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Topic: news To Learn or Not to Learn: Cantonese vs Mandarin in Guangzhou

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dahveed
comment | 54012 | 0

When people switch to a dialect, they effectively lock you out of their discussion, and the feeling is instant alienation. Even when a local is trying their best to communicate with you, an ignorance of their dialect's accent can render their speech unintelligble. My Shanghaiese landlord tried to say in Mandarin to me: "Mu zu le. Mu yiu zi qi." I didn't understand. Later I understood: "我走了。我有事情。" I often hear language politics being discussed among non-locals and foreigners alike. If you're a small independent store owner, it's likely not a big deal, but anyone in larger business deals or corporate world faces a huge language wall. The dialects that will die out quickly will be those from small towns and rural areas. The speakers all will emigrate into a scattered diaspora. But the dialect in an economic powerhouse (Guangzhou or Shanghai) will become more and more powerful because of its exclusivity. When Shanghai was a fishing village, no one cared to know its dialect. When it became one of the largest cities on Earth, people took notice. Suddenly you have a lot of resources dominated by people (landlords, government, business leaders) speaking a dialect. Business is local and building relationships key. If you know you're going to stay in any place long-term, it's definitely worth the investment! You're right: because of Beijing insistence of a Mandarin-only curriculum nationwide, many local youngsters no longer speak their dialect. But, many still can, especially those from larger working class families. They know they are destined to entered a local service sector job in which Shanghaiese will likely be a dominant dialect. I hear Shanghaiese everywhere in shops, stores, bureaus, and the like. My middle school students speak it and so do my 20-something lawyer students. It's not dying out. Locals are intensely proud of their dialect and build their companies around its use wherever possible. I even saw a huge billboard in downtown Shanghai that boldly greeted the street with "上海侬好",the Shanghaiese version of 你好. What will happen and has already happened is a semi-convergence between Mandarin and local dialects. The younger generation sprinkles mandarin words into their Shanghaiese. It's like my German: my mother spoke it to me as a child, but since I was raised in the States my German is sometimes inserts English elements. But that doesn't mean my German is unintelligible or useless. The beauty of a language is always lacking when you don't understand it. I felt that way about Mandarin before I learned it. Shanghaiese too. Even German, my semi-mother tongue, is famously grating to the ear; and yet, when I hear "Ich liebe dich" I don't feel a Nazi salute is imminent.

Jan 02, 2015 03;55
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