Do you know mandarin originated from the mongol and the Jin.

[AlphaLover]

U dont know Cantonese say so lah,,,u cannot appreciate it than its yr problem. And u dont know cantonese..so how u know its crude???,,I know hokkein, and i know its crude...

You don't Hokien and even your bastard Cantonese, and you know shit.

 

[The_Hypocrite]

I still know more than u. So crude your words. Just as vulgar as hokkeins.

You don't Hokien and even your bastard Cantonese, and you know shit.

 

[The_Hypocrite]

If u read my earlier replies. I did say proper spoken cantonese. And i in the link i posted about the hokkein class. The song they sing sounds like scolding people. Guess u cant read tooo.

You don't Hokien and even your bastard Cantonese, and you know shit.

 

[watchman8]

False argument. So a Singaporean Chinese or Russian cannot study Old English or Shakespearean English and become an expert? Only British people can be experts in English? Only ethnic Chinese can study Chinese linguistics?

Nonsense.

You missed my point entirely. China was in disarray and closed up since the communists took power from 1949. China only opened up slowly since 1979, accelerating after 1992. So the question is, how did Robert learn the myriad of dialects across whole of china to come to his conclusions? To even reach his conclusions, one need to survey at least the top 20 or even 30 dialects across china. D you think he can do that in the 1970s?

Or do you even think you can master so many Chinese dialects without being a native Chinese speaker researching the language in china? Note that he was based in princeton, half way around the world.

My suspicion is that his exposure is largely in cantonese, and therein lies the clue to his conclusions.

 

[Orion]

I didn't make those claims; linguists and phonologists studying Chinese linguistics and phonetics did. They looked at linguistic and phonetic shifts of today's dialects and compare it with Old and Middle Chinese. The more shifts, the more recent the dialect. The more conservative, the least shifts, the older the dialect.

While Beijing Mandarin has retained elements of Middle Chinese in its grammar and syntax, in pronunciation it has reduced the 8 tones of Middle Chinese to 4, lost the final plosives (p, t, k), as well the final -m.

The two language groups with the least number of shifts are the Yue and Min groups. Cantonese has retained the 8 tones and final stop consonants, but has lost the initial voiced consonants (voiced b, d, g) found in the Wu group.[SUP]1

1. Ramsey, S. Robert (1987), The Languages of China, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-01468-5.[/SUP]

Shen Yue wrote the 四声八病 (around AD 500)

http://dylansung.tripod.com/chinese/gy-pshy.htm

Mandarin and other Han Languages including Min Nam, Min Yue etc also follows the codified versions. It foolish to say that Mandarin only have 4 tones when it is done on purpose to give each word 4 main tonal. It is codified on purpose so that the same Character will not sound and have two meaning. That because long ago and still exist today, some characters can have two tonal and two meaning.

If you see the the link on tonal, characters are grouped together with the same tonal between 3 to 8 tonals.

But modern mandarin create the pinyin with an almost infinity by adding g or n to the back. Even though it is still 4 tonals, but the pronounciation to read different words actually got longer and differently. It actually exceed the 8 tonal limits of the past.

 

[Orion]

You missed my point entirely. China was in disarray and closed up since the communists took power from 1949. China only opened up slowly since 1979, accelerating after 1992. So the question is, how did Robert learn the myriad of dialects across whole of china to come to his conclusions? To even reach his conclusions, one need to survey at least the top 20 or even 30 dialects across china. D you think he can do that in the 1970s?

Or do you even think you can master so many Chinese dialects without being a native Chinese speaker researching the language in china? Note that he was based in princeton, half way around the world.

My suspicion is that his exposure is largely in cantonese, and therein lies the clue to his conclusions.

He also never study Pinyin too. They still call Qin 秦， Ching which is alike to 清 and Qi 气.

 

[watchman8]

He also never study Pinyin too. They still call Qin 秦， Ching which is alike to 清 and Qi 气.

Chinese is a very different language as compared to English. It is complex and not easy to learn, especially for non native speakers. So it is very hard for me to believe that Robert can master the language outside of china, and master it to the extend that he can even read ancient Chinese manuscript and compare the tens of different Chinese dialects to reach his conclusions.

