Creating this series of videos, I am well aware that there would be instances of discrepancies, errors in facts, errors in general opinion, distortions and misleading information. Despite all that, I endeavor to bring you the history based on what I have researched, according to the information I have at hand, and also based on my understand and interpretation of what I have. I do apologize for any error that appears. I will add these to the description text when these are pointed out to be and can be substantiated. Consider each video as work in progress as we continue to expand on our knowledge. What is important is that these videos help us ignite conversations of our past, which others may not have stated. If you discover an error, please inform me in the common in the most courteous way. Any discourteous comment will be removed. It is not in my habit of responding to rude comments, my usual action is to scrub the comment section of any discourtesy, so that others enjoy a pleasant reading of one another's comments. Anyone who is rude may also be muted, so think twice before penning something offensive. It may result in your not being able to comment in the future. As a general rule, I address all as sir, unless I know you as a woman, then I will address you as madam. I will not be calling you brother, bro, sis, sister, miss, ms or mister. By this, you will have a good idea of the general tone of this platform.
You are absolutely correct. Each group read the Chinese characters in their own language (some would say dialect). My late father wrote Chinese and read them in Hakka 😂
Agreed, I remember my maternal grandfather in the late 1970's reading me the newspaper with Chinese characters but read out by him in Hakka. He migrate direct from Southern China to Sarawak. Memories!!!!
As an Indian, Chinese language history is very fascinating. Similar to how modern day Hindi came to be. Hindi is one of the newest languages in India but has been standardised and adopted for government work but did not exist a while ago similar to modern day standardised Mandarin. Great video ❤ You have a new subscriber!
That is most interesting sir (to get a glimpse into the languages of India). Just I research and share about the languages of China, I appreciate your comments, as you give me some knowledge about the languages of India.
Your video brought back alot of memories about my father. Tqvm! . In the 60s, many of his china/guangzhou kampung folks came to our shop to seek my father's help in writing letters home. Also to read their replies coz they are illiterates. Also, using our shop as mailing address. Despite my father having an education level (in china) which is equivalent to our standard 6. You can say my father is also a scribe offering free service. 😊
Your video is very educational. Like everything else , there is always room for improvement, like giving some examples in the actual spoken vernacular languages or dialects. I could relate to everything yo have said and described . Good work!
No matter what, I still love my language Hokkien. Hokkien is my mother’s tongue, not Mandarin. When I was 12, at my grandfather’s funeral the “ funeral director “ recited the Buddhist’s Chinese text in written Hokkien. It sounded partly familiar but mostly unfamiliar. I was very enchanted. 50 years later, that scene is still very fresh in my mind.
Wow!! So interesting and insightful!! I always remember my father reading letters from his family in China written in Chinese characters but he reads it out in Hokkien!! Also remember in local Koiptiam serving kaya toast and soft boiled eggs over hearing chatter by some customers reading Chinese newspapers aloud in Hokkien sometimes Cantonese over their opinion of what they had read!! My grand uncle who used to served in the army back in China used to read Chinese newspaper but read it aloud in SingNing!! Now I understand!! Thanks !! 👍🏻👍🏻
Your grand uncle was possibly a Taishanese, like myself, but he has had the privilege to learn to read Literary Chinese in the Taishanese literary reading. As a result, he reads it out in Sinning.
The Chinese have always had many languages . There was an ancient book that surveyed region speech 2500 years ago. There is no Chinese Language but Chinese languages.
Just like the Europeans also have many languages. So there is one China, but many Chinese majority countries, such as Singapore and Taiwan. Taiwan should be recognized as a country and not part of China. So is Singapore not a china province.
My father came from China before the second world war like millions of poor people escaping war and famine. He studied 2 years in Cantonese at the village school. Upon arrival in Ipoh in Malaya in the late 1930s, later migrated to Kota Bharu, that was where he encountered Mandarin for the first time because of our schooling. Hardly any parents turned up at PTA because few parents spoke Mandarin. Our Chinese teachers came China or Taiwan. Despite 3 generations of Chinese schooling in KB, Kelantan Hokkien is still the main language amongst Kelantan Chinese.
It's wrong to say Chinese has no written language before 1900. Chinese has been using a common written language since the Qin Dynasty. Different dialects were used to teach the language. That's why Chinese from different parts of the country were able to sit for a common exam.(科举). The language continues to evolve from 文言文 to 白话文，then standardised pronunciation, Pinyin and simplified form of writing.(简体字）. Mandarin is not a new language, its just an evolvement of the Chinese language.
