutral. Actually cantonese had more then 9 tones, but it was narrowed down to only 9.

My view of a language being a language because of it being widespread. I can only state my stand on this with some resources. If others still choose to refute this, then that is their choice. Since everything being discussed now, has not been agreed upon with the most ducated linguists. So we won't agree on this here, I suppose. Anyway...

Mandarin is the most spoken of all chinese languages. 867-873 million people speak it as a first language. Let me show you how many.

It covers a vast area of northern and southwestern mainland china. It is also the national language of Taiwan, and Singapore. It is also spoken in brunel, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Mauritus, Mongolia, Philipinnes, Russia, Thailand, Untied Kingdom, Usa, and Viet Nam.

And is used as a second language by 178 million people.

Now from what I have learned, dialects are usually spoken in certain areas, and not as widespread. So my example of my friend from shanghi holds up. Dialects or usually, not spoken in such vast areas. People seem to be able to speak dialects in a localised area. Not really seeing it beyond certain borders. I'm just backing up why I said it also has to do with it being widespread.

So this is really a debate about swapping ideas. Not whether someone is wrong or right. Because like I have stated before, there are too many inconsistances in linguistics for anyone person to be right. And like I said, quoting from one source dose not make it right or wrong. Although good information. It is only one aspect in a sea of different views, and opinions. And these statements are from my own studies, and my own hardwork.

[xanimeotakux]

cantonese? of course it's a dialect. it's probably spoken only in hong kong and guangzhou(canton). mandarin is a language, since it's generally spoken throughout taiwan and china. cantonese is just a simple dialect, other regions of china speak different dialects too. (ex.: shanghai dialect, etc.etc.)

yes, cantonese is probably one of the "popular" speaken dialects. but mandarin is spoken much more often than cantoneses, so that's why mandarin's a language.

[dazzlette]

judes I'm glad this discussion has made you rethink the issue. :happy: It has made all this typing worth it.

Sugar&Spice If I seem like I have this "I'm-right-and-everyone-else-is-wrong" attitude, then I apologize. I am open to the alternative view, it's just that after reading and thinking about the issue, my opinion is that Cantonese should be classified as a language from a linguistic point of view.

BTW we have to be careful when refering to different sites on linguistics. Because people(linguistics) will post up their understanding, and their aspects and that dose not make it right or wrong. Linguists, have debated this for some time now, and have not come to any common ground. So no one aspect is right. And there probably won't be a common ground on this froum either. I wanted to bring this up to see if it would render a good debate. But we can't really prove someone wrong because of a few resources. Resources differ, and so dose linguistics. You really can't find a right or wrong.

Actually, I would like to know what are your sources are. Is there really a debate among most linguists on this issue? My linguistics textbook states that Cantonese is a language from a linguistic point of view. I've always thought the confusion lies more in the general public.

And yes, I agree that political reasons ( as well as cultural, social, religious reasons) affect the classification of a language. However, I don't think this should be the concern of linguists. For example, the Serbs and the Croats have different histories, cultures and religions and they claim that they are speaking different languages. But even with different alphabet systems, Serbian and Croatian are mutually intelligible. And therefore based on the mutually intelligible criterion, linguists classify Serbian and Croatian as part of a common language.

Now, if you were a Croatian linguist, it would probably be hard for you to objectively accept this and in fact you would probably reject this conclusion. This is the status of Serbain and Croatian now, separate languages. Similarly, even though the evidence for Cantonese to be language is overwhelming, there are Chinese linguists who will write that these Chinese "dialects" are indeed dialects. But their arguments are not based on linguistic reasons. Since the question was asked from a linguistic standpoint, my answer is that they are two separate languages.

As I said many times, the widespread argument really does not hold up. You have mentioned many places that have populations of people speaking Mandarin. Do you know are they speaking Mandarin in these places? Is it because it's a language? Or is it because of other reasons? I can tell you for a fact, (because I'm from Singapore) that Mandarin is not the native language of my forefathers who came from South China. Mandarin was adopted as the standard language for all the Chinese to speak because that was the language that China adopted to be their standard language. And actually, Cantonese is quite widely spoken outside of China and it is not localized at all. Some examples would be Malaysia, Australia, the U.S., England and Canada. Now, would I argue that Cantonese is a language based on this fact? No, I wouldn't. Because it's not relevant here.

[karyn531]

This is a very interesting topic.

cantonese? of course it's a dialect. it's probably spoken only in hong kong and guangzhou(canton).
It is also spoken in Macau, and I know for a fact it's spoken in Malaysia too because I live there. Not as national language, but as a mother tongue ... even some Malays here can speak Cantonese. I must clarify that I used the word "even" not for any racist reasons but because of the geographical differences of ancestors on both sides.

I have limited knowledge on this field, but I would say that in my opinion, Cantonese is halfway between a language and a dialect, probably a little of both but maybe more towards a dialect. The mistaken perspective must be because Cantonese is also widespread. Not as much as Mandarin, I agree, but from experience, I observed that Cantonese is spread through the teachings of parents to children rather than formal education which is the method of spreading Mandarin as everyone probably already knows. And yet, Cantonese never died through the ages, one can say that it survived until today. Why? Cantonese has its own uniqueness. I don't need to point them out. At the same time, there are undoubtly many people know only know Cantonese and no other language. My great-grandmother is one such person. Her offsprings, too, though they did have to learn English during the time when British took over Malaya as it is then. I'm using "is" instead of "was" because my great-grandmother is still alive though very old. I think it is very interesting, let me repeat, that Cantonese spread only through the passing from one generation to the next, and yet, it prevailed.

It is true that Mandarin and Cantonese do share the same written language though it is read differently. But then again, when it comes to chinese the written language and the spoken language are unrelated. To quote Adeline Yen Mah, an author who is as fond of the chinese language as anyone could be, one could speak chinese and not be able to read a word of it and visa-versa.

I'm trying to point out that it's not every language in this world that one can use the written part to argue whether it is truly a language or not.

But let's say if Cantonese is really a language. If someone poses the question: What is your mother tongue? It would not be surprising at all to hear the answer : Cantonese. I myself have heard it scores of times. And according to Wikipedia

A first language, native language or mother tongue is the language that was learned first by the person. In terms of that view, the person is defined as a native speaker of the language, although one may also be a native speaker of more than one language if all of the languages are learned without formal education, such as through cultural immersion before puberty. Often a child learns the basics of his or her first languages from his or her family.
Notice the excessive usage of the word "language" and the absence of the word "dialect".

[judes]

once again, there is a distinction between the general public's opinions and the opinions of actual linguistics who study this, like dazz wrote. my knowledge lies more in the area of anthropological linguists instead of applied linguists. and karyn, i agree with what you said in your post and i completely understand why you would see cantonese as more of a dialect than as a language.

i know my stance, but nobody has truly taken me up on the challenge of providing sources that state cantonese is a dialect than a language. so i'll do it myself for fun:

What is a dialect?
It is determined by these five things.

1. Phonetics
2. Phonological
3. Morphological
4. Syntactic
5. Lexical(semantic)

no, a dialect is not determined by these five things. linguistical structure and analysis is based on these five things. these five things by themselves and the differences between them does not determine whether something is a dialect or not. these subcategories are how you analyze a language, and what determines a dialect is:

There are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing languages from dialects, although a number of paradigms exist, which render sometimes contradictory results. The exact distinction is therefore a subjective one, dependent on the user's frame of reference.

Language varieties are often called dialects rather than languages

solely because they are not (or not recognized as) literary languages,
because the speakers of the given language do not have a state of their own,
or because their language lacks prestige.

therefore, yes i do agree that the distinction of language is political. but that does not make mandarin a language, it merely makes chinese a language. let's continue:

My view of a language being a language because of it being widespread. I can only state my stand on this with some resources. If others still choose to refute this, then that is their choice. Since everything being discussed now, has not been agreed upon with the most ducated linguists. So we won't agree on this here, I suppose. Anyway...

...where are your "resources"? i repeat myself, if you state "with some resources" without actually having some sources, it means nothing. it basically means you have no sources because we don't see anything. the importance of debate is to have these sources handy to be able to quote and dissect and analyze.

even though it's not about "right" or "wrong" in this overall issue, i am here calling you on it and saying you are wrong. no respectable linguist in his or her field will say that a language has to be widespread in order for it to be a language. absolutely no linguists of any academic institution. if you attempt to pass this off as theory, you would get laughed out of a university.

you cannot simply skip over examples of accepted languages that are not widespread and say that those "don't count". in my source, the saltzmann book that i talked about, it states that there is an accepted language in a small town in spain that is concentrated in that one region. there are also accepted "tribal" languages in africa and in south america that constitutes as languages. there was an asian language that was also a written language that only had a few speakers and the last speaker of that language passed away a few years ago. but even though there were only a few speakers of this language, it doesn't make it any LESS of a language.

--------------------------------

back to the issue at hand though, i do agree there is a debate of whether cantonese is a language or a dialect, and like i've stated, i'm leaning more towards a language, but i don't think you can discount completely its status as a dialect.

it's probably spoken only in hong kong and guangzhou(canton)

since the people who believe cantonese is predominantly a dialect don't want to provide any sources, i will provide sources to support your stance. though i find it kind of amusing. here is an ethnologue report for china: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=CN

but see very clearly how it does state cantonese (or yue as it is written on this page) as a dialect of mandarin. it states both cantonese and mandarin as dialects of chinese.

and here is what it says, and here is where you can see that cantonese is NOT only spoken in those regions:

[yue] 52,000,000 in mainland China (1984). Population includes 498,000 in Macau. Population total all countries: 54,810,598. Spoken in Guangdong (except for the Hakka speaking areas especially in the northeast, the Min Nan speaking areas of the east, at points along the coast as well as Hainan Island), Macau, and in the southern part of Guangxi. Also possibly in Laos. Also spoken in Australia, Brunei, Canada, Costa Rica, Honduras, Indonesia (Java and Bali), Malaysia (Peninsular), Mauritius, Nauru, Netherlands, New Zealand, Panama, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom, USA, Viet Nam. Alternate names: Yuet Yue, Gwong Dung Waa, Cantonese, Yue, Yueh, Yueyu, Baihua. Dialects: Yuehai (Guangfu, Hong Kong Cantonese, Macau Cantonese, Shatou, Shiqi, Wancheng), Siyi (Seiyap, Taishan, Toisan, Hoisan, Schleiyip), Gaolei (Gaoyang), Qinlian, Guinan. The Guangzhou variety is considered the standard. Subdialects of Yuehai are Xiangshan, spoken around Zhongshan and Shuhai, and Wanbao around Dong Guan City and Bao'an County. Classification: Sino-Tibetan, Chinese

and this is only in 1984. since there is a great population increase these past twenty years, i would assume that speakers of cantonese have increased as well. even without these sources i can dispute this. there are plenty of people where i live who speak cantonese, and i'm not even in one of the top three cities in canada. in vancouver and in toronto, the cantonese population there is significant. and if you've ever been to let's say...los angeles or san francisco, the cantonese speaking population there is large as well.

yes, cantonese is probably one of the "popular" speaken dialects. but mandarin is spoken much more often than cantoneses, so that's why mandarin's a language.

the fallacy of this statement is once again assuming that being widespread defines a language. which it does not, like i've stated before. and this shows that cantonese is widely spoken in the world anyway.