I will give more credibility if Robert coauthor the book with several academics from top china universities.

 

[The_Hypocrite]

I dont see your reasoning as valid. The reason why the theory that the ancient Tang language is similar to Cantonese is cause the southern regions was flooded with the Tang people escaping the collapse of the Tang Dynasty. The natives of those areas were overwhelmed by the Han Chinese going into the area. Many of the natives of the region went into Vietnam and Cambodia. I dont believe that the Tang would assimilate into the culture and the language of the Southern natives. They would just speak the Tang language etc. Someone also say the southern regions were under developed. That means less people,,,so why would the Tang people (who see themselves as the pinnacle Empire) assimilate into a 'native' culture? The southern natives were displaced by the Tang people. That explains why Cantonese language is the closest to the Tang language as the people who dominate southern China was from the Tang.

Anyone familiar with ancient history know that during the Warring States period in China 2,000 years ago the seven states do not include the southern regions which is today Fujian, Guangdong as well as Zhejiang & Jiangsu which at that time was ruled by the Wu kingdom. The two southern most kingdoms were known then as Nan Yue and Min Yue. Language develop and evolve over the centuries within the respective domains and today we have Mandarin Chinese (and its many variants) spoken in north and south western China (corresponding to the areas occupied by the original seven states) whereas the southern provinces managed to retain their own dialects - Wu, Yue and Min. So it is hard to imagine that Yue, Min or even Wu dialects were used during the Tang dynasty ...

 

[eatshitndie]

I dont see your reasoning as valid. The reason why the theory that the ancient Tang language is similar to Cantonese is cause the southern regions was flooded with the Tang people escaping the collapse of the Tang Dynasty. The natives of those areas were overwhelmed by the Han Chinese going into the area.

it's speculative theory until someone gets funded and does an exhaustive scholarly study of the so called migration of "t'ang refugees" from north china to the south. and this should include visits and stay at the many migration routes, rest stops, defensive points, etc. it must also include archaelogical digs to find proof.

imo, survivors of the t'ang court might have migrated south or even to japan to escape unrest of the 5 dynasties and 10 kingdoms period, and subsequently the rise of sung. but because it was primarily a han-type dynastic transition, t'ang subjects in the north wouldn't panic and do a mass evacuation to the south. the true mass panic and evacuation happened with the northern sung, when "foreign" jin (jurchen) troops went on a rampage across the frontier and started invading china. the next panic and mass migration happened with the mongol invasion, for those who were stubborn and did not leave their redoubts.

t'ang encroachment of the south happened gradually and was part of t'ang's version of "manifest destiny" - that china had the natural and imperial ambition to spread chinese civilization westwards and southwards to new frontiers. the important t'ang province in south china with swatow (shantou today) as the capital was set up to spread t'ang imperial reach to vietnam and hainan. besides imperial push, there was also the pull factor - backward fiefdoms in the south actively sought trade and assistance from t'ang to improve themselves. there was also the pull factor from kingdoms in korea and japan as they viewed t'ang as the leading civilization to emulate.

since shantou was already a part of the t'ang sphere and a working provincial capital (the buffalo sculpture, bridge and temples are still there btw) the influence of t'ang was centered mainly in and around provincial capitals. the language spoken and passed down among survivors and descendants would be considered more t'ang than dialects and languages in the rural outskirts, such as villages and farms, where native speakers of the canto tongue still dominated. consider this.... why would teochew exist (smack) right in the middle between fujian and guangdong provinces? my theory is that teochew and hokkien are more t'ang than cantonese, as the imperial migration was southwards. moreover, all t'ang officials heading south will stay or camp in shantou, not any other guangzhou city as part of imperial protocol and show of respect for the provincial governor - to be his guest, under his hospitality and protection. it would be difficult for a local native tongue like cantonese to supplant the official tongue spoken in court while t'ang was still pre-eminent and in great power.

while the north was invaded by jurchens and later mongols in the 13th century, sung survivors find refuge south in mass numbers, and the natural path was through fujian. you will find dozens of sung-era toluo fortifications in fujian today. and the refugees were called hakka, or guest-people. i would also theorize that hakka dialects are surviving tongues of the sung, which closely resembled those of the t'ang.

