81–90 of 129 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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To the downvotes: I don't know what you think the purpose of banning languages is, but in every other instance in history it is about destroying a culture and assimilating it's people's. The one China policy is exactly that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "...but I don't think the CCP is so crudely trying to eliminate languages." Last time I checked, less than half of the population in Guangzhou knew how to speak Cantonese.
Don't read this as me trying to defend CCP's policy to discourage non-Mandarin languages in China: What you wrote is somewhat misleading to readers not familiar with the region. There has been massive internal migration to Guangdong province in the last 30 years. These migrants speak Cantonese at varying levels. It would be more accurate to make a comment about multi-generation Guangdong residents and their knowledge…
Some Cantonese dictionaries still translate the «Yale romanisation system of Cantonese» as 「耶魯拼音」 («yèh lóuh ping yām» – lit. «Yale pinyin»), but Jyutping is translated as simply Jyutping. When the keyboard becomes available, it will be either Jyutping or Yale. Google Gboard keyboard, for instance, supports the Yale Canonese romanisation system, which is titled simply as 「中文（香港）」. If Apple comes out with a Jyutping keyboard for iOS, that will make me very happy, and if Apple adds the Jyutping keyboard to macOS, that will make me personally even more happy.
RE: language vs dialect. Western linguistics considers Mandarin, Yue, Wu, Gan-Hakka, Min etc to be distinct Sinitic languages since all of them demonstrate a sufficient number of characteristical features to be classified as separate languages. All of them have the same superstrate language (Middle Chinese), apart from Min that had branched off somewhere between Old (Ancient) Chinese and Middle Chinese and, thus, has a different «parent» language. Linguistics slightly more than entirely did not exist in ancient China as a science, and the word that has been frequently used throughout centuries in China to describe varieties of Chinese translates into English as «dialect». This view has even influenced the Japanese lingustics.
Historically, China had not had an single official state language since the end of the Tang dynasty, which was the last time in the Chinese history when all people spoke more or less the same language (Middle Chinese), and by 1930s China had been facing the problem of the lack of the official national language that Germany was facing in the 19th century when Hoch Deutsch was finally standardised and promulgated as the country's state language to unite the nation. National Languages Committee of the Republic of China settled on Mandarin as the uniting language in 1932.
The issue of «language» vs «dialect» has also become heavily politicised, especially in recent years due to the undue CCP interference that is now seeping into Hong Kong. Using the CCP supported official definition, Mandarin is also another dialect. Just like any other Sinitic ahem language is anyway. It is a shame that the official multilingual education where kids in schools could teach Mandarin and their first family language(s) (due to the intermarriage, Chinese parents oftentimes speak profoundly distinct Sinitic languages) is not an option on the mainland. The increasing interference of the CCP in Hong Kong has also concerned the role of Cantonese as the primary local language with CCP sponsored «professors» of lingustics making wild claims, which, coupled with other extensive factors, rightfully and expectedly has given rise to the development of a dictinct Hong Kong identity with the Cantonese language being a major part of it, therefore the wrath in the article. 加油呀.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "...but I don't think the CCP is so crudely trying to eliminate languages." Last time I checked, less than half of the population in Guangzhou knew how to speak Cantonese.
Don't read this as me trying to defend CCP's policy to discourage non-Mandarin languages in China: What you wrote is somewhat misleading to readers not familiar with the region. There has been massive internal migration to Guangdong province in the last 30 years. These migrants speak Cantonese at varying levels. It would be more accurate to make a comment about multi-generation Guangdong residents and their knowledge…
But they can't buy a textbook on their first language because the official policy is that everything that is not Mandarin is a «dialect», and dialects can't be studied (as in «are impossible to study due to not deserving to be studied»), therefore there is no need for textbooks.
As a native Shanghainese speaker I am extremely confused (and curious!). Cantonese at least has a written form, but Shanghainese AFAIK has no written form, so what does "Shanghainese dialectal spelling" even mean? :\
This article definitely has a political subtext. Spoken Cantonese and mandarin are mutually unintelligible, but in written form, at least without colloquialisms, they are basically the same language. I'm a non-chinese that studied Chinese, so I have no horse in this race. I do think they should support the Cantonese input method, but there's no reason the pinyin method wouldn't work just as well, other than lack of f…
They are not. Written Cantonese, in fact, uses the Mandarin grammar and the Mandarin lexicon and is, essentially, Mandarin, not Cantonese. There are substantial differences in the grammar and in the basic lexicon between the two to make them distinct languages. Written Cantonese that uses the Cantonese lexicon is incomprehensible to a Mandarin speaker, either, just as the spoken Cantonese is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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To the downvotes: I don't know what you think the purpose of banning languages is, but in every other instance in history it is about destroying a culture and assimilating it's people's. The one China policy is exactly that.
CCP crimes are countless, but existing of such policy is clearly not one of them.
Questions could and should be asked in regard to tools and apparatus used in such transition, for example repressions, violence and forced re-education. IF they were used.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To the downvotes: I don't know what you think the purpose of banning languages is, but in every other instance in history it is about destroying a culture and assimilating it's people's. The one China policy is exactly that.
Promoting uniform official language is a perfectly fine state policy with a tonn of benefits, including costs reduction, economic integration improvements, increased social and workforce mobility. CCP crimes are countless, but existing of such policy is clearly not one of them. Questions could and should be asked in regard to tools and apparatus used in such transition, for example repressions, violence and forced re…
Ask the Slovenians, Finns or Poles about that. The upper class of Imperial Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary obviously had tons of benefits from trying to forcibly erase their culture, and turn them into help- and cultureless drones that could be poured into whatever machine needed to be fed.
It also had the downsides of, yknow, almost wiping out entire cultures, followed by bloody rebellions and wars of independence. Plus, well, a world war or two. Wonderful for the economy!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Promoting uniform official language is a perfectly fine state policy with a tonn of benefits, including costs reduction, economic integration improvements, increased social and workforce mobility. CCP crimes are countless, but existing of such policy is clearly not one of them. Questions could and should be asked in regard to tools and apparatus used in such transition, for example repressions, violence and forced re…
> Promoting uniform official language is a perfectly fine state policy Ask the Slovenians, Finns or Poles about that. The upper class of Imperial Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary obviously had tons of benefits from trying to forcibly erase their culture, and turn them into help- and cultureless drones that could be poured into whatever machine needed to be fed. It also had the downsides of, yknow, almost wiping ou…
What a fine definition for a whole nation of United State of America, modern Germany, France, etc.
At this point you should already be tired to substitute culture with a language.
Hope that keyboard supports this kind of input.
That's what comes to my mind for informal phonetic input of Cantonese.