-------------------------

i believe this quote from the dialect page of wikipedia sums this entire argument up, at least from my perspective, quite well:

Anthropological linguists define dialect as the specific form of a language used by a speech community. In other words, the difference between language and dialect is the difference between the abstract or general and the concrete and particular. From this perspective, no one speaks a "language," everyone speaks a dialect of a language. Those who identify a particular dialect as the "standard" or "proper" version of a language are in fact using these terms to express a social distinction.

i would like to see a linguist today would say that mandarin is a language and cantonese a dialect of that language. i would LOVE to see that source and i would LOVE to discredit it. so someone, please do that for me.

and of interest, everyone should also read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identification_of_the_varieties_of_Chinese

This development has complicated the idea that all Chinese languages, Mandarin or not, share one single written language, as this one single written language is now based on one particular spoken group of dialects.

This "Standard Written Chinese" is essentially consistent in terms of grammar and vocabulary when written by speakers of different Chinese languages, and differs only in the pronunciation of characters in the local Chinese language.

However, the spoken Chinese languages are generally not mutually intelligible with Standard Written Chinese even when recited with the local language's pronunciation, since the written language, being based on Mandarin, may not use the same grammar and vocabulary.

karyn has mentioned the distinction between "the written language" and "the spoken language". so i think this will help me even more with my understanding of this.

here is what i can piece together from these sources:
there is one common written chinese language that is based predominantly on mandarin, yet there are variations of the usage of the characters that are solely for cantonese or solely for taiwanese that makes "the written" mandarin/cantonese/taiwanese/hakka etc as written "dialects" in a sense, but one must be forced when using some of these dialects in writing because in pronounciation from the standard chinese, it doesn't match up. so it's a very loose way to define it as a "dialect", but a dialect does not necessarily have to abide by a written form, which is why i find this argument extremely weak.

if you really want to argue from the syntax and grammar and mutual intelligibility and accounting for the difference in even the usage and placement of written characters, you can argue that there are several spoken chinese languageS that could be seen as part of the chinese language family. which is what i wish to define it by.

if i made any erroneous statements, correct me.

but if you want to make any remark regarding:
1) that language has to be widespread in order to be a language
2) that mandarin is a language and cantonese is merely a dialect of the mandarin language
3) any combination of the above

you're completely wrong, sorry to say that, but you are. unless you can find a source that states clearly and explicitly and gives reasons and examples. i find it doubtful that you would be able to though.

[Sugar&Spice]

Judes- I'm replying to you ofr onlu this fact, and this fact alone. It was nice that you went to the trouble of finding sources, from one site, book where ever you got it from. I'm sorry to inform you that it is only one aspect. You can find a million resources to back up anyones stand, but that dose not mean you are right. Since you stated that I'm wrong, then that is your opinion and you can keep it. I'm not going to go into this trying to prove someone wrong, thing that you seem to want to do. You really have only just looked up information. Now can you break that information up in your own words, and discribe what it means in your own words?! Rather then posting it up, and saying that I'm wrong?! I love a good debate, but it seems like(because you said it.) That your trying to prove me wrong. When you acknowledged that there is no right or wrong. I have my stance on what I believe and you have yours, no problem. But I won't go back and forth with you just so that you can stop thinking that I'm wrong, and just to try to prove your wrong. Who can really say someone else is wrong?! I'll humor you, if you can go find out what the original origin was that Cantonese and Mandarin branched from. And study it, get an understanding of it for yourself, not what someone else posted, or just quoting/posting info and saying," Look you see?" The point of a debate is to not only post up resources, but to explain it in their own words in detail. I put my information in detail, I need not post any one resource. Sense you seem to be looking things up, you can find where I found it from. Anyone who has studied linguistics, would know where I'm coming from when I voice my stand. Also the things I have listed that makes a dialect, they are correct. But I will not argue the fact with you if you choose notto believe it. It is not my job to convince you, it is my job to state my stand and back it up with information. Which I have done. If its not to your satisfaction, then that is a matter of choice. I was careful to make sure that I backed up every statement I made, it is your choice if you think I'm wrong. That is only your opinion, it dose not maen you are correct. But no hard feelings on my part.


Dazzlette- In no way did I think that you had the "I'm right- your- wrong attitude." I really enjoy your posts. You were just stating what you believe, I love when people disagree and bring out their own opinion. The only way it can be offensive is when they all out say," Your wrong. I'm calling you out." Then that becomes annoying, and a waste of time. You can't really say someone is wrong. Just disagree with them.
I kept stating that no one person is wrong, so that no one else thought I was insulting them by saying that their opinons and studies were wrong. I wouldn't want to do that because no one is an expert, and no one can say someone is wrong, because of a few sources. So I wanted to be sure that I kept the debate going in a friendly manner.


But your posts were refreashing because it did not include such annoying comments like that. For someone who dose not debate, you are pretty good.

Ok, I'm not really good with the Serbs and Croats. I have not studed the dynamics of those languages.

Yes, Linguistics, do argue about whether Cantonese is a dialect or not. I don't have a certain resource in front of me, because I don't limit my studies to one soruce. It comes from various resources, and different veiwpoints of linguists. I also like to look up linguistics on the internet, and I get so many different points that seem to differ with one another. It seems like some have felt they came to a common ground, and others say," Your wrong buddy. We have yet to agree." So it gose back and forth.

I was not clear on the reason I was qouting these different places. They are among the 178 million places, that speak mandarin as a second, language, or has a large population of Mandarin speakers. All you have to do is look up(because that is what I did to find the information) I looked into the different places, that Mandarin is spoken, and the population, of people who speak it. And that is how I came up with it. I actually researched these different places, on the web. And found out about the languages spoken there.

I agree Singapore has its own language. But has excepted Mandarin as an offical language.


You asked if it was spoken in these different places, because it was language, or was it some other reason?! Well I think I can answer that for you. Mandarin has been used in alot of different places, to link people to one another. Because they may speak different languages/dialects, so they may have trouble understanding eachother. What some countries have done, was learn Mandarin as a second language, so that they can continue to communicate with a wider range of people. So it plays like a sort of linguistic bridge of communication. For those who speak their own dialect, or language. That is why it is taught in schools, and some trade schools.

Karen is probably right, it can in the end be looked at as a language, and dialect. But I still stand on the dialect side.

Jeannie- Hey girl!! Its nice to see that you joined us!! I agree as well, about Cantonese being not as widespread as Mandarin. But so far not many people want to accept that. Thats ok though! I love a good two sided debate. Drop back in sometime!!:D

P.S I know that I have some misspelt woords in my post. But I'm too lazy to correct them. I type fast, had a long day at work. Enough said. I'll correct them tommorrow. Just saying this for anyone who has trouble reading my post.:rolleyes:

[dazzlette]

[B]...I observed that Cantonese is spread through the teachings of parents to children rather than formal education which is the method of spreading Mandarin as everyone probably already knows. And yet, Cantonese never died through the ages, one can say that it survived until today. ...I think it is very interesting, let me repeat, that Cantonese spread only through the passing from one generation to the next, and yet, it prevailed.

Actually as long as parents choose to speak a language/dialect to their children, it is unlikely to die out. My father is Cantonese, and he grew up in a Cantonese -peaking home. But he never, ever spoke a single word of Cantonese to me or my siblings. The result? I can barely say anything in Cantonese, which is a real embarressment because my real name is essentially a Cantonese name. Unless the social pressure to speak another language is overwhelming (as in the case of Chinese children migrating to the West), most children will not lose the first language that was spoken to them. Anyhow, your statement about Cantonese only being spread through the teachings of parents is not entirely correct. Cantonese was formally taught in schools for many, many years. In fact, I think the reason why Cantonese grew in dominance is because of Hong Kong. Nevertheless, your statement is true for the other Chinese "dialects". My mother, for example, learnt Hokkien only through her parents.

Actually, the more I think about the issue, the more I think that all these classifications should be thrown out. I think it's a much more worthy and interesting endeavour to describe all the different kinds of human speech. It's easy to say that English and Japanese are two different languages. But many problems arise (as we have seen in this discussion) when we compare more similar "tongues". In early 20th Century China, there were even differences in speech from village to village. My aunt came from a village in Canton and she can speak a "dialect" which she calls Hoi Ping Wah in Cantonese. It sounds very different phonetically from Cantonese but it's similar in that the grammar and phrases are close to Cantonese. Yet someone who speaks only Hoi Ping Wah is unlikely to be able to communicate with a Cantonese speaker. This is just one example. I'm sure that there are many "languages" out there in China.

[edit:]
Ok, I just looked through one of the sources judes provided. :glug:

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=CN

Notice that the heading on the first column is language. It seems to me the source is saying that Yue, Min Nan, Hakka etc etc are all separate langauges? The word "Chinese" before that more likely implies that it is langauge spoken by Chinese people (ie Han Chinese).

Sugar&Spice
As I have said again and again, the widespread argument does not hold up in this discussion. Telling me that Mandarin is spoken in all these places just tells me how successful it has been promoted as the standard Chinese language and nothing more. You really need other evidence to support your reasons for thinking that Cantonese is a dialect.

[Sugar&Spice]

Ok, since everyone wants me to produce more evidence Here is mine. But I would really like to see the samething as far as Cantonese being a language. And not just a link of it saying the word Language. But actually stating and explaining why it is. If I have to bring out my resources I want to see evidence disclaiming what I have said about Mandarin being widespread. Don't just say it dose not hold up. Give me evidence supporting your stand as to why it dose not hold up. Because I'm about to give my evidence. Anyone who says that a language is not determined by the spread of the dialect. Then give me proof.
This is the resource backing up my claim that Cantonese is a dialect. Go here to this link and read it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik/Cantonese_language


Now if you go down and read the first page it dose mention several times that Cantonese is a dialect.


Now farther on the page you will see "Identification of the varieties of chinese" click on it.
Then click on dialect. Once you read it. go to contents, click on "dialect or language" Once you read that.


You can click on "prestige".



Now the point that I find intreasting, is that Mandarin as it seems to be alluding to. Was a dialect, and what made it into a language, from what I have gathered, was the fact that it was large enough to sustain more then one dialect. It is also very influential in communites, and you saw that by my other post. Where as, it spoke of Cantonese as not part of the prestige dialect, and being localised. Thus what happyfruit said when she said that Cantonese is not strong enough to stand on its own as a language. She was right.



Now once you have read that, you can click on social prestige and the role of languages. Scroll down and click on "Standard Mandarin chinese." read until you get to phonology.


This farther gose into the influence of the Mandarin language. Supporting what I have been saying all along. Not only that but the fact that Mandarin was originated in the north.




Now the thing that caught my eye is the fact that "nan" in Nanjing means south. Which is where Cantonese speakers migrated after seperating from the north to where they created their own providences. This link dose not give any in depth explaination of this. But I will quote more resources later.



Also on this site. You will find that the reason a dialect lets say stays a dialect, is because of the lack to form its own written system. It is right on this site. Along with alot of other things I have quoted.



The reason I quoted these resources, is not to prove anyone wrong. Or to get into any uselss arguments, over whos calling who out. It is to further back up my statements. Now I would like to see simular reources when it comes to refuting my statements I really don't want to see things like," It just dosen't hold up." Prove to me why it doesn't hold up. By showing the sources for why it dose not hold up.



