
Cantonese Proverbs in One Picture - leephillips
http://writecantonese8.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/cantonese-proverbs-in-one-picture/
======
tokenadult
Here is an example of a plausible conversation in Mandarin and a plausible
conversation in Cantonese to show how different the two languages are, with
different words (not cognate, and thus not written with the same Chinese
character) in places even where you would expect English and German, or
Spanish and French, to be cognate. I checked the example dialogues against
dialogues posted online by native speakers of each of the languages, both for
accuracy in transcribing the Chinese characters and for natural idiomatic
expression in each language.

How you might write the conversation

"Does he know how to speak Mandarin?

"No, he doesn't."

他會說普通話嗎？

他不會。

in Modern Standard Chinese characters contrasts with how you would write

"Does he know how to speak Cantonese?

"No, he doesn't."

佢識唔識講廣東話？

佢唔識。

in the Chinese characters used to write Cantonese. As will readily appear even
to readers who don't know Chinese characters, many more words than "Mandarin"
and "Cantonese" differ between those sentences in Chinese characters.

Chinese characters still represent SPEECH (not ideas or abstract concepts) and
do so in a way that is specific to the particular Chinese (Sinitic) language
that one speaks. The long story about this can be found in the books The
Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy[1] or Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness
of Writing Systems[2] by the late John DeFrancis or the book Ideogram: Chinese
Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning[3] by J. Marshall Unger. The
book Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention[4]
by Stanislas Dehaene is a very good book about reading in general, and has a
good cross-cultural perspective.

Many other examples of words, phrases, and whole sentences that are
essentially unreadable to persons who have learned only Modern Standard
Chinese can be found in texts produced in Chinese characters by speakers of
other Sinitic languages ("Chinese dialects"). Similar considerations apply to
Japanese, which is not even a language cognate with Chinese, and also links
Chinese characters to particular speech morphemes (whether etymologically
Japanese or Sino-Japanese) rather than with abstract concepts.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Language-Fantasy-John-
DeFranci...](http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Language-Fantasy-John-
DeFrancis/dp/0824810686/)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/Visible-Speech-Asian-Interactions-
Comp...](http://www.amazon.com/Visible-Speech-Asian-Interactions-
Comparisons/dp/0824812077/)

[3] [http://www.amazon.com/Ideogram-Chinese-Characters-
Disembodie...](http://www.amazon.com/Ideogram-Chinese-Characters-Disembodied-
Meaning/dp/0824827600/)

[4] [http://readinginthebrain.pagesperso-
orange.fr/intro.htm](http://readinginthebrain.pagesperso-orange.fr/intro.htm)

~~~
quantisan
Great examples. I recall back when I was grade school in Hong Kong, we learned
to read and write Chinese the standard "Mandarin" way. It is like formal
speak. But in everyday conversation, people speak the "Cantonese" colloquial
way. It is quite weird when I think about it now how everyone speaks
"Cantonese" when it's never taught in school. It's like us learning regular
English in school but everyone speaks Shakespeare or something (of course it's
not that dramatic of a difference).

The written system in Hong Kong uses the standard "Mandarin" saying. Most
serious Hong Kong newspapers (business, etc) "speak" the standard "Mandarin"
way.

~~~
Umofomia

        It's like us learning regular English in school but everyone
        speaks Shakespeare or something (of course it's not that
        dramatic of a difference).
    

Actually it is a pretty dramatic difference. Cantonese and Mandarin split
roughly 1000 years ago, whereas the difference between Shakespearian English
(which is considered Early Modern English) and Modern English is only a few
hundred years. In addition, Modern English is a descendant of Early Modern
English whereas Cantonese and Mandarin are not descendants of one another.

The Chinese writing system tends to obscure these differences because cognates
among the different varieties of Chinese are represented using the same
characters, even though their pronunciations have diverged considerably. There
are vocabulary and grammatical differences as well, though they are not as
big.

The difference is more akin to if English speakers had to write in German†,
but because they generally don't know how to actually speak German, they would
read it using English pronunciation instead. For instance, if you wanted to
say "I know that you said that", you might have to write:

    
    
        Ich weiß dass du das gesagt hast.
    

But you would read it "in your own language" as:

    
    
        I wit that thou that y-said hast.
    

This is similar to the current relationship between Cantonese and Mandarin.
Cantonese speakers write in Mandarin (i.e. "Standard Chinese") and read it "in
Cantonese", even though when speaking, they would really say something almost
completely different. When Cantonese speakers actually write in Cantonese,
Mandarin speakers generally would have difficulty reading it.

† The difference between English and German actually spans more than 1000
years, but I'm not as familiar with other closer Germanic languages with which
to provide a good example.

~~~
dllthomas
_" Cantonese and Mandarin split roughly 1000 years ago, whereas the difference
between Shakespearian English (which is considered Early Modern English) and
Modern English is only a few hundred years."_

While I think (second hand - I have no deep familiarity with either language)
that your broader point holds, this particular bit is weaker than it might be
read. While the split happened longer ago, there are more day-to-day attempts
to communicate between native speakers of Cantonese and Mandarin than between
native speakers of Modern and Shakespearean English. I could see this having
an effect on the ongoing development of each language in a way that might
leave them closer together than they would otherwise be. (Shakespearean
English probably does have some continuing impact on Modern English, but I
think we can be fairly confident that there's no influence the other way).

