Contributed by Ben Parker
Here at Save Cantonese, our mission is one that “sustains and celebrates Cantonese language and culture.” We care deeply about doing all we can to ensure that Cantonese continues to not only survive, but remain the heartbeat of Hong Kong, Macau, and Chinese diaspora communities around the world. In case you need any more convincing of the importance of our mission, enjoy this five part series called “Cantonese is Cool-and Worth Fighting For.” The first part will take a closer look at the living bridge that Cantonese is to the linguistic past. Enjoy!
When I say Cantonese is a living bridge to the linguist past, what I mean is Cantonese preserves sounds and tones that go all the way back to Middle Chinese, making it one of the closest living links to how Chinese was spoken in the Tang and Song dynasties. Tang dynasty poetry often rhymes much better in Cantonese than it does in Mandarin for this very reason. The old sound patterns are still alive in everyday speech.
Touching more on the tonal aspect, Cantonese has preserved the checked tones (tones 7, 8, and 9). These are high flat, mid flat, and low flat tones that occur on syllables ending in p, t, and k.These tones are cut off like short staccato notes in music. These are tones that were present in Middle Chinese but have since disappeared in Mandarin. Learning Cantonese gets you speaking Chinese like it was spoken from the 4th to 12th centuries. Pretty neat, huh?
Another connection is if you study Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese, you’ll discover that Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, and Sino-Vietnamese words are closer to Cantonese than Mandarin. For example, the way to say university student using Chinese characters is 大學生.
The Cantonese pronunciation is daai6hok6saang1. The Japanese pronunciation is Daigakusei. The Korean pronunciation is daehaksaeng. The Mandarin pronunciation is dàxuéshēng. Whatyou’ll notice is the Korean, Japanese, and Cantonese all have very similar pronunciation for the character 大 (daai6/dai/dae), which means big. Mandarin in contrast drops the “i”.
The Cantonese, Japanese, and Korean all preserve the “k” for the character 學 meaning to study in (hok6/gaku/hak) while the Mandarin once again, drops the “k” and actually has a totally different sound (xué).
The character 生, meaning born/life/grow, is more similar in Cantonese and Mandarin with (saang1/shēng). The Japanese pronunciation (sei) being more different. However, the Korean (saeng) is even more similar to the Cantonese pronunciation than the Mandarin. When you say put all three characters together to say the phrase, you’ll notice that the Korean and Japanese pronunciations is much closer to the Cantonese than the Mandarin.
Not only do you notice these similarities in pronunciation, but also in terms of how Chinese characters are used. An example that comes to mind is the way to say “eat” in Cantonese is “食” (pronounced sik6). The way to say “eat” in Japanese is “食べる” (pronounced taberu). What you’ll notice is both Cantonese and Japanese use the same character “食”to say eat. That’s different from Mandarin, which uses the character “吃”(pronounced chī).
To tie this into Vietnamese, the way to say China (中國)in Vietnamese is “trung quốc”. In Cantonese, that’s “zung1gwok3”. In Mandarin, it’s “zhōng guó”. What you’ll notice, is like Cantonese, Vietnamese preserves the final stop consonant (-p, -t, -k) while Mandarin has lost it.
The reason why the Korean/Japanese/Vietnamese pronunciation is closer to the Cantonese than the Mandarin is the Chinese that influenced those languages borrowed Chinese vocabulary during the era of Middle Chinese, of which Cantonese is much closer to.
Tying this back to Tang dynasty poetry, look at how the following poem by Du Fu rhymes much better in Cantonese than in Mandarin:
《春望》— 杜甫
(Spring View by Du Fu)
國破山河在
城春草木深
感時花濺淚
恨別鳥驚心
烽火連三月
家書抵萬金
白頭搔更短
渾欲不勝簪
1. Mandarin pronunciation (rhyme mostly lost)
guó pò shān hé zài
chéng chūn cǎo mù shēn
gǎn shí huā jiàn lèi
hèn bié niǎo jīng xīn
fēng huǒ lián sān yuè
jiā shū dǐ wàn jīn
bái tóu sāo gèng duǎn
hún yù bù shèng zān
Mandarin rhyme pattern
Lines 1, 2, 3, 4 all end with different vowels. The intended rhyme category (Middle Chinese ‑əm / ‑im / ‑əm) is no longer audible. The poem sounds unrhymed to a modern Mandarin speaker.
2. Cantonese pronunciation (rhyme restored)
gwok3 po3 saan1 ho4 zoi6
sing4 ceon1 cou2 muk6 sam1
gam2 si4 faa1 zin2 leoi6
han6 bit6 niu5 ging1 sam1
fung1 fo2 lin4 saam1 jyut6
gaa1 syu1 dai2 maan6 gam1
baak6 tau4 sou1 gang3 dyun2
wan4 juk6 bat1 sing1 zam1
Cantonese rhyme pattern
Look at the line endings:
在 zoi6
深 sam1
淚 leoi6
心 sam1
月 jyut6
金 gam1
短 dyun2
簪 zam1
You can see the Middle Chinese rhyme categories clearly:
Lines 2, 4, 6, 8 all end in ‑am / ‑em / ‑im type finals. Cantonese preserves the final consonants and vowel qualities that make the rhyme audible. The poem sounds like it rhymes, because it actually does — in Middle Chinese. This is exactly what Du Fu intended.
As you can see, learning Cantonese connects you to the past in a much deeper way than Mandarin does. You get much closer to the roots of the Chinese language. That is something that is both cool and worth fighting for!