I have seen one of the links that Judes provided. And it seems like she just pulled up a whole list of dialects, and population information. She might have to explain the importance of that link, sense we are swapping information.


I'm going to pull up some more information to share.
And to back up my statements.

http://en:wikipedia.org/wik/prestige_dialect


This might be faster, then hitting all of those other links, when wanting to get to the prestige dialect.


I can't help but to say one more thimg. Dazzlette you asked if it was argued about whether Cantonese is a language or dialect. The links that I gave, says it on the first page.



I found out that the sites provided at the top of Judes post, was where I also got my information. She only quoted fragments of information. I'm having trouble getting into the links that I just potsed. if anyone else has the same problem. Just go up to Judes first link, not the on with the long list of dialects. The other link, and you will find the links I was telling you to look at. Just follow the directions, I gave for my links and you will see it. For whom it may concern.


Also, the fact that some languages, get their title as a language. And is not really widespread.
Is the fact that in that COUNTRY, the language is considered, a PRESTIGE dialect out of the other ones of that country. But that is not the case with Mandarin, it is a prestige dialect, that got its title of LANGUAGE, due to it influence of other countries.



So you have to look at the circumstances of why a dialect would e called a language, and still not be widespread. The small lamguage in Spain, was determined by its influence, in that town. So in this instance, it was influenece. With Mandarin it is influence, political, and the spread.


BTW, I have voiced my opinions. at a college. And was rather respcted on them. Some even shared my same views. But I don't think I heard laughter. Hmmmm. Nope no laughter.

[judes]

dazz,

Notice that the heading on the first column is language. It seems to me the source is saying that Yue, Min Nan, Hakka etc etc are all separate langauges? The word "Chinese" before that more likely implies that it is langauge spoken by Chinese people (ie Han Chinese).

i was confused about that too. it wasn't made very clear on the page whether these are "languages" or "dialects of said language". what was clear to me though was once again, mandarin was not seen as a language in itself. i'll have to look at that source.

oh and you're right i think. on the wikipedia list of chinese dialects, it does state that they are several different "language groups" instead of "dialects" my mistake. so that source supports the idea of cantonese as a language afterall.

-------------------------------

first off, i would like to apologize to Sugar&Spice and to happifruit and to anybody else if i have offended them in my word choice. i am not trying to say you are wrong in every perspective of this debate, only that some of the previous conceptions you have held may contain concepts that are incorrect by certain standards.

1) i do not believe in this debate that there is a right or wrong in regards to cantonese being a dialect or a language, i am also not trying to prove that it is right or wrong or that there is a definitive reason for stating one or another, in regards to the debate of dialect vs language for cantonese.
2) but i will tell someone that their statement is wrong when they're trying to use that statement to support what they are trying to say but that statement is entirely incorrect.

so therefore, it doesn't matter which way you try to color your argument. you are incorrect in the regards that a language has to be widespread in order for it to be a language. but you are NOT incorrect in stating that cantonese may be a dialect.

------------------------------
now this is directed at Sugar&Spice.

normally, when people post sources that don't link to anything, i don't bother trying to see their perspective because they're wasting my time. but i'll make an effort just for you.

You really have only just looked up information. Now can you break that information up in your own words, and discribe what it means in your own words?!

do you not understand the purpose of a debate or of quoting articles or snippets of information? this is because you acknowledge that you are not the person who is majoring in this study, and you try to draw from other sources and you put together information from these sources to support your argument. do you know that even "putting something into your own words" that was taken from another source is plagiarism if it was done without acknowledgement? have you ever written an academic article that you had to submit to an academic institution or a publication? if so, then there is no reason why you should not understand that when you are trying to support a stance you quote, source, analyze. if you are trying to tell me that i am in error in not summing up what other people have already said more succinctly than myself, then obviously you have no experience in putting together a scientific article written for a specific field of study.

--------------------------------

let's look at your source for a prestige dialect: Chinese In the Greater China area, Standard Mandarin Chinese, which is based on the Beijing dialect, is usually regarded as the prestige dialect.

therefore, mandarin is seen as a dialect, not a language in itself even if you are looking at all of the chinese dialects as part of the CHINESE LANGUAGE. and just throws all of your points about mandarin being a language out the window.

your other source, the source that links to the wikipedia file when you search for: cantonese language, hmm, ponder.

Cantonese is a major dialect group or language of the Chinese language a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages.

hmm, ponder again.

Different dialects of Cantonese are spoken depending on area.

this paragraph just states that there are differing dialects of cantonese, not that cantonese is a dialect.

Like other major varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is often considered a dialect of a single Chinese language for cultural or nationalistic reasons.

there is a difference between "classification as a language" than "often considered" as a language. people have said over and over again in this thread that sometimes classification of something as a "language" versus a "dialect" is often based on background such as the bringing of standard mandarin chinese in the education system and also the nationalistic tendencies of the people in power to not give certain languages their recognition as a language based on linguistical analysis simply because it would give them a step towards forming their own regional/national identities. but from a linguistic point of view, that does not stop something from being a language if you want to analyze it in terms of tones and structure.

but once again, even if you believe cantonese is a dialect, it still says a dialect of a SINGLE chinese language. not cantonese is a dialect of mandarin.

------------------------------

now let's look at the source for standard mandarin chinese:
Standard Mandarin is the official Chinese spoken language used by the People's Republic of China

and let's follow the link for "official chinese spoken language"

Chinese people make an impressional strong distinction between written language and spoken language. They tend to conceptualize the variations of Chinese as different spoken languages

so your point before on the standard mandarin only shows that either mandarin is a dialect of chinese like cantonese OR cantonese and mandarin are both spoken languages. which proves the point of my previous post.

even if you STILL want to argue the point that mandarin is its own language and cantonese merely a dialect of it, let's talk about actual linguistics sources done by *gasp* real linguists.

http://www.glossika.com/en/dict/classification/index.php
^ classification of mandarin AND cantonese as "chinese dialects" not mandarin as a LANGUAGE.
http://stedt.berkeley.edu/html/STfamily.html
^ James Matisoff, a PhD at Berkley who studies the Sino-Tibetan languages extensively, argues that chinese is a LANGUAGE and that cantonese/mandarin are DIALECTS.

another source that sees the varities of chinese languages as sinitic languages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Y-NL400b.gif

and guess what? cantonese and mandarin are seen as SEPARATE languages!

another good summary from http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/may/SinoTibetanLanguageFamily.htm

The Chinese Branch of the Sino-Tibetan family

Mandarin Chinese, spoken in Northern and Central China, is the standard form of Chinese. Other major languages are Yue or Cantonese, spoken in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces; Wu, spoken in Shanghai and Zhejiang province; Hakka, spoken in Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces, and Fukienese or Min, spoken in Fujian and Guangdong provinces and in Taiwan. Speakers of these languages are also spread throughout Asia and many countries around the world.

The various Chinese languages are often referred to as dialects because they have a common writing system even though they are not mutually intelligible. This means that speakers of any of the language varieties recognizes will recognize written characters but will pronounce them in their own dialect. Most scholars use the term 'language' to refer to the major varieties of Chinese such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Min, and Hakka, and the term 'dialect' to refer to distinctions within these languages, e.g., Beijing dialect of Mandarin or Toishan dialect of Cantonese.

does cantonese have its own dialects? amazing! that should make it a language in itself then since some people are arguing that because mandarin has its own dialects it's "more of a language" than cantonese.

The Chinese themselves refer to all forms of spoken Chinese as 'dialects.' This perception is reinforced by a common cultural and political identity and, ' most importantly, by a common writing system with deep historical roots.

mandarin is a form of spoken chinese. therefore, even the chinese themselves see mandarin as a dialect.

other scholars like hilary chappell (professor and i believe phd at the university of melbourne), who i can't link to because i can't find any of her papers on the internet that would be available to the general public, believe that even the term "chinese languages" should be cast out for just "sino" or "sinitic" languages, because "chinese" should refer to a geographical area such as "the languages of china" = "chinese languages" instead of the "chinese language family".

-----------------------------------

Also, the fact that some languages, get their title as a language. And is not really widespread. Is the fact that in that COUNTRY, the language is considered, a PRESTIGE dialect out of the other ones of that country. But that is not the case with Mandarin, it is a prestige dialect, that got its title of LANGUAGE, due to it influence of other countries.

you don't really understand the concept of prestige dialect, do you? where can you make this kind of leap from a prestige dialect to becoming a language? where is your source that states that? all that this says on this page is that mandarin is the prestige dialect of china. yes, if you were to talk about mandarin as a dialect of chinese, i wholeheartedly agree with you that some scholars would recognize this concept.

Now the point that I find intreasting, is that Mandarin as it seems to be alluding to. Was a dialect, and what made it into a language, from what I have gathered, was the fact that it was large enough to sustain more then one dialect.

cantonese also has several dialects. as it says on the cantonese page that you sourced. so no, that's not a point you can make.

do you realize that all of these pages that you draw your information from, not one of them says that mandarin is a language unless it states that mandarin is part of the "chinese language family"? as in, mandarin is a language of the chinese language family that cantonese also belongs to? and do you realize that if mandarin is referred to, it's referred to as a chinese dialect?

So you have to look at the circumstances of why a dialect would e called a language, and still not be widespread. The small lamguage in Spain, was determined by its influence, in that town. So in this instance, it was influenece.

you do realize that within spain it's not because of the influence in that town that this small language is predominant. if you don't even know which source i'm talking from and which group of people i'm talking about, don't try to argue it, ok? people in that town still speak other languages like spanish and portuguese, what distincts this language from being a language is that spanish speakers are not able to understand the speakers of this language, and that its grammar, syntax, and overall structure is different from any of the other languages. and another aspect of it being acknowledged as a language is because much of the population in europe is bilingual, trilingual anyway, so since there are so many languages present, there is not much of a problem acknowledging the status of another language.

BTW, I have voiced my stand at a college. And was rather respcted on them. Some even shared my same views. But I don't think I heard laughter. Hmmmm. Nope no laughter.

right, i find that hard to believe. considering the sources that i've referenced directly contradicts your views. i would find it interesting to know what college you voiced your views at and whether it was a talk directed at the general public or whether it was an academic talk, and whether there were any thesis defenses and papers being presented. and whether there were any actual linguists present at this talk who make their living analysing languages, if you could name them and their area of study within linguistics, that would be superb.

i have many doubts, and i am sure others on this thread share the same opinion. i find it hard for me to believe someone who cannot even name or own a lingustics text that would allow you to reference what you say have come from a variety of sources that support you. and who would actually state that it is better to "put everything in your own words" other than to source and quote experts in the field. i find it humorous because as a student at an university, being part of any science and writing a paper without those two pillars of support, would give you a F grade.