No sir, if you heard that Chinese has no written language, you did not hear it correctly. Literary Chinese is a written language, and the Chinese character has been around since, as you mentioned, the Qin Dynasty. Re-watch the video to understand that Chinese HAS a written language.
You're right, back in those days in China Once you passed the general exam. if you're selected to serve the imperial court, you have to know the official Imperial language (官方語）. In Qing and Ming Dynasty， Mandarin was the Imperial language. if you don't know Mandarin, it's hard for a scholar to serve the imperial court. I don't know why this video is against the Mandarin literature, of course in those days, dialects are commonly taught or used but when going to imperial palace, you have to use the imperial language.
That's why I feel that this video is very misleading, Mandarin was there to serve the emperors, it's as old as the other dialects, but it evolved and standardized systematically, then well accepted by all Chinese. We have to understand that all ancient Chinese capitals were in North China, not south. It's just like Malay, was evolved and standardized then adopted by Javanese as Bahasa Indonesia. In fact, Malay language is not the Javanese mother tongue.
We have to understand in those days, most of the Chinese came to Malaysia were miners or farmers, or fruit pickers, most of them were not well educated, never have a chance to approach Mandarin, the imperial language of China. Only those who passed the general Imperial exam have the chance to learn Mandarin. They're mainly known as scholars or the mandarins.
@@boonseow8338Nanqing was the capital of imperial China several times... But regardless of its location, people would have used the imperial standard for communication there. Standardization to Beijing dialect in speech regardless of location really in the republican era, and was only accelerated after the communist government gained control.
literary language = 文言文(text-speaking text, or literally speaking text), this was the speech or vernacular language used in ancient chinese and was recorded in text documents since ancient time of china history. Each dynasty will have different writing style of text or articles. It was inherited from and derived from ancient time of china in HuangHe(Yellow River) area, or rather the Loess Plateau黃土高原 or Central Plain中原 as called in chinese martial arts novels, where the chinese civilization initiated(in fact this is one of the many civilizations appeared in china history, but it was the conqueror that conquered and unified all other regional civilizations) The dialects, or regional vernacular languages are from those conquered ethnicities. When the conquerer from central plain came and brought in his language especially the writing, the local languages of conquered ethnicities would mix with the new comer's language based on writng to give the new dialects. No matter cantonese, hockien, teochew, hainam, ...... are formed in the history in this way to become the different dialects of china. Penang hockien as well as the north malaya hockien is one branch of MinNan dialects from the ZanChow漳州 area of FuJian province, while south malaya hockien like those of malaca and singapore hockien are from ChuenChow泉州 area of FuJian province. Both are MinNan dialects.
17:30 my family are from ZhongShan, a very diverse area with many village dialects. Cantonese was the language of business and trade. My family spoke its own family home dialect, that was foreign to Cantonese in the region, LongDu from the region of ShaXi. There is a saying, we do not care what you spoke, if you had money, we would speak your language.
@ to be precise, Sun Yut Sen spoke with a heavy Sek-Kei accent of Cantonese (youtube has an old speech of him). Yes, Zhong Shan is named after Sun Yut Sen, Chinese name. It use to be called fragrant mountain, like the fragrant port, Hong Kong. Hawaii, was called Tarn-Heung-Shan, before it became a state of the US. A lot of people from ZhongShan pilgrim and settled in Hawaii, because Sun went there when he was 8 years old.
To be precise, Cantonese is the lingua franca of people living in and around Guangzhou (Canton to foreigners). And yes, there are many sub-dialects in Guangdong. In the 1960s, the Chinese school that I went to had standard Cantonese as the medium of instruction. My classmates spoke Sze-yap (siyi), Loong-du (longdu), Shek-ki (shiqi) and of course standard Cantonese. Sadly, many of these sub-dialects are on their way out as native speakers die out. As for my old school, Cantonese has been replaced by Mandarin as the medium of instruction, possibly to cater to students whose parents came from mainland China. A bit sad really.
