Talk:Written Cantonese

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[edit] "on corruption"

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

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

207.76.182.20 20:15, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

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

  • Removed instances of characters that are not necessary (like the use of 字 and 詞 in the headings). Remember that this is an English site so most users cannot read Chinese anyway. The article should be written with that in mind.
  • 是/不 and 係/唔 don't really mean yes/no. The better translation is probably "to be" and "not," respectively.

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

[edit] "Diu"

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

Well, 屌 means "dick" or "prick" in northern China, where "鳥" is used as a slang alternatively.
屌 can be a verb in southern China.
屌 can be an adjective in Taiwan, which means cool. -- Jerry Crimson Mann 06:33, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
So could I correct the article? :-D--K.C. Tang 09:31, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
Be bold. :-) -- Jerry Crimson Mann 05:51, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 嘅

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

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

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

[edit] 無 / 冇

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

No, that's not true. 冇 is pronounced mou5, not mou2. 有 is also jau5, not jau2. 唔有 is not attested historically either. 冇 has its roots from 無 (mou4), a word that has been around for thousands of years, but the tone shifted to mou5 in order to align with the the tone of 有. Such tone alignment occurred in other Cantonese words as well, such as the pronouns 我 (ngo5), 你 (nei5), and 佢 (keoi5). I don't remember the reference where I originally read about this, but I believe 佢 used to be 4th tone (陽平) instead of 5th (陽上) as well. —Umofomia 05:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the confusion may possibly stem from the fact that 2nd and 5th tones are currently undergoing a merger in Hong Kong Cantonese. (Bauer, R., Cheung, K.-H., and Cheung, P.-M. 2003. Variation and merger of the rising tones in Hong Kong Cantonese. Language Variation and Change 15:211-225.) Mike barrie 07:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] mess

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

[edit] standard chinese

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

[edit] Simplified vs traditional

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