-----------------------------

to conclude, i would also suggest a reading of this paper that is a review of a book: http://www.sino-platonic.org/abstracts/spp145_sinitic.html

it argues for:
1) dialects = mutual intelligibility
2) written system does not equal definition of overall "chinese" language. there is a brief summary of spoken vs written alnguages here.
3) "the chinese people feel that there is only one language". and this author gives a very good argument as to why linguists should analyze what makes distinct languages because of the language structure and because of the language roots, not because of cultural biases. it would be like a german supremacist saying that "there is only one germanic language", and nobody would follow through on his claim.

summing up everything:
1) a language still does not have to be widespread to be considered a language. any point after this trying to debate this point will be ignored because there have still been no sources stated that even remotely alludes to this point.
2) cantonese is not seen as a dialect of mandarin by commonly published journals and well known linguists.
3) if mandarin is seen as a language in itself, then cantonese is seen as a language by itself in the sinitic language categorization, as part of the chinese language family.

so it is not "right" and it is not "wrong" to see mandarin and cantonese as dialects of chinese or to see mandarin and cantonese as distinct languages. it is "wrong" however, to say that a criterion for a language to be a language is that it is widespread and to state that mandarin is a language and cantonese is a dialect of mandarin.

even if i am not a cantonese speaker, i definitely do not see mandarin as a language in itself if cantonese is not acknowledged as its own language. the only way mandarin becomes close to being a "language" is that it is what the "written chinese language" is based on, yet you cannot call mandarin its own "language" based on this because the written chinese language still draws from other chinese languages as well. but the distinction with cantonese is that it also has its own set of characters that could distinct it as a "written language". still, in spoken form, mandarin and cantonese are still "separate languages" that are tied together by a common "written language" that is the modern chinese writing form, although not very well.

a summary of my sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_%28linguistics%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_%28linguistics%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Tibetan_languages
http://stedt.berkeley.edu/html/STfamily.html (James Matisoff, one of the leading linguists in the field of Sino-Tibetan languages)
http://www.sino-platonic.org/abstracts/spp145_sinitic.html (summary of Hilary Chappell's work)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Y-NL400b.gif
Hilary Chapell
Saltzmann

i count five sources from an encyclopedia.
two online sources from linguists in their field
and one book regarding sino-tibetan language distinctions
and one book on the generalization of language, dialects, and social distinctions based on anthropological studies.
along with several articles from contemporary linguistics that i cannot link to here because they can only be seen if you have an account with an university.

i have presented my case for both the concept of cantonese as a dialect and cantonese as a language. i have presented my case that a language is not a language because the people in power says it is and also proceeded to negate the widespread argument. i have also negated the argument that since mandarin has dialects it is a language. i have made a claim, sourced, provided evidence, and made quotations and summaries.

not to mention i have my own background in studying chinese/taiwanese history, along with being able to read and write modern chinese along with being able to speak mandarin and taiwanese and understand cantonese. i am a student at a university with a friend who holds a master in translational linguistics, and a friend who holds a bachelor of arts majoring in linguistics and anthropology who i have requested information from.

i also have the knowledge of being able to critically analyze and present information in papers and essays for my classes by being able to source and to quote and to back up my claim but also provide two opposing viewpoints for contrast. these qualifications give me the knowledge of being able to comprehend the regional, national, and historical perspectives of these dialects/languages, along with the ability to discuss and dissect the reasons why these dialects may gain the distinction of a language under certain classifications.

your turn.

[Sugar&Spice]

Yes it is my turn. And I will gladly take it. Let me start off by say that, it dose not matter whether you can speak, and write in Mandarin, a Taiwanese dialect, and understand some Cantonese. That dose not automaticaly mean that you can understand the dynamics of these languages on a linguistic degree unless you have studied them. I have met plenty of people who are native speakers of these dialects/languages. And they do not know anything about it on a linguistic level. And you already stated that you have no background in this subject. Thus asking your boyfriend, and others for help. While I on the other hand do not need to. So being able to speak and write it is not relevent to this discussion. As well as Chinese/taiwan history. That is a whole other topic. When you said this, it really made my laugh. But I will contain my laughter enough to type my response.

As for your cicle of friends. You have a very intreasting circle of friends. Nice to know we have people still hitting the books these days. But I have on things to ask. Why didn't you refer to them when you posted those links?! Also how can you critize the link that I had earlier, when you yourself was refering to the same site?! Anyway back on topic.

This is your link. http://www.glossika.com/en/dictClas...tion/index.php. Whatever that was. Anyway, I discarded that as insufficent resources. I read it carefully and it only spoke of regions, and geographic locations. It did not bring home a specific point. At least not the one you are trying to convey. But I gave it another shot and looked at the next one, and read it carefully.

http://stedt.berkeley.edu/html/STfamily.html
I found that to be insufficent as well. Because of the fact that he was talking about literary languages. The mentioned the ST family, but not in the form you are trying to fit it into. But I went ahead and went to the next one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik/Imageiy=NL.400b.gif.
I have seen this site. It is not really bringing hoem a strong direct point. At this point I have to admit. I lost patience. I guess I don't have the so-called patience with your links, as you said you had while looking up mine. So I did not continue to look at any more, for the fact that I was morbidly frightened that they would be as horribly off-topic as the rest. Unless you can break down each link in FULL, detail, and show how it applies, rather then saying. "See? It says it here. When I wanted to send people to a site I told them where to look exactly, to find my point. The links did not work. But I made sure the ones that I havenow work. The point is, when posting links, state your point in DETAIL, don't just say, you see it says it here. Because from what I read, it did not say anything specific.

Now the fact that you brought up plagiarism, was amusing to me. Because you are quick to say others don't know the meaning of a word, but you greatly misused this word. That really only applies if you are planning on taking credit for someone elses work. And you plan on getting some kind of compensation because of it. I was not aware that we were starting up a play, making a book and selling it,etc. based on these linguists resources. Because we are on a website, and debating, and the fact that I never claimed any of the resources as my own. I'm by no means guilty of these trumped up charges. LOL! How funny. Back to the topic.

Let me once again break down my stand on the argument.

Standard dialect, "standard language"


A dialect supported by insitutions. Such insitutional support may include, government recognition, or designation presentation as being the correct form of a language in schools. Published grammers, dictionaries, and textbooks. That set forth a "correct" Spoken and written form. Now Mandarin fits this aspcet. I will wrap all of this up in one minute, I have another aspect to consider first.


A non-standard dialect

A non-standard dialect is a dialect that dose not have the institutional support, or sanction. That a standard dialect has.

Lookk at this link and you can see this quoted for yourself.http://www.reference.com/search?q=dialect.

Now the reason that I pointed this out, is beause we can see the different catagories that Mandarin and Cantonese fits into. Mandarin is Standard, and Cantonese is Non-standard. I'm bringing this out first because it leads the way into my next point.

Look at this link http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/dialect
Now you can go down a little bit and see that it qoutes that when a dialect is spoken by a large group of speakers, of a language, it aquires prestige, which leads to the development of a standard LANGUAGE.

This basicly proves both of my points in one. Because it is a large group of people, that speak it. Which is widespread. I will elaborate in one minute. and the fact that being a prestige language, gives Mandarin its right as a standard language and not a dialect. So it is not a leap from prestige to language. It has different stages. A dialect which develops into a larger dialect that can(as I have stated before.) sustain more then one dialect. Then it is recognised on a grand scale.

Let me elaborate once again. Standard Mandarin is the offical spoken language used by the peoples republic of china, taiwan, and one of the offical languages in Singapore. Now that is political recognition.

Now another aspect(I love the word aspect) is the fact that A large and very diverse group of chinese dialect spoken across the northern and southwestern china, is what linguistics refer to as Mandarin, to refer to the entire group of dialects. There is another aspect of what I'm trying to say. Cantonese is not recognised as such.

Now, another point. It is known in the peoples republic, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore as "Hua" Which in a cultural sense means Language. Chinese communites around the world recognise it as such. Mandarin has more native speakers, then any other language.

If you doubt, then you can go to both of the links I have provided. The first link supports, most of what I have said. And the second, links brings it home, as to how being a prestige dialect has given it the right to be a standard language. I don't doubt that Mandarin once was a dialect, but it recognition as given it a right to elevate itself to language.

Cantonese, although a beautiful language rich with culture. It dose not have the same, support that Mandarin has. Thus keeping it a dialect.

Mandarin is taught everywhere, and is supported politicaly, and culturly. Establishing it as a lnaguage.

Now the breif look At one of Judes links. The man talked about litaray languages. And I have one thing to add about it.

The Cantonese, and the Min nan, Shanghinese, and the Hokkien dialects. Have included additonal adopted characters for writing texts that reflect the spoken language.These written forms have not been standardized. And are used in informal texts only.

But the written form of chinese has been best suited with Mandarin. Thus giving it some more recognition. It also is a go between for people of other dialects, to be able to come together and understand one another. Cantonese is not used for this purpose. Even though it may be spoken in different areas, it dose not hold the same prestige as Mandarin dose. Resulting in not developing into a standard language.

If anyone wants to continue to call Cantonese a language that is their choice. I will call it a dialect. In this case I will not say anyone is wrong, for their opinons. I can only state my views.
Like I said before, an in-dept view of both links, will back up what my stand is.


Judes- If you don't believe me when I said that I spoke about linguistics in a college(I volenteered. It was a nice program) that is up to you. I don't need to prove anything to you. Also you make bold statements for someone who knows little about linguistics. You can insult my information all day long if you like. But from what I saw from your links, if I were to be laughed out of a university, then you wouldn't be too far behind me. I hate to be mean, but stop wasting my time. If you don't put time into what your refering to, and posting links that you think will support you, and then people find out it dose not bring home any specific point. Then I'm not going to take the time to read them. Regardless, of whether you took the time to read mine or not. I'm just not that patient I guess.
So from here on you can say what you like. I have nothing more to say in regards to your debate, because I will run the risk of being redundant(I hate doing that) So ZAI JIAN!! :rolleyes:

As for anyone else. If you have any other points to bring to the table. Feel free. I can't wait to hear them.

Oh! I forgot, in the first link, it also says that the resources differ depending on your refferences. So one person can see where it says dialect, and another may see where it says Language. So it differes.

[judes]

i just love how someone who wants to argue linguistics and whether something is a language or not, and someone who is discussing the importance of language, will allow the presentation of your post to be so riddled with spelling and grammar errors. it just makes me shake my head.

and i brought in my background because you were trying to argue chinese history and the development of chinese text and then completely making erroneous points and errors in your discussion of chinese history. also, being able to speak and understand these languages make me able to discern for myself whether one is mutually intelligible to another, which is a very big part of what distinguishes a dialect from a language. so yes, it is applicable in the larger context.

While I on the other hand do not need to. So being able to speak and write it is not relevent to this discussion. As well as Chinese/taiwan history. That is a whole other topic. When you said this, it really made my laugh.

huh ok. i admit that i don't have enough background and will go to others who have higher backgrounds than i do shows that the sources that i am stating are from people with more distinguished and developed knowledge.

while you are only basing it on your own studies and your own knowledge of linguistic sources that you cannot even provide. and assuming that your own personal basis of knowledge is sufficient. that is pretty grand statement to make for someone who is not a linguistics major and who does not hold a bachelor of arts in linguistis.

Why didn't you refer to them when you posted those links?! Also how can you critize the link that I had earlier, when you yourself was refering to the same site?! Anyway back on topic.

uh because they were the ones who gave me the links because they themselves are scholars of linguistics and even do not claim like you do that they know everything and never need to source. that's what linguists DO, they source and put together a THESIS but do not pretend that they know everything they need to know about a particular field.

your argument for my first two links were so terrible. "oh this one is insufficient because it talks about literary languages." WE ARE TALKING ABOUT LITERARY LANGUAGES. "only spoke of regions" THAT IS YOUR ARGUMENT, YOU ARE TRYING TO ARGUE FOR WIDESPREAD LANGUAGES TO NOT BE CONSIDERED DIALECTS.