😊🙏 Always wanted to know why in KL there speak more Cantonese dialects & in Penang & JB they speak more Hokkien dialects among the Chinese speaking community in Malaysia! Thank You So Much for these detailed languages educational tutorials! Many Happy Good Blessings in Return to You All! 😊🙏🕯🌷🌿🍎🍊🌎✌💜🕊🇲🇾
There were a number of dialect Chinese schools in Thailand in the 19 th century. Under Thai law survived one changed their nature and teach only Mandarin Chinese.
That is interesting sir. I wonder whether the enrollment is limited to sons of wealthy Chinese families of Siam, or is it open to all Chinese children.
Hakka & Hokkien were used as imperial language in Tang & Song Dynasties. Mandarin (Putonghua) as it is today was the dialect spoken in Beijing. So it probably is a matter of which dialect was chosen as the 'national language' at different times in the history of China. The Chinese written characters however remained the same through time....
Going to chinese school even in the 50s was expensive, thats why my mom wasnt sent to school until she was 12 and a xtian missionary convent was opened (free ed)
Even today Chinese TV programs put standard Mandarin script subtitles on screen, allow dialect speakers to understand what is being said. The % of non Mandarin speakers is a lot smaller than it used to be, but the number of readers has increased.
Until the 17th century, European elites had a common written language, which was THE Latin. This is why Newton and Euler wrote their books in Latin. In Italy and France most people did not speak the national languages until the 19th century. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand the complex language situation in China.
Not without costs. millions of people had to die or their lives unrooted and cultures obliterated to achieve this "unity". And this "unity" is really tenous. Still held together by force.
@@learnpenanghokkien I sure did ! by watching your videos we can go back and see life was back then ! :) and lots of tid bits of information we would never know except for watching your channel ! thanks ! :)
Thank you very much. To fully understand the past, we often have to put aside the present, or else we will not have the true picture of the past. When I talk to people, often I can see that some do not fully understand the past, because they often allow the present to intrude into their understanding.
It may not be entirely accurate to say that the 'lower register' refers solely to dialects spoken by common people. Dialects or languages-what is classified as a language is often politically motivated-like Hokkien and Teochew have their own range of registers. For example, Teochew includes both spoken and written forms, indicating a richness beyond what the term 'lower register' might imply. Additionally, it's not surprising that Mandarin, the native language of northern China, was historically neither heard nor used among Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia, who primarily came from Guangdong and Fujian provinces. Mandarin was not their mother tongue. However, partly due to language policies, many locals today, except those with northern Chinese heritage, have been led to believe that Mandarin is their mother tongue, regardless of whether it is used in formal or informal contexts.
Yes sir, it "may not be entirely accurate". But until Mandarin was selected as the main vernacular language with a fully developed written form, the Chinese language is viewed by linguists as Lower Register and Upper Register. It is indeed accurate that Mandarin, the native language of northern China, was historically neither heard not sued among Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia. But those (Chinese) who did learn to read and write in Southeast Asia, they did so be it in Hokkien, Teochew or Cantonese, in Literary Chinese, read in the literary readings of Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese. These people who became literate did use the Chinese characters to "at times" write the vernacular, or spoken form of their dialects, but that is not the proper way of writing Chinese. The proper form is Literary Chinese.
Thank you so much for watching. Look forward to having you watch the subsequent video, where I will detail what happened in the early 20th century, resulting in the end for Literary Chinese and the beginning of Mandarin.
Timothy, thank you for your research. Great work and very interesting. It is sad that nowadays the younger generations are losing the ability to speak in the dialects/languages of Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka etc. All they speak is only Mandarin. I think the parents are to be blamed. Yes while Mandarin is important these days, there’s no good reason to drop their “mother tongue” totally! So sad.
I can't help with the other dialects, but I am working hard to preserve, modernize and develop Penang Hokkien which thankfully is still being used quite extensively in Penang, where I am. Part of the efforts to encourage the younger generation in learning Penang Hokkien (which other dialects can learn) is to make the language fashionable as well as easy to be written on all communication devices.
Excellent research. Make sure you compile everything into a book and I'll be your first Customer. My great grandfather opened the first Chinese school in Nibong Tebal, Province Wellesley south in 1929 with donations from himself and his business associates. The school is called Pai Teik Primary School. The school expanded drastically and a new site was chosen for the expansion. The old but still existing building became the school's Union. I guess, written Mandarin was made available to the town folks here from 1929 onwards. Ironically, many of my great grandfather's descendants including muself, studied in the only English language school (Methodist school) in town.