~~~
Umofomia

        I could see this having an effect on the ongoing
        development of each language in a way that might leave
        them closer together than they would otherwise be.
    

Yes, since Mandarin had been established as the Standard Chinese in the early
20th century, there definitely are effects that have ended up bringing
Cantonese closer to Mandarin in terms of vocabulary and grammar.

For instance, if I take my previous example further, if such a situation
existed with English and German, the words "wit" and "thou" might have ended
up being more common in spoken English, or at least considered more formal
rather than archaic. Certain grammatical constructions might also end up being
more common, such as the continued use of the y- prefix in past participles.

I'm already stretching this analogy more that I should, but hopefully it gives
a better idea of the relationship between Cantonese and Mandarin.

~~~
Umofomia
I also wanted to add a note that this effects how various Chinese speakers
think of Chinese as a language.

Many Mandarin speakers see Mandarin as being equal to "the Chinese language"
and often think of Cantonese as being "merely a dialect" of Mandarin because
Cantonese speakers appear to read and write the way they do (even though the
aforementioned examples show that this is really not the case), and they are
not really exposed to the more major differences that would exist if Cantonese
speakers actually wrote the way they spoke.

Cantonese speakers are more aware that they don't write the way they speak,
but because the Chinese writing system only reflects the lexical and
grammatical differences rather than the pronunciation differences (even though
most of the differences are in the latter), many Cantonese speakers end up
considering the written language as being a "formal" version of their language
rather than a different language altogether. For this reason, many Cantonese
speakers also consider Cantonese to be a dialect as well; however, they
consider both Cantonese and Mandarin to be dialects of "Chinese" rather than
Cantonese being a dialect of Mandarin.

Linguistically speaking, because spoken Cantonese and Mandarin are generally
completely unintelligible to each other, they should be considered separate
languages, but the the writing system ends up obscuring these differences.
There are also political implications if Cantonese were considered a separate
language because of Chinese nationalism tends to see that as a slippery slope
towards separatism.

------
archibaldJ
Cantonese native speaker here. Just want to state that the definitions for the
expression 飛象過河 (An elephant flies across the river)

1\. To break a rule 2\. To reach across the table for food

are both a reference to a rule in Chinese chess stating that 象 (elephant) is a
defensive piece and cannot cross the river, with the latter being more of a
metaphor to describe someone who reaches across the table for food, which is
considered a bad table manner.

------
thisjepisje
Pieter Bruegel - Netherlandish Proverbs (1559)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandish_Proverbs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandish_Proverbs)

------
tacon
I don't speak Chinese at all, but my understanding is that the writing is
common, only the sounds vary from Mandarin to Cantonese. So how does a piece
of writing like this help to preserve Cantonese? I would think that would take
a song or spoken prose or something audible to maintain the Cantonese dialect.
In five hundred years, if Cantonese speaking people have disappeared, will
Mandarin speakers be able to read this graphic?

~~~
quantisan
Cantonese speaker here. These are Cantonese (the region) proverbs much like
"Bob's Your Uncle" is a quintessentially British saying that Americans
wouldn't understand.

On another note, mainland China (including Canton) actually uses simplified
Chinese writing (which came out from the Deng Xiao Ping era) whereas Hong Kong
specifically maintians the traditional writing. The difference is literally
less strokes and simplification of the characters. The infographic here uses
the traditional writing. Personally I feel the two writings are mostly close
enough that people should be able to guess what the other means. And AFAIK,
it's a 1-to-1 mapping anyway.

~~~
lpsz
In the meantime, Taiwan maintains traditional Chinese writing while using
Mandarin for speech. Table for clarity:

    
    
       Simplified + Mandarin -> Mainland China
       Traditional + Cantonese -> Hong Kong, Macau
       Traditional + Mandarin -> Taiwan

------
nhoven
I remember my mom teaching me the phrase "like dragging a cow up a tree" when
I was little, and I was never sure whether she was serious. I was very excited
to see it captured here! Mom, I'm sorry for not trusting you.

------
Rygu
Hilariously effective education. It's also a great display of the Cantonese'
history, culture, and (wise) humor. Wonderful!

------
shangxiao
Those sound clips are killing the page load...

Aside from that this is quite good. I feel like some of these proverbs could
be quoted here on HN comment threads.

------
aboodman
It's missing my favorite one:
[http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/45161/](http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/45161/)

------
sparkzilla
When I was in elementary school we had one of these for English proverbs. I
checked on Google images but don't see anything like it.

------
known
"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will
eat for a lifetime. " -Confucius

------
acangiano
"Use a little knife to saw down a tree" is wonderful and relevant to the
audience here.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
I would never have guessed the actual meaning of that. It sounds negative, as
if it would mean "using the wrong (underpowered) tool for the job", but I'm
guess I'm taking it too literally!

------
farva
Shaka, when the walls fell.

------
hbc
笋嘢！

------
toisanji
up vote from hk!

------
cauliturtle
as a Hongkonger here, karma to support