Unless you can break down each link in FULL, detail, and show how it applies, rather then saying. "See? It says it here. When I wanted to send people to a site I told them where to look exactly, to find my point.

what? did you proceed to break down each link in full detail? no.
did you quote anything and tell us exactly where to look? no.
you made generalities and distorted statements to say what you wanted them to say.

do you realize that when i analyzed your sources which were the same as mine i did so by supporting my statements and by criticizing the points you were making that were contrary to the information being presented?

Now you can go down a little bit and see that it qoutes that when a dialect is spoken by a large group of speakers, of a language, it aquires prestige, which leads to the development of a standard LANGUAGE.

yes, that is great and all. but where does it say that this applies to mandarin? when a dialect is spoken by a large group of speakers of a language it acquires prestige, and leads to the development of a standard WRITTEN LANGUAGE that is called CHINESE and not MANDARIN. nobody says in china that "i write mandarin", they say "i write chinese" and "i speak mandarin". that is a big difference.

you just asked me to do all of the things you refused to do yourself. you provided sources that do not support anything that you say. you do not provide any sources from establishd linguists in their field, you do not have any sources that support the fact that cantonese is a dialect of mandarin, you do not have any sources that when distinguishing mandarin as a language, your terms also support cantonese as a language as well and most of all you presume that you yourself are so knowledgeable about this field without a university degree or any background in linguistics at all besides your own studies and is not willing to admit that.

dazz and i have asked many times for you to provide proof:
that in order for a language to become a language it has to be widespread, because mandarin and cantonese are both spoken by millions of people in the world. all your source says is that a prestige dialect could become a standard language, and i told you that it is still standard chinese written script based on standard mandarin but you speak mandarin or cantonese.
and that cantonese is a dialect of mandarin, which zero of your sources state explicitly, while all of the sources that i've provided and some which you sent us to, have said that both cantonese are mandarin are seen as languages OR dialects and that the distinction is unclear.

i'm glad you're refusing to discuss this anymore, because it is obvious you have no solid ground to stand upon. you sound redundant because you keep on repeating the same arguments without being able to refute any of mine. repeat repeat and repeat and not being able to understand that your argument has already been argued as wrong a few times.

and it's not resources, it's sources, a resource is "a source of supply, support, or aid, esp. one that can be readily drawn upon when needed." a source is "a book, statement, person, etc., supplying information." nobody says "these are my resources", a library is a resource of sources, while a book is a source.

i won't even waste my energy to laugh because it's too easy.

[Sugar&Spice]

Judes you really need to grow up. BTW you are braking your own forum rules by insulting the person and not the statement. Actually you broke rule #1 and #2. Are you going to give yourself a swift kick in the arse like the guidelines says?! Ni ming bai wode yi si ma?! I'll state again, GROW UP!




My view is supported in the links that I have stated, and if you look under Standard, and non-standard. Lnaguage you will see which catagory Mandarin fits into. And one of the links says that Mandarin is a standard language.



And for other posters. We are talking about the spoken form, of whether Cantonese is a dialect, not the written. I was thinking of making that a different topic all together. So if anyone has any questions about my links, and the information I used, please feel free to ask me about it. If you read it, and understood what I'm saying through my links, then I was successful in voicing my stand.



I forgot to navigate people to my points. So here I go....




When you go to the first link, after you have read about the standard and the non-standard dialects, you will want to scroll all the way down, until you see dircet continuum Click on it.


now click again on standard language, it gives a little more information.


Then once you do that, you might want to go down to
language varites. click on prestige. now once that is read, or if you want to skip it because you read my second link about prestige, then scroll down to social prestige and the roll of language.



Once there go to "Superstrate Lamguages"
Now look at the point when it says,"When a language succeds over another one.


Now if we look at that we can see that, Mandarin has succeded Cantonese, by gaining prestige, due to widespread recognition. Meaning it is now a standard language. Then you can go to my second link and scroll down a little and you will see the being a dialect spoken by large groups, makes it a well recognised pretige langueg. Meaning standard language.

When we look at Mandarin, we can see it is widely accepted, has government backing, and is recognized culturly as a standard language. Thats all I can do is provide my information. It is up to the reader to be able to unsderstand it. Ok other posters, thats my stand.

[KendoTiger]

Okay you two - stop fighting.

--------
First, I would like to point out a few things before moving into the debate:
--------

1. The history of the region has been ignored. As stated earlier by Dazz and myself, it is extremely likely that a. Chinese written characters developed from a pre-Cantonese/pre-Mandarin shamenesque picto-diagram written language. Aiks, sorry if the word choice is a little off. Basically, simple picture representations of such things as "moon" and "sun" were drawn to aid "shamens1*" in their "religious2*" ceremonies3*.

*1: Religious/Spiritual Leaders
*2: Spiritual-type activities
*3: Information from the Smithsonian Museum, recovered artifacts on display.

Basically, as the Chinese Civilization spread, new regional dialects/languages*1 arose, becoming distinct through population isolation. As technology advanced, group interaction greatly increased (from rural to major population centers), bringing in a variety of new characters and pronounciations. Generally, those on the "fringe*2" of the civilization were least able to understand cross-civilzation "dialect/languages". Think of it as a color-pallette. These language/dialects were specific not only to region, but ethnic group within China*3.

*1: Dialects of existing languages and the creation of new, distinct languages. I do not feel like arguing any point with this conjunction.
*2: "Fringe" as defined as rural, outlier, etc.
*3: Uigher, Han, etc.

As was mentioned previously, Chinese civilization originated inbetween the two main Chinese Rivers, the Huang He and the Yangtze; and is confirmed as the origin of China's first Dynasty*1.

*1: If you don't know this, or can't find this, you don't deserve to have access to a computer - go farm some rice. >_>

As Dazz mentioned, Qin Shih Huang standardized the written language of China, due to an excess of characters leading to confusion and ambiguity. In popular current-culture, the movie "Hero" shows the original unification of China, and the severity of character excess (although it is historical fiction, and clarity comes at the cost of aesthetics).

The reason why Mandarin "fits better" with the original written (Traditional) characters has not been mentioned. Previously, the ruling Chinese Dynasties were localized in the North (after unification), and had strong ties to the Manchurian People (Khans physically, but Northern** influence was strong). Mandarin as it is now known (written form), did not exist. The Northern Dynasties used preexisting characters to form a unified written language that was to be the Chinese Written Language.

The current form of Standard Written Chinese (ie Simplified/Traditional Chinese) is more harmonizable with Mandarin as the inclusion of new words and ideas are less traditionally based. As Spoken Mandarin is the official spoken language of China, new characters and ideas behind those character combinations are Mandarin-based*1.

*1: As Beijing (Mando) is in power, new word creations will be from a Northern point of view (word/character associations. I will clarify if asked).

2. Communist control is in part due, as has been mentioned before, to the perception that Mandarin is, in itself, the "Chinese Language". Although the Cultural Revolution started in the South*, they needed to secure their lineage to the previous ruling dynasties to secure their rule. Although a direct connection was pointless and counter-productive (dissolution of the ruling class), similarities needed to be emplaced to facilitate the transfer of power.

For the same reason that Mandarin is a Language, as oppossed to Cantonese. Because Political concerns can affect the classification of language varieties. Political concerns plays a magor role in whether is language becomes a language.

This point is acknoledged by everyone present, but does not seem to be fully realized. One of the main reasons why Cantonese has never been fully accepted as an individual language is that it would give regional identity to a part of China distanced from Beijing (PRC). I would not be surprised if the "discoveries" linking Cantonese to Mandarin were supported by funds issued from the PRC government, or if the support of Mandarin as the official "Language" of China was originally stated by the PRC. Sigh, I know this "anti-communist" statement is turning into a rant, so I'll restate.

To prevent cultural identity from being realized, cultural differences were eliminated as much as possible, to create a stable, homogenous population. The PRC did this to minimize disputes and solidify power. For this reason, such cultural distinctions as Language (Cantonese, Hokkien, etc), Art (Shaolin Martial Arts, etc), and Religion (Uighers, etc), were destroyed or minimalized.

3. I apologize if anything I say after this point seems repetative: it is merely because I would rather not break up my thought process by including multiple references to previous posts.

4. Sources are not required for a debate, although the misuse or non-use of them will devalue anything you have to say to that of a raving street bum. Plagiarism does not occur unless one is attempting to take credit for the work of another. Judes' distinction between "resources" and "sources" is correct.

Personally, I do not believe that any of the sources used would stand up to an academic review, but this is not an academic debate. Still, I would prefer that no one insult the sources listed, as I have reviewed them all and find that they do show merit.

5. Although being fluent in a language does not make it impossible to understand linguistically, it does greatly facilitate it. If you understood both Cantonese and Mandarin, you'd have a better idea of how distinct each is. Although knowing any "dialect" of Chinese will help one to learn another, it is because of the shared Chinese Written System. This is comparative to the Romance languages as a learner would not have to learn new text characters to use in the creation of words (ie abc is transferable between spanish and english). When it comes to speaking, despite similarities, the majority of spoken dialogue is unintelligible between dialects of Chinese.

Personally, I am fluent in Cantonese, almost so in Mandarin, fluent in English, and functional in Spanish. When watching an Italian movie, I was surprised at how much I understood. It was that WW2 one about the comedian? and his son,wife, going to a concentration camp. Something about a lot of people disliking it because it made the situation seem comical? Meh.

---------------------
Now to the debate.
---------------------
Written System

Also the fact that it shares its written language with Mandarin, instead of having its own written system. Shows it to be a dialect.

Cantonese had it's own written system prior to the unification of the Chinese written system; the current written system is based off of characters found throughout China, including both Mandarin and Cantonese characters. Therefore, both Mandarin and Cantonese (including all other dialect-languages within China) share the same language, but do not possess or are responsible for "owning" the written language. When it comes to the written system within China, it quickly becomes obvious that, when taken alone, this point only suggests that both Mandarin and Cantonese are dialects of a unified Chinese written language.

the writting system matches best with the Mandarin language, as oppossed to Cantonese, shows that Cantonese derived from the Mandarin language.

No. As stated before, harmonization between the current writing system and Mandarin does not shown causality between Mandarin and Cantonese. This is a serious logical fallacy.

Sub-Dialects

A large and very diverse group of chinese dialect spoken across the northern and southwestern china, is what linguistics refer to as Mandarin, to refer to the entire group of dialects. There is another aspect of what I'm trying to say. Cantonese is not recognised as such.

Cantonese has it's own dialects, located throughout southern China; I personally speak Toisan (sp) which is regionally located. Can dialects have their own dialects? If not, then Cantonese is as much of a distinct oral language as Mandarin is. If so, then the existance of dialects within Mandarin does not give it the status of a language.

Spread


-Japan/Korea

Definition
Phonetics... Phonological... Morphological... Syntactic... Lexical(semantic)

------------
Judes:
Although you have apologized, please refrain from insulting people. If you make your point clearly, people will understand why your point of view is right/wrong. Don't stress out trying to convert the people you're debating with. Thanks.

Sugar&Spice:
If you make a statement regarding academic acceptance of your point of view, please list the specifics. Also, please list your own sources, and if you wish to discredit someone else's sources, please list clear counter-evidence and an explanation of why the source is unusable. Thanks.