Wow, I really do not know exact at what point, at each school, the language switched from Literary Chinese to Mandarin. I do know that in the early Chinese schools founded in Malaya, they initially used Literary Chinese to teach, and only later switched to Mandarin. It took a while also for the teachers to learn Mandarin in order to teach in that "whole new language".
@@learnpenanghokkien Those days we used to import experts of various skills from China. I'm sure they did engage Mandarin teachers from China. Can you also check what language they used to conduct at Whampoa Military Academy. Hangpu , Guangzhou, during Chiang Kai Shek's era? My grandfather was a graduate officer from there but never served the army coz he was banned by my great grandfather from getting involved.
The research itself came from referencing books. I do not plan to repackage them into my own books, but rather, in future I may do book by book review, telling people what you can find within those books, and recommending that those who are interested should get a copy and read.
Not forget, sir, I do mention Malacca in the other videos. As this video is pertinent to 1900, I just pick the three main cities of the peninsula. Malacca features prominent in the other videos. Do enjoy them!
When Medhurst went to Singapore, Melaka, Penang and Batavia in early 1800s, the lingua franca there was Zhangzhou Hokkien. In 1891 Census in Melaka out of 18000 Chinese in the city, There were 4600 Hokkiens, 4300 Hainanese and 4900 Peranakans. Not everything is about Melaka.
I suppose the development of Chinese school in Singapore and Malaysia comes hand in hand with the revolution in China, when the last dynasty was overthrown and people there start to emphasize more on disseminating Chinese knowledge and education to common peoples using one, single modern standard Chinese in order to unify the many ethnicities in China and abroad.
In a way yes, the revolution that brought down the Qing dynasty also introduced new ideas, new thinking, and among them, the overhaul of the language and the introduction of mass literacy, which until then was the privilege of the elites.
They never stated that Mandarin. Has been used all along. When communism took over, the party decided that to be truly unified, everyone must speak the same language. Hence the compulsory use of Mandarin.
Actually it happened earlier than the Communist take over, though the Communist carried on with the work. In my next video, I will explain what brought about the change to Mandarin.
It seems Anglo-Chinese College in Melaka might have preceeded all the other colleges or schools mentioned. It was the first ever built by the British missionaries and even predate any other British institutions any where in the Far East.
I suppose it was built after the British took over Melaka from the Dutch in the interim before the official handover of Melaka to the British by the Dutch. Anglo-Chinese College, according to my sources, was built in 1818, two years after the founding of Penang Free School.
Perhaps it's because Anglo Chinese College was specifically yargeted at Chinese and intended to teach English and Chinese ligature Literature and history whereas PFS did not have such a targeted objective.
Because Canton, Singapore, Malaysia(Penang) are all in Southern China. Howevern Beijing is in the North, very very far away. That is why the older Chinese dont speak Mandarin, only Fulien , cantonese or Hakka
how did people from different parts of china used to communicate back in the 1900's ... could they ? or did they mostly stay in their own province so it was never a problem ?
Unless the person belonged to the elites of the province, that person would be illiterate and cut off from national communication. You can't start to imagine how hard life was back then, when you are controlled by people who can read and write. If you climb a hill over to the next valley, the people across the valley may be speaking a different dialect from you. This keeps the poor people rooted to where they were.
And you will be discriminated if you speak another language other than the local one. That why you have Hakka and Cantonese Punti wars the killed millions in the 19th century. By the way Hakka means Guests and Punti means Original from the soil. Sound familiar?
@@sonnymak6707 i read on another youtube channel that in america their chinatown is organised into different streets where people from different provinces of china have their different businesses. even in thailand now apparently there's a new chinatown which is all mainland chinese shops compared to the older chinatown which is like malaysia's ... I saw that on the youtube channel stuart jay raj ...
People who were educated I.e. could read could communicate with pretty much anyone else who could write. However only a very small % of people had the opportunity to learn. It seems strange to us living in this era of almost universal literacy, but 150 years ago the vast majority of people on the planet were nonreading monolinguals, most of whom lived in the same place as their parents and grandparents.
Many Incorrect informations about the Chinese history and Chinese language and the first Chinese school established in Malaya and Singapore. Sad to see that many of the younger English educated Chinese are out of touch with their Chinese roots and Chinese culture. .
That's why I am revisiting the information, at times correcting the information, but when I myself am incorrect, I will make known so that over time, we will progressively get things improved. As long as we maintain the conversation, we have chance to correct what is previously incorrect.