 

[watchman8]

it's speculative theory until someone gets funded and does an exhaustive scholarly study of the so called migration of "t'ang refugees" from north china to the south. and this should include visits and stay at the many migration routes, rest stops, defensive points, etc. it must also include archaelogical digs to find proof.

imo, survivors of the t'ang court might have migrated south or even to japan to escape unrest of the 5 dynasties and 10 kingdoms period, and subsequently the rise of sung. but because it was primarily a han-type dynastic transition, t'ang subjects in the north wouldn't panic and do a mass evacuation to the south. the true mass panic and evacuation happened with the northern sung, when "foreign" jin (jurchen) troops went on a rampage across the frontier and started invading china. the next panic and mass migration happened with the mongol invasion, for those who were stubborn and did not leave their redoubts.

t'ang encroachment of the south happened gradually and was part of t'ang's version of "manifest destiny" - that china had the natural and imperial ambition to spread chinese civilization westwards and southwards to new frontiers. the important t'ang province in south china with swatow (shantou today) as the capital was set up to spread t'ang imperial reach to vietnam and hainan. besides imperial push, there was also the pull factor - backward fiefdoms in the south actively sought trade and assistance from t'ang to improve themselves. there was also the pull factor from kingdoms in korea and japan as they viewed t'ang as the leading civilization to emulate.

since shantou was already a part of the t'ang sphere and a working provincial capital (the buffalo sculpture, bridge and temples are still there btw) the influence of t'ang was centered mainly in and around provincial capitals. the language spoken and passed down among survivors and descendants would be considered more t'ang than dialects and languages in the rural outskirts, such as villages and farms, where native speakers of the canto tongue still dominated. consider this.... why would teochew exist (smack) right in the middle between fujian and guangdong provinces? my theory is that teochew and hokkien are more t'ang than cantonese, as the imperial migration was southwards. moreover, all t'ang officials heading south will stay or camp in shantou, not any other guangzhou city as part of imperial protocol and show of respect for the provincial governor - to be his guest, under his hospitality and protection. it would be difficult for a local native tongue like cantonese to supplant the official tongue spoken in court while t'ang was still pre-eminent and in great power.

while the north was invaded by jurchens and later mongols in the 13th century, sung survivors find refuge south in mass numbers, and the natural path was through fujian. you will find dozens of sung-era toluo fortifications in fujian today. and the refugees were called hakka, or guest-people. i would also theorize that hakka dialects are surviving tongues of the sung, which closely resembled those of the t'ang.

Good theory. Fact is nobody knows for sure. Interesting to note that Cantonese like to think that they are special amongst the Chinese. I have come across many Cantonese outside of mainland china who thinks that Cantonese are direct descendants of Qin and that the yue language is above mandarin in all aspects.

 

[The_Hypocrite]

That is because Cantonese is above mandarin,..the only thing is there are more mandarin speakers than cantonese speakers. So as a result Cantonese is a dying language. Its the law of numbers....

Good theory. Fact is nobody knows for sure. Interesting to note that Cantonese like to think that they are special amongst the Chinese. I have come across many Cantonese outside of mainland china who thinks that Cantonese are direct descendants of Qin and that the yue language is above mandarin in all aspects.

 

[Jah_rastafar_I]

it's speculative theory until someone gets funded and does an exhaustive scholarly study of the so called migration of "t'ang refugees" from north china to the south. and this should include visits and stay at the many migration routes, rest stops, defensive points, etc. it must also include archaelogical digs to find proof.

imo, survivors of the t'ang court might have migrated south or even to japan to escape unrest of the 5 dynasties and 10 kingdoms period, and subsequently the rise of sung. but because it was primarily a han-type dynastic transition, t'ang subjects in the north wouldn't panic and do a mass evacuation to the south. the true mass panic and evacuation happened with the northern sung, when "foreign" jin (jurchen) troops went on a rampage across the frontier and started invading china. the next panic and mass migration happened with the mongol invasion, for those who were stubborn and did not leave their redoubts.