~~ My friend wanted to write this after she scanned through the thread, no offense by me is meant. I will delete it if requested. ~~


I am not being mean, if I were, I would say something like this:
Tonhono O' od ham and pima are mutyally intelligble varties
OMG! Sugar&Spice has surpassed us all! She's made her OWN LANGUAGE!

[judes]

my comments that anyone could find insulting have been edited out and retracted from the discussion and a personal apology extended to those who were offended.

i believe all i could say have been said on my part.
i'm not interested in making anybody believe my stance, and i fully agree that cantonese is a dialect/language and there are reasons for both distinctions supported by many linguists. the problem is, of course, the illogical statements being made for one side versus another.

even though sources are not necessary for all debates, but for this sort of debate, one cannot possibly argue without sources simply because one has to draw upon theoretical linguistics that defines language versus dialect and this is the sort of topic that does have details that people outside of an academic setting could not formulate a knowledgeable opinion on.

continue debate.

[KendoTiger]

Edit:
I have deleted the 4 posts prior to this one because they contribute nothing to the debate.
~dazzlette

Sources:

http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/xw/t71525.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization#China_.28Yellow_River.29_2200_BC.E2.8 0.93Present

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_history

http://www.china.org.cn/e-gudai/1.htm

http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab33

http://logos.uoregon.edu/explore/orthography/chinese.html

http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_learning/2003-09/24/content_20552.htm

http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/chinesewriting.html

[dazzlette]

I hate to get in a the middle of an ugly situation. I have removed the last few posts because there were obvious violations to the rules of this forum. There is no need for personal attacks of any sort, even if you feel that the other person is truly wrong. Any new posts that do not contribute to the debate will be removed.

Personally, I have said all I can say on this topic and I hope someone will bring up something new.

[Sugar&Spice]

I think that I would like to bring up another aspect to the table.


Now since we are talking about Cantonese being a dialect or a language. We can look at another point. Is Cantonese older then Mandarin?! And should it because of the age be elevated to language?!



To me the age of a dialect, whether it be thousands of years old, or not. It dose not mean that it should be a language. But I have heard people who study dialects, and Languages, argue that the age of a dialect is a factor in determining whether it should be a lanaguage.


And no one can agree on which is older. From what I have studied, Mandarin was spoken by dynasties. I would think that it is the oldest language. I wouldn't mind hearing different opinions.

[judes]

it seems to be a trend.
i leave for a few days and the debate forum goes to a shit fest.
get back on topic or this thread will be closed.

-----------------------

a few things to point out re: mandarin/cantonese development in terms of age.

vietnamese developed from middle chinese and retains a lot of the tonal features of middle chinese, but nobody would ever argue that vietnamese is not a different language than chinese. so simply using age to argue for the ability to determine whether a dialect should become a language or not as a definition is not something that linguists would do, unless you can name a linguist who has that stated as their thesis clearly.

the first example of the development of middle chinese into mandarin, although not in its modern form, only traces of tonal elements, is from the yuan dynasty with the discovery of a rime book that details the different tonal sounds. but mandarin that was closest to its current modern form that would be the "official" language of a dynasty would be the qing dynasty, so you cannot say that mandarin was used by dynasties officially, only one dynasty.

cantonese also retains tonal elements from the few late middle chinese texts that have been uncovered. once again, the tonal complexity of cantonese retains more of the late middle chinese characteristics than mandarin does. the only thing one could determine from this is that mandarin has evolved over time to a simpler tonal structure.

if you want to argue tonal retention and complexity of tonal structure, cantonese would carry more elements of late middle chinese than mandarin. if you want to argue the presence of vowel transitions, mandarin would have more of the transitions that were documented in late middle chinese than cantonese.

and even though i looked for it i did not find anything that compared or found it necessary to compare the origins of these two languages/dialects by placing them at a specific time frame relative to one another. each one has its specific roots and foundations based upon how much it has in common with what we know of the structure of late middle chinese, if you were to argue retention of late middle chinese elements, cantonese would be "older" than mandarin in that regard. but it's pointless to discuss that because both cantonese and mandarin have changed so much even in the past century that even what was called "mandarin" in the qing dynasty would not be what we would call "mandarin" now, only that we would trace the roots of modern mandarin from that form of mandarin. if you read the classical texts of the qing dynasty then, you would see that it does not even follow the mandarin spoken language. the standardization of the written text to follow modern mandarin is a fairly recent development in terms of discussing the overall history of the chinese language.

sources:
http://people.cornell.edu/pages/tm17/res/tones.pdf
http://assets.cambridge.org/052165/2723/sample/0521652723WS.pdf
http://xiang.free.fr/leiden-en.pdf

[c_c_]

I agree with judes, age does not determine whether a language is a language or a dialect. There is one way to determine this as I see it. Shanghainese is a dialect, no? as well as whatever it is they speak in Nanjing and Beijing. The difference between these and Cantonese is that these dialects are still deeply rooted in Mandarin Chinese, while Cantonese has developed into an entirely different area.

Yet, after speaking with my Cantonese friend, she told me that Cantonese is mainly a language of slang. In this, Cantonese and the other dialects utilized in China are similar. Another point of similarity is that it is spoken by a specific region in China - Guang Zhou (Canton) - and derives its name from that region Cantonese. Meanwhile, as judes said, Vietnamese is exactly that, Vietnamese - a language belonging to a nation, while Cantonese does not enjoy the same status.

Of course, none of these arguments are what will ultimately determine the status of Cantonese or any language, but a mixture. From what I see, Cantonese is, as of the arguments I have read and considered, a dialect fast becoming a language.

[Sugar&Spice]

C_C- It was me who first stated that a language is not determined by how old it is. And even though I liked your comment, I have to disagree with some of your points.



1. I want to clearify what dialects is spoken in nanjing. That would be the Cantonese dialect. The language spoken in Beijing would be Mandarin.



2. You said that Cantonese is a dialect that is fast approching language. I would have to disagree with that. You said that your native Cantonese speaking friend told you that Cantonese is a language of slang. Well that dose not qulify it as a language. And you mentioned it was spoken by a specific region of china. That is another reason why it is not fast approching language status. It has to be recognised politicaly, and culturely as a language. And it is not. The very fact that it is considered as a "slang" dialect, proves this.



#3. Shanghinese dose not have its roots in Mandarin. It is the dialect of Shanghi. But Shanghi has made Mandarin one of its offical Languages.



#4. Cantonese is not standing on its own. It is in an entirely differant area, because it migrated there. And it shares the same writing system as Mandarin. So they are not all that different from eachother. They have alot of simularities. It is just that one was more recognised then the other. Changing it to language status.



5. Of course Vietnamese is a language belonging to a nation. It is the language of the country Veitnam. It is recognised by their government, and by their culture, that it is their offical language. So it should be a language. But I don't see where that has anything to do with Cantonese, and its stand as a dialect. Cantonese is not the offical language of a country. Only an area of a country. If you ask governments what the offical language of China is, they would say Mandarin. So Veitnamese would have nothing to do with, whether Cantontese is a dialect or not. I don't see how a Language could relate to a dialect. Since they both hold a different status, with different situations.

[judes]

this debate that has potential has once again reached a dead end with an absolute refusal to acknowledge sensible discussion. but no one is really surprised.

you were the one who brought up the idea of age related to language. and when people try to discuss it regarding full languages that retain the root of what all of the other acknowledged "languages/dialects" stem from, and you completely miss the point and think it's against you, again, when there are people actually trying to agree with you.

i dislike people who try to bring forth a point, people attempt to discuss both sides with one side being in the negative, and the other person suddenly attempts to step back and distance themselves from that argument. "i never said..." or "i was the first person to...". if anyone wants to play devil's advocate, back it up and stop reading too hard and trying to find something personal out of it.

we have discussed again and again this point of language of recognition by political means does not necessarily mean language regarding to linguistics. your topic originally has been related to linguistics, but very little of your comments relate to linguistics in the first place and you continually argue for the idea that a language has to have a government's support or some kind of "nation" in order for it to be recognized as a language, but you provide no actual linguistical theory for that and having a language determined as a language through political means rather than actual construction of the language is dangerous and speaks of colonialism.

i didn't want to mention this, but since i've heard other's opinions that they feel the same, it should be brought to your attention. i am actually more and more offended by your comments regarding the mandarin language as this debate continues. as someone who is very much affected by the government in china's stranglehold on the various languages/dialects being spoken in china with its affect on the nationalistic tendencies of many of the groups that fall under the 'chinese' ethnicity. it is this attempt at limiting the diversity of the chinese language / language family, and this sort of propaganda being spread by that government that says all of these ideas about "the government's language, the people's language" and banning the usage of shanghainese that is offensive to the rich cultural traditions of the many groups that make up china.

maybe it's the way you present yourself online. maybe you are actually someone who is very reasonable in person but seem to set off a few people online, i don't know. i wish that there is no pretense going on about having a great understanding and worldly view about chinese culture and history and language when one is obviously not from the culture or background and instead of being respectful of different views, is instead hostile and quick to leap to the defense of some imaginary cause. and most people, when they learn that they do not understand english grammar or do not know how to spell, at least attempt to better themselves, not brag about their poor language skills as "being real" or "staying true". it's shanghAi, not shanghi. it's DOES, not dose. english was not my first language or my mother tongue, and it was very embarassing to me to have poor grammar and i am grateful for the opportunity to learn, yet someone who lives in new york, who has all of these opportunities at her fingertips, feels the need to trumpet her self worth to anyone who cares to listen and feels proud of this, it baffles my mind.

i told you that if i hear another complaint about you, you're gone from the debate forum, and i'm sorry to say this, but today is the day.

i simply am too tired to constantly police this forum and feeling like it is a chore instead of actually enjoying it like i used to. and i am tired of hearing people say on this forum and through PM that the debates always get 'too personal'. and even when debates before got to be about very serious subjects, it never got as bad as this and a simply warning sufficed. but i'm constantly back here again and again in these threads to tell people to 'cool down' and to 'back off' and even to tell myself to cool down and to back off.

i am a person of my word though, and anything you post in the debate forum from this day on will be deleted. whether threads or posts or whatever. congratulations, you've reached my limit.

goodbye.

----------------------------------------------------------

and of course anybody else who wishes to continue the discussion or even follow through if you believe that Sugar&Spice's argument is valid is free to continue after this. maybe it's a little frightening after this post, but i hope all of you will come back and keep on posting. please!

[jwong]

i think cantonese is definitely a language in its own right... Cantonese has a totally different tonal system and it has other characters that mandarin does not have because a lot of colloqial Cantonese is not the same as proper Cantonese. This is totally different from a language like Taiwanese and Mandarin, making Cantonese a language more than a dialect. Most Cantonese can understand Mandarin speakers but (from what i've seen) not the other way around.

Sorry if I'm repeating what a lot of other people wrote, but these are just some of my thoughts on this topic. :)

[c_c_]

Sugar&Spice: regarding your comment on the fact that cantonese does not have it's own written language, I feel that I should clarify that it does. Cantonese utilizes the traditional form of writing while Mandarin utilizes the simplified form (in mainland china, at least). While these two forms are similar, they are similar in the same way that Japanese and simplified Chinese is similar - a strong resemblance, but still not the same. The reason I stated that cantonese is not YET a language but will become one in give or take fifty years is because I recognize that all that is needed for Cantonese to become a language is for it to develop a more unique writing style and deviate from the slang form that it is linked to.

