Talk:先生

Needs Cantonese

Needs Cantonese. 71.66.97.228 07:26, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Needs Cantonese. 71.66.97.228 02:11, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Does it really? Do you think the Cantonese term is substantially different? If you want to know the Cantonese pronunciation, you can look up in CantoDict, in jyutping romanisation it's "sin1 saang1". Based on this you can create the Cantonese entry yourself. --Anatoli 02:51, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you; sometimes the Cantonese definition of a term of the same spelling is slightly, or very different. For example, the terms for "thank you" between Mandarin and Cantonese are different. 71.66.97.228 05:59, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I asked sarcastically "Does it really?" because the more formal you go, the less differences you get. official Hong Kong newspapers write in standard Mandarin (the southern version of Mandarin), only read out loud in a different pronunciation. The differences deal with colloquialism. Vernacular articles and stories will contain colloquial Cantonese words and special characters (about 100 characters, which are completely missing in a standard set). 99% of Cantonese words may not merit entries if they only differ in pronunciation - everything will be duplicated with Mandarin, so "jyutping" pronunciation section would do the job. --Anatoli 06:07, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The Sheik dictionary I gave link to before marks Cantonese words with 粵／粤 (jyut6).

If you look at this link you will see that majority of words are also Mandarin with the same meaning. Those that are different often contain Cantonese specific particles or onomatopeia, the rest is understandable. --Anatoli 06:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

There may be different schools of thought about that. The high-class newspapers may actually be writing in Mandarin, not Cantonese, though the readers are native Cantonese speakers, the way classical Chinese used to be used to write Vietnamese histories in Vietnam, while the same people spoke Vietnamese, not classical Chinese (i.e., putting adjectives after the noun instead of before it) in daily life. I lean toward the view that colloquial Cantonese, as it has developed apart from Mandarin (as in the case of the different types of Cantonese "thank you") is the actual Cantonese language, and the writing of "standardized" Mandarin in high-class newspapers as the exception, an example of cultural hegemony promoted by the Chinese central government that is based in the Mandarin-speaking heartland. 71.66.97.228 06:17, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The "hegemony" of standard Mandarin started way before the handover. It's just the very common view among Chinese of most dialects - write in Mandarin, speak in a dialect. With Cantonese it's more common than other dialects to do code-switching when reading out Mandarin texts (some words are replaced on the fly, e.g. 他们的 is read as 佢哋嘅) because Cantonese grammar differs very slightly from Mandarin. However, even if you take the very colloquial version of Cantonese, the core will still be the same as Mandarin, the different words are very common but there are not so many of them or there are consistent replacements. Besides, dialects have borrowed from each other and Cantonese can't claim all their words are only used by Cantonese. --Anatoli 06:28, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

It would make sense to you if you try reading Cantonese texts, which are basically Chinese or Mandarin. They can be tricky, especially if the purpose is to make a non-Cantonese person to be confused or when swearing. All popular Cantonese song lyrics are all surprisingly in standard Mandarin. --Anatoli 06:43, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

You're saying that 唔該 (which we still have no entry for) is not used in Cantonese writing or song lyrics? That is not a Mandarin term, and there are many others. And grammar often differs from Mandarin as well, in actual Cantonese. 71.66.97.228 06:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I exaggerated when I said all, even when they sing in Cantonese, the majority of lyrics are in Mandarin and understood by any Chinese. Of course, there are lyrics in vernacular. --Anatoli 09:10, 25 October 2011 (UTC)