Same thing happened around the world. Try to research on Arabic, Indians and European languages to get a better picture. An English man and an Irish man can't understand each others too. Even the English language was not the original language of Britain, it was developed much later by a mixture of German Anglo Saxon.
in china it was mao tse tung, that ask the chinese population to speak putonghua, instead of their local language. in taiwan, it's was chiang kai shek that force it's people, those that are not speaking their mother tongue of putonghua. to forbid them from speaking their own mother tongue language. in singapore it's was lee kuan yew that banned all local chinese from speaking their own mother tongue language, to speak only putonghua. as for malaysia chinese, maybe they just copy what others are doing. there is a hakka saying " 宁卖祖宗田，不忘祖宗言。i'd rather sell my ancestral land than forget my ancestors' languages " . lee kuan yew was a hakka.
The conservation of a language depends on the family members, we should self create the speaking environment for the next generation children at home since they were born. If family members talk their own heritage language, outside influence may not be able to have any effect. I have been practicing this for more than 30 years in a mandarin vast environment, it works! If children talk what is other than your heritage language, dont answer! and remind him/her to change back to your home heritage language. So, the method is simple. And, within a chinese environmet speaking mandarin, remember to use your own dialect to think in the job, and any text operation like reading, writing, typing(remember to use the best glyphic type chinese input method, the CangJie chinese input method. Never never use phonetic method like HanYuPinYin or ZhuYin bopomofo, with which your thinking language will be kidnapped by the PuTongHua/GuoYu/HuaYu.), only use mandarin when you need to speak or communicate with your colleagues or job coworkers. Even, with an english speaking environment, do the same thing! You know? English reading can be changed into your own chinese dialect to think in your mind(who can force you in you mind? it is your private space) and understand(only word translation level, grammar may not be able to be so successful and have to follow english grammatical order sometimes. This needs some practice). Here is a live example : mandarin native speaking wife and children speak cantonese to dad(automatically)! Job environment is english, and customers talk madarin/PuTongHua. Meeting not more that 10 heritage language speaking persons within 50 years but still keep fluently speaking ability in cantonese and Penang Hockien, no any degradation. I must, and have to ,and need to say , loss of heritage home language is the responsibility, and fault of parents who dont creat an heritage language for their children. We cant control the outside big environment but we can control ourselves and home environment. If there are curves and rugged roads on the mountain, the mountain will not turn to let you get a straight road, why won't you turn yourself to adapt to the curved and rugged roads, so that you will encounter a straight road. From the view point of a government, or a country's politic leader, it is understandable that the whole country to use one type of common language speech and writing will give the the lowest cost for country operation. It promotes effective communication, and hence the effective country administration. It is right for Chinese people with various dialects to need a common language to unite, especially facing strong political pressure from another race. But as what we see from policy implementation in china mainland is too severe. It even teach the children to snitch his own parents that dont talk PuTongHua at home. This is to eliminate dialects. The govornment in Taiwan also put the mandarin/PuTongHua as the national language GuoYu, but it is less severe compared with what mainland china does. Common language speech is needed for a society with many dialects of various ethnic groups for effective communication, but it is no right for any regime or party to eliminate a dialects used at the home of students which is a private space not relating to public. Language speech and writing is the carrier of culture. In western concept, their language is speech centric, the writing is derived from speech with alphabets as sounds symbol to form syllables and then word. Due to the variability and instability of pronunciation, the number of English spelling words has reached one million, according to a 2008 Singapore Straits Times report, while the number of Chinese words/characters has only been over 100,000 for thousands of years. Etomologically, English word "language" is from French word "langue" pronunced like "long gate" which means "tongue". On the other hand, concept of chinese language is reversed, it is writing centric, the chinese word is the character which is called zi4字, chinese words are single-charactered single-syllabled. Word is character, character is word(zi4字)(In modern computer technology, "character" is translated as 字符=word symbol). To expand or derive new meaning, compound word formed from more than one character has a special term called 辭ci2(mainland china uses the word 詞is wrong. It is to imitate words in western languages(to abolish "character" concept) as part of the plan of latinized chinese which is another story on the tragic history of modern Chinese culture(a part of overthrowing the traditional culture and aim for totally westernization), Western languages or all spelling languages which are speech centric have no special or specific term as word on "