While having a nation that recognizes the language as its national language is beneficial to the dialect becoming a language, it is not necessary. In China, there are 56 different ethnic groups and many of their languages - Tibetan, Man - are recognized as exactly that, languages.

Regarding what you said about Nanjing speaking Cantonese, I'm not quite sure that's true. I've been to Nanjing numerous times and, although their dialect is similar to Canto in that I find it utterly unintelligable, it has many differences in tone and inflection.

That's my take on it, thanks.

[Zhangjia]

On the topic of dialects..I have a theory...
Okay, so long time ago there was these people in northern China that spoke a "dialect".. They then gathered together (everyone who spoke the language) and went off to make a little settlement. That settlement grew and grew and today its know as.. KOREA!!
Because Koreans have a lot of words in their language that are similar to cantonese and mandarin, like "tae yang" sounds like "tai yang" which both mean Sun in their respective languages..
Now on topic..
I consider Cantonese a language because its just so big and widely spoken that its like a dialect thats reached adulthood :tongue: ! But in reality, I know its a dialect because of the stuff people said before my post

[c_c_]

Zhangjia: I like your theory! Actually, a lot of languages of today's world were spawned off of others. For example, French is actually latin vulgaire (vulgar latin). I think your theory is one of the few ones that can always apply, but I also feel that Cantonese still has a few more stages of development to go through before becoming a language. After all, it is still mostly slang and has a written language that is utilized by other languages as well (as I said before, traditional is relatively unique to Canto, but it still needs to be altered a little, an alteration that will probably occur over time)

CC

[FSUTan]

to me i believe cantonese, as well other dialects of chinese (shanghaiese, taiwanese -- minnan, hakken and much more) are all different languages..but then again, i guess because it's written all the same (give or take) therefore it's not different enough to be a language. in india, there over 500 dialects..so i guess the people in china have it easy comparatively =) haha

[R A I N B O W x3]

its a dialect. they dont use cantonese in taiwan tho they use traditional chinesse which is mandarin =]. chinese is the language of mandarin, cantonese, taiwanese, etc. so basicially yeah its a dialect and there all written the same way just pronounced differently.

[judes]

written the same = common written language.
mutual intelligibility and language structure, along with cultural connotations and idiom usage = different spoken language.

there's a reason why it's referred to as the chinese language family within the sino language superfamily in some linguistic circles.

[ghettosushi713]

i think that canto is a FORM of chinese
like the two major splits in chinese are probably mandarin nd cantonese
i speak mandarin but i noe that cantonese is very similar

and also that DIAO is a hella bad word in canto XD

[FSUTan]

diao is not a bad word...dieu is the bad word =)

[twilighthush]

I have nothing of great value to offer at 6AM on no sleep.

I just have to say this: I cannot believe I missed this debate when Miss Banned Princess yonder was here to debate. Oh well. xD; Will comment later on with some postmodern linguistic theory and how the written signifier relates to the logos.

Edit:

"Linguistics thus wishes to be the science of language." - Derrida

I didn't actually read the entirety of this debate because I honestly didn't have to know what was being argued to know my own argument. As someone who has strong academic roots in linguistics -- particularly in postmodern linguistic theory with a semiotic background, a quick skim of the major arguments was all that was necessary for me to come up with my own.

For me, I absolutely believe Cantonese is its own spoken language. While many linguists might argue that it is a dialect due to the fact that it falls under the broad umbrella of "Chinese", if one can argue that the 5,000 different "dialects" of "Chinese" are all just dialects, then it can also be argued that Mandarin itself (which is commonly referred to as "Chinese") is also a dialect. If Mandarin is nothing but a dialect, then where does the actual language begin?

Others seem to argue that the reason why Cantonese is a dialect is because its logos shares a common written language. However, one might want to consider that pre-Heian period in Japan, the Japanese used the Chinese writing system exclusively. It was not until the Heian period that the Japanese writing system -- which was derived from the Chinese writing system -- was created. If the Japanese also used our writing system exclusively, is Japanese, then, another dialect? One might say that because their grammatical structure is absolutely different from Chinese, that is not the case -- but what about Korean then? The way Korean and Japanese functions grammatically is absolutely one and the same, but aren't they different languages entirely?

Then there's the consideration of the differentiation between Modern, Middle, and Old English. Linguists do not believe that these three languages are dialects. Instead, they hold fast that these are absolutely languages that are unique in their phonological/glossematic scheme. Though the grammatical structure is absolutely one and the same, simply because these words sound so incredibly different in pronunciation, it is therefore its own language.

Most of the questions posed above are not questions I expect to be answered as they are rhetorical devices; they are are questions that pose logical problematics to those who would like to believe that languages equate with dialects simply because of the same grammatical structure or the same written signifier.

Saussure once said, "Languages are independent of writing". The entire field of semiotics/semiology stemmed from his studies; in fact, he is considered as the father of semiotics (with influence, of course, from the likes of Rousseau). One might wonder, why is language independent from writing? Derrida argues in Of Grammatology, "Language [has] a definite and [far more] stable oral tradition that is independent of writing" (41) -- which is to say, language itself can exist without a common writing system; in fact, the oral tradition existed far longer before the dawn of a writing system. There are societies that exist that have virtually no writing system, as documented by Derrida in Of Grammatology in the case of the Nambikwaras who, previous to be exposed to Western travelers, hadn't the single notion or idea of what writing is or how writing works.

Writing essentially is nothing more than a supplement to language; and language is nothing more than an instrument that provides a signifier for what is being signified. But just because languages share a common supplement does not mean they are not independent of themselves; that they are merely dialectical (one can argue that certain parts of England speak different dialects of English, but wouldn't that just be generalized as having different accents? The same can be said for America.) in their differences. But I believe, due to just how different each of these languages are, they are actually languages, not just dialects.

After all if they all were just dialects, then that huge umbrella category of language we know to be Chinese is nothing more than a "transcendental signifier" for all the different dialects that make up this vast unknown, nonexistent language of "Chinese".

[simple_girl]

absolutely a dialect...no need to explain...if they let cantonese as a dilect they might as well let hokkien or hakka...really!!

[piaoliang_hua]

I"ve been lurking for too long, I must comment. I believe that Cantonese is a dialect. I actually took the time to read every post in here. (yes it took about an hour:D) I agree with the banned member sugar&spice, and everyone who said that Cantonese is a dialect. I don't know as much as the topic starter about linguistics, but I believe a lot of what she said. And I followed her links, because of her sources, I believe that Cantonese is a dialect. It really doesn't bother me if others disagree, since I see how others tried hard to make it seem as if the topic starter was wrong. But I can't argue the sources, they make sense. Before I never really thought about it. But after reading her sources, I'm a believer that Cantonese is a dialect.:wave:brows:

[hobielover]

I still think they are all separate languages. I mean, I speak Spanish and I can understand someone who speaks Portuguese, but when someone speaks to me in Cantonese, I get lost at "hello." Portuguese and Spanish are written very similar, yet they are considered separate languages, so why shouldn't Cantonese, Mandarin, and Hokkien be considered separate languages?

I consider a dialect to be the difference between the way someone from Spain speaks Spanish and the way someone from Mexico speaks Spanish, or the difference between British English and American English. Cantonese, Mandarin, and all of the other so-called "dialects" of Chinese are different from that.

[ask4more_jay]

i still think its a dialect
but i think its becoming more and more of a language
seems like a lot more people are learning it nowadays :excited:
well im half honger, so i guess i should quickly go learn it
before it does officially become a language!

[applemac]

I finally finished reading the debate!!! hahaha so sad it was years ago xD! I got excited -.- hahaha
judes I must say I like the way you debate and support your arguments, I used to practice debates at school, and in my opinion it was just great. I understand why people thought you "insulted" them, but I have participated at "official" debates and there is nothing wrong using sarcasm as long as you use it wisely or trying to correct the other person if you are trying to prove them wrong so that his argument becomes invalid to the judges (in this case, us, the readers).

Again, I don't find anything wrong trying to prove wrong to the opponent. I thought that was the point of a debate, to discuss and come out with a conclusion by beating the weakest argument ^^. It doesn't make sense for me to initiate a debate if the statement cannot prove wrong. It becomes pointless for me unless this was not a debate and I misunderstood it xD

What I've learned about debates is that there is the proposition team and the opposition team, so the person that initiates the debate is supposed to defend his arguments while the opposition's role is to prove him wrong... which indeed I believe you did. Of course there is a way to prove wrong by bringing valid arguments and evidence which is always better to support your argument...

I enjoyed reading the debate, analyzing both point of views carefully because when I read the statement, I wasn't sure which one I should stand. I've always consider Cantonese as a language because I found it really different from mandarin...but of course that is just my opinion, it couldn't count as an argument because personal experiences are not valid judgments.

However, based on the arguments I've read so far, I think I'm more leaning towards Cantonese being a language ^^. It is really sad when things become too personal... but I do understand it, I also become emotional sometimes, but it is when I truly believe on my arguments and I get excited...

[Out of topic] Btw I wish I could understand mandarin! u.u I speak cantonese and it is kinda hard to learn the other one u.u... my primary language is spanish so maybe that's why... my parents want to send me to china to learn mandarin, I just wonder if it will be easy as they say ._. (I don't know how to write chinese either...so x_X bad for me :( )

[piaoliang_hua]

I finally finished reading the debate!!! hahaha so sad it was years ago xD! I got excited -.- hahaha
judes I must say I like the way you debate and support your arguments, I used to practice debates at school, and in my opinion it was just great. I understand why people thought you "insulted" them, but I have participated at "official" debates and there is nothing wrong using sarcasm as long as you use it wisely or trying to correct the other person if you are trying to prove them wrong so that his argument becomes invalid to the judges (in this case, us, the readers).

Again, I don't find anything wrong trying to prove wrong to the opponent. I thought that was the point of a debate, to discuss and come out with a conclusion by beating the weakest argument ^^. It doesn't make sense for me to initiate a debate if the statement cannot prove wrong. It becomes pointless for me unless this was not a debate and I misunderstood it xD

What I've learned about debates is that there is the proposition team and the opposition team, so the person that initiates the debate is supposed to defend his arguments while the opposition's role is to prove him wrong... which indeed I believe you did. Of course there is a way to prove wrong by bringing valid arguments and evidence which is always better to support your argument...

I enjoyed reading the debate, analyzing both point of views carefully because when I read the statement, I wasn't sure which one I should stand. I've always consider Cantonese as a language because I found it really different from mandarin...but of course that is just my opinion, it couldn't count as an argument because personal experiences are not valid judgments.

However, based on the arguments I've read so far, I think I'm more leaning towards Cantonese being a language ^^. It is really sad when things become too personal... but I do understand it, I also become emotional sometimes, but it is when I truly believe on my arguments and I get excited...

[Out of topic] Btw I wish I could understand mandarin! u.u I speak cantonese and it is kinda hard to learn the other one u.u... my primary language is spanish so maybe that's why... my parents want to send me to china to learn mandarin, I just wonder if it will be easy as they say ._. (I don't know how to write chinese either...so x_X bad for me :( )

I also read the debate a little late. And it was good. But I disagree with Judes being good at her debate. As I was reading through it, I found her rather rude, and insulting. I read her links, and the banned member Sugar&Spice's links. And I found The banned members links more beneficial, and accurate.