t'ang encroachment of the south happened gradually and was part of t'ang's version of "manifest destiny" - that china had the natural and imperial ambition to spread chinese civilization westwards and southwards to new frontiers. the important t'ang province in south china with swatow (shantou today) as the capital was set up to spread t'ang imperial reach to vietnam and hainan. besides imperial push, there was also the pull factor - backward fiefdoms in the south actively sought trade and assistance from t'ang to improve themselves. there was also the pull factor from kingdoms in korea and japan as they viewed t'ang as the leading civilization to emulate.

since shantou was already a part of the t'ang sphere and a working provincial capital (the buffalo sculpture, bridge and temples are still there btw) the influence of t'ang was centered mainly in and around provincial capitals. the language spoken and passed down among survivors and descendants would be considered more t'ang than dialects and languages in the rural outskirts, such as villages and farms, where native speakers of the canto tongue still dominated. consider this.... why would teochew exist (smack) right in the middle between fujian and guangdong provinces? my theory is that teochew and hokkien are more t'ang than cantonese, as the imperial migration was southwards. moreover, all t'ang officials heading south will stay or camp in shantou, not any other guangzhou city as part of imperial protocol and show of respect for the provincial governor - to be his guest, under his hospitality and protection. it would be difficult for a local native tongue like cantonese to supplant the official tongue spoken in court while t'ang was still pre-eminent and in great power.

Wow nice write up teochews are special.

 

[eatshitndie]

Wow nice write up teochews are special.

imo, teochew is closer to the spoken word of t'ang as swatow was well preserved as a t'ang provincial capital with all the uprisings and upheavals in the north, and the city was never destroyed by the mongols on their way to vietnam, even though southern sung elements escaped there. most if not all of the surviving sung court evacuated to xiamen, imo, as they would rely on surviving naval units to ferry them out of harms way. with no where to go but remote islands such as taiwan or okinawa, they would tie the ships together and fight to the last person, hoping for a miracle from heaven. the same fate could have befallen remnants of the ming court with the manchu invasion and subsequent mop up in the south. again, the manchus spared swatow from destruction as she wasn't a ming redoubt just as she wasn't a sung redoubt during the mongol invasion. xiamen can be considered china's anus for defeated and expelled dynasties.

 

[khunking]

Nice and proper.

Wat is min nan language? Oh hokkein..the crude n vulger dialect?

 

[eatshitndie]

Good theory. Fact is nobody knows for sure. Interesting to note that Cantonese like to think that they are special amongst the Chinese. I have come across many Cantonese outside of mainland china who thinks that Cantonese are direct descendants of Qin and that the yue language is above mandarin in all aspects.

it's my ambition in my retirement to do a personal journey on the mass migratory routes at the end of the sung and ming dynasties to understand the meaning of mass panic and exodus.

i learned quite a bit about the mass panic and exodus of romans to the marshes of what is venice today during the visigoth invasion of italy.

while there is no panic, but there's clear evidence of a mass exodus out of sinkapore by sinkies who were either "exiled" on their own volition or "defeated" by lures of greener pastures. :p

 

[eatshitndie]

correction. instead of shantou, it should be chaozhou (潮州). shantou was just a fishing village when chaozhou was established as the nanhai commandery during the qin dynasty. subsequently it was known as haiyang as part of the dongguan commandery under the han. the sui renamed it yi'an, and the t'ang inherited it from the sui. it became a prefecture under sui. and it was never a province as i have pointed out, but the 州 designation gave it almost the same importance as a province. sorry for the mistake.

 

[andyfisher]

Why cant the urines learn english and speak the language properly, makes life that much easier.

We have better things to wrry about than where mandarin came from, for all we know, it came from the urinals in some urine emperors jamban

It grates me when urine workers start chingy chong chingy chong in front of me and think I dont understd.

silly urines and their urine languages.

 

[watchman8]

Why cant the urines learn english and speak the language properly, makes life that much easier.

We have better things to wrry about than where mandarin came from, for all we know, it came from the urinals in some urine emperors jamban

It grates me when urine workers start chingy chong chingy chong in front of me and think I dont understd.

silly urines and their urine languages.

I love it when the prc folks think that I don't know what they are saying. In this way I stand an advantage in knowing what shit they are planning to do.

 

[The_Hypocrite]

Also do not forget tat Canton was the main port of the Tang Empire. Roads there from Chang An should have been well developed. Anyway as i said b4. The tang and other Han chinese from the north went tonthe south n diplaced the natives there. Hence the Tang language was bought into the south. The Tang n other han chinese need not assimilate the native language. Tang language replaced the southern natives. Hence tat is y Tang Poems etc sound better in Cantonese is because it is the closes language to the Tang. Southern languages did not replace the Tang. Its the Tang language replacing the southern languages.

it's speculative theory until someone gets funded and does an exhaustive scholarly study of the so called migration of "t'ang refugees" from north china to the south. and this should include visits and stay at the many migration routes, rest stops, defensive points, etc. it must also include archaelogical digs to find proof.

imo, survivors of the t'ang court might have migrated south or even to japan to escape unrest of the 5 dynasties and 10 kingdoms period, and subsequently the rise of sung. but because it was primarily a han-type dynastic transition, t'ang subjects in the north wouldn't panic and do a mass evacuation to the south. the true mass panic and evacuation happened with the northern sung, when "foreign" jin (jurchen) troops went on a rampage across the frontier and started invading china. the next panic and mass migration happened with the mongol invasion, for those who were stubborn and did not leave their redoubts.

t'ang encroachment of the south happened gradually and was part of t'ang's version of "manifest destiny" - that china had the natural and imperial ambition to spread chinese civilization westwards and southwards to new frontiers. the important t'ang province in south china with swatow (shantou today) as the capital was set up to spread t'ang imperial reach to vietnam and hainan. besides imperial push, there was also the pull factor - backward fiefdoms in the south actively sought trade and assistance from t'ang to improve themselves. there was also the pull factor from kingdoms in korea and japan as they viewed t'ang as the leading civilization to emulate.

since shantou was already a part of the t'ang sphere and a working provincial capital (the buffalo sculpture, bridge and temples are still there btw) the influence of t'ang was centered mainly in and around provincial capitals. the language spoken and passed down among survivors and descendants would be considered more t'ang than dialects and languages in the rural outskirts, such as villages and farms, where native speakers of the canto tongue still dominated. consider this.... why would teochew exist (smack) right in the middle between fujian and guangdong provinces? my theory is that teochew and hokkien are more t'ang than cantonese, as the imperial migration was southwards. moreover, all t'ang officials heading south will stay or camp in shantou, not any other guangzhou city as part of imperial protocol and show of respect for the provincial governor - to be his guest, under his hospitality and protection. it would be difficult for a local native tongue like cantonese to supplant the official tongue spoken in court while t'ang was still pre-eminent and in great power.

while the north was invaded by jurchens and later mongols in the 13th century, sung survivors find refuge south in mass numbers, and the natural path was through fujian. you will find dozens of sung-era toluo fortifications in fujian today. and the refugees were called hakka, or guest-people. i would also theorize that hakka dialects are surviving tongues of the sung, which closely resembled those of the t'ang.

 

[watchman8]

Also do not forget tat Canton was the main port of the Tang Empire. Roads there from Chang An should have been well developed. Anyway as i said b4. The tang and other Han chinese from the north went tonthe south n diplaced the natives there. Hence the Tang language was bought into the south. The Tang n other han chinese need not assimilate the native language. Tang language replaced the southern natives. Hence tat is y Tang Poems etc sound better in Cantonese is because it is the closes language to the Tang. Southern languages did not replace the Tang. Its the Tang language replacing the southern languages.

The chinese has other major sea ports that were operational since ancient times. Ningbo, Shanghai, Dalian etc. In fact, Song dynasty's Zheng He's fleet came largely from Nanjing and Fuzhou.

The chinese also relied on westward silk road for many of ancient trades.

Overseas Cantonese should face the fact that China is much bigger than Canton throughout the entire history of China, and there is no conclusive study that said that cantonese is closest to Tang language. A book by an ang moh sitting in USA in the 1980s working without assistance of chinese scholars in china is NOT an authoritative study.