Sarcasm in a debate adds spice, but only when it is used in a classy, sophisticated way. I did not see that with Judes comments. The banned member did some venting as well, which was bad as well. But I could not help but think that the comment made by Judes were a bit childish. Sorry to say so but I can only say what I felt when I read this. And at the end, Sugar&Spice was banned, I can't help but think that it was because of the debate, and Judes taking things personally. And in the end, more people still say that Cantonese is a dialect. I think the banned member won this round. Too bad she isn't here to celebrate it.

[FSUTan]

Just a reminder to you debater's out there, remember this is a topic of debate, not who's comments are better. form your own opinions based on the topic, not based on the debater.

Guideline states:

2) Attack the opinion, not the debater. You can say "I don't agree with you because..." and list your reasons for believing in YOUR opinion. You may not name call, you may not flame, you may not be a giant troll. If you do any of those things, you will get a swift kick in the arse.

[judes]

applemac, thanks for the comments and for acknowledging that in a debate like tan said, there is nothing wrong with attacking the opinion of the debater. but we do have to remind ourselves in this forum that this thread is for debating, so i encourage you to look at all of the sources that are being presented that lead off the site, because it's one thing for all of us to spew off our opinions, it's another to talk about them with linguists who actually study and make this their career.

i encourage everybody who visits this thread really to read past internet websites and accessible online content, since that can be edited by anyone, but actually to go and read up in books about linguistics and the definitions of what makes a language.

Sarcasm in a debate adds spice, but only when it is used in a classy, sophisticated way. I did not see that with Judes comments. The banned member did some venting as well, which was bad as well. But I could not help but think that the comment made by Judes were a bit childish. Sorry to say so but I can only say what I felt when I read this. And at the end, Sugar&Spice was banned, I can't help but think that it was because of the debate, and Judes taking things personally. And in the end, more people still say that Cantonese is a dialect. I think the banned member won this round. Too bad she isn't here to celebrate it.

dear pianoliang_hua, i don't understand why you would say that if we both acted in the wrong, one of us is being childish, while the other, because you agree with her opinion, is more appropriate in her actions.

debate isn't about 'winning' or 'losing'. sometimes there isn't even a 'right' or a 'wrong' side. i stated very clearly in my posts that i lean more towards cantonese being a language, and the reasons are x, and there are x reasons why some of the other arguments are false (ie a 'language' being accepted by a government does NOT a 'language' make). i also apologized for my statements and admitted my mistakes for sounding harsh or rude (i think part of being mature is admitting that you're wrong in the way you presented yourself), or did you miss that part of my discussion and only focused on those that opposed your viewpoints? because i am rude / childish / immature / harsh / difficult (however many descriptions you want to frame my argument in) does not mean that i am incorrect.

no matter. in the end, you weren't present when this debate occured and any sort of comments you can make about my integrity, me taking things personally, can all be attributed to both sides. a person who does not know the truth of the situation cannot possibly comment on it. you may spew off a bunch of opinions, but those are only your opinions and definitely not the truth of what occured since S&S was not banned because of this debate. i stand by what i did, and although your post does break the rules a little, i'll leave it up and not delete it because i'm not afraid of what people think of me.

tell me then, what did i write that was incorrect? tell me any of my statements, challenge me on them, find an authentic source to back me up on. don't just tell me you agree with the other person's sources more than mine. that's not a debate, that's the easy way out.

i challenge you to proceed. and to prove whether you're just a troll looking to stir up trouble or if you actually have something to back it up.

i'll even make it easy for you to sum up my main points, all of these points are supported by scholars and papers in the linguistics field. all of the links are found in the thread or if you have access to online journals, you may go and look for the authors i've listed yourself:

1) cantonese is unintelligible to mandarin speakers who have no experience with it, which according to linguistics, mutual unintelligibility is the basis for the language definition (but not all encompassing)
2) a) mandarin and cantonese can be considered both "dialects" of chinese
b) OR part of the chinese language family in the sino-tibetan language family
c) OR the distinction shouldn't even be made with the term "chinese", they should all be part of the sino/sinitic language family.
(note that i am not saying cantonese is a language here, i am saying that both mandarin and cantonese are dialects or they are both languages, but mandarin cannot be distinguished as a language or cantonese cannot be distinguished as a language without the other)
3) an alternative is that chinese is the standard written language but cantonese/mandarin are spoken languages

and bring you back again, to drive home the point that you cannot "disagree" with me and "agree" with the other. and i cannot "win" the debate" or "lose" the debate:

i do not believe in this debate that there is a right or wrong in regards to cantonese being a dialect or a language, i am also not trying to prove that it is right or wrong or that there is a definitive reason for stating one or another, in regards to the debate of dialect vs language for cantonese.

BUT i will tell someone that their statement is wrong when they're trying to use that statement to support what they are trying to say but that statement is entirely incorrect.

to summarize the whole heart of the debate: i do not believe cantonese is a dialect of mandarin, which is what S&S tried to ague. i believe you can consider cantonese a dialect of chinese along with mandarin, or you can call them separate languages. do i believe i am right in this statement? absolutely. do i believe i am right in the debate of cantonese being a dialect or a language by itself? i can't be right, because even linguists do not make that sort of distinction.

[ftlouiea]

I just took time to read all the posts in this thread and it's indeed a very length read..

i do not believe cantonese is a dialect of mandarin, which is what S&S tried to ague. i believe you can consider cantonese a dialect of chinese along with mandarin, or you can call them separate languages.

I would say I'm more in agreement with this statement than the poster above who believes Cantonese is a dialect.

I tried to amplify my knowledge before I delved into this and tried to focus on languages that I would be more familiar with and came across this site regarding English in the UK. http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/regional-voices/
In particular, I'd like to home in on this definition of dialect, to add to the many that have been contributed previously in this thread.

A dialect is a specific variety of English that differs from other varieties in three specific ways: lexis (vocabulary), grammar (structure) and phonology (pronunciation or accent). English dialects may be different from each other, but all speakers within the English-speaking world can still generally understand them.

If you took Cantonese on its own and compared it with the above criteria for whether it is a dialect or not, I would say:
Lexis - vaguely yes, because there are certain difference of words between mandarin and cantonese, which, if you were not familiar with, would be confusing.
Grammar - I am not too sure, since I have never gone out to 'study' the grammar of cantonese.
Phonology - No, although sometimes you may hear similarities between mandarin and cantonese
So, purely by using those criteria I would take away from that as Cantonese not being a dialect.

However, if you wanted to argue that Mandarin is a language and Cantonese is merely a dialect, I am certainly for the idea that Mandarin, like Cantonese, is purely a dialect. It is simply, however, a dialect that has received national (and worldwide) recognition. I was actually not aware that Mandarin was made a language by the Communists (anyone actually have any reading material to recommend?). Someone also mentioned a few pages and posts back, that Mandarin is a language because it is recognised as a language politically. To say that is to say that, just because Cantonese is not recognized politically, it is not a language. This is - in my personal opinion - a weak and fascist approach, because Cantonese is predominantly spoken in the southern region and the Chinese Communist government is hardly going to recognise Cantonese in the near future. All in all, I just think that Mandarin and Cantonese are simply vocal projections of the Chinese written language.

Also, as you might find further down the page, I particularly liked how the source sums it all up with "The fact some dialects and accents are seen to be more prestigious than others is more a reflection of judgements based on social, rather than linguistic, criteria."

Nuff' said.

Apologies for any badly supported ideas, as I don't study linguistics nor have I ever debated, but those are my two cents.

[lil~jo]

My my, this is a great debate.

In my opinion Cantonese is a dilect.
My reasons to back this up is that though it is one of the more used dilects, it is not one known by the whole country or the one being learnt in various parts of the world.
Hence making it less so a language and more so a dilect.

If however, eventually becomes a more popular language to coerse in, then one day in the future it may be a language, but as far as it goes today its just a dilect :happy:

Afterall...I believe all the dilects in the world originated from manderin, the language. Its just the evolution of different accents, changing the manderin language into all of these dilects.

Can you all hear the similarities?

Take for example,

How are you?
Ni hao ma? [manderin]

Nei hao mo? [cantonese]

Nu hor mei? [foochow]

eh ho bo? [hokkien]

All sound very similar when said.

Hence showing the evolution from the common manderin language.

[rachipoo]

My my, this is a great debate.
In my opinion Cantonese is a dilect.
My reasons to back this up is that though it is one of the more used dilects, it is not one known by the whole country or the one being learnt in various parts of the world.
Hence making it less so a language and more so a dilect.
If however, eventually becomes a more popular language to coerse in, then one day in the future it may be a language, but as far as it goes today its just a dilect :happy:
Afterall...I believe all the dilects in the world originated from manderin, the language. Its just the evolution of different accents, changing the manderin language into all of these dilects.
Can you all hear the similarities?
Take for example,
How are you?
Ni hao ma? [manderin]
Nei hao mo? [cantonese]
Nu hor mei? [foochow]
eh ho bo? [hokkien]
All sound very similar when said.
Hence showing the evolution from the common manderin language.

i 100% agree with you....hokkien and taiwanese are practically the same/same dialect except taiwanese is a language to taiwanese people..thats the same with canto..its not a language! its writing is the from mandarin! although some argue about simplified and non simplified which is just the weakest arguement one can make
most non-canto speaking/hong kong people dontconsider cantonese as a language

[KendoTiger]

*Steps out of the mist.
Hugs Judes.
Runs off.*

Ehem. Sugar&Spice was banned from this forum for a reason. Don't get into it; a lot of what she posted was deleted, so anyone reading afterward would not have a comprehensive view.

I am changing my official position.
I believe that at one time, Cantonese was an independent language (for the reasons I stated earlier). Now, I believe it is a dialect spoken by Chinese; Mandarin is also a dialect spoken by Chinese, although it has been accepted by the government as the official language of China.

The reason characters are shared is due to the consolidation of the written language; it only proves both are dialects.

The actual dialects (Canto and Mando) evolved independently (minor interaction); you can not gauge its evolution based on one phrase. Just like with the romance languages, knowledge of one does not imply one can understand another.

[alisadorsey@yahoo.co]

I would surely liek to know if Cantonese a dialect of Mandarin or vice-Versa. Reason is because I once heard Jackie Chan mention that he had to learn Mandarin for a movie and it was hard. I cannot speak wither fluently, but some Mandarin. Inquiring minds want to know.

[.: blacklily :.]

as far as I know, cantonese is a dialect. It comes from southern China (Guang Zhou if i'm not mistaken)

due to it's widespread to other parts of the world outside China e.g Malaysia etc so it's often confused/think of as a language.

plus, actually the written language is similar to all chinese speakers, whether mandarin or cantonese or hokkien etc it's just the way they pronounce the words are diffenrent form each other. that's what dialects are all about right? same language, different pronouciation.

that's what I think anyway :happy:

[leperkong]

I think that Cantonese is a dialect.
However, there is a really big difference between mandarin and cantonese spoken, and i can understand that. the weird thing about cantonese is that written is really really different from spoken, so maybe cantonese can be considered a kind of spoken variant of mandarin
it can't really be a separate language if it doesn't have a different written language, i believe
kind of like how in the u.s. there are different ways to say things
same concept, but cantonese sounds more different from mandarin than southern drawls do from northern accents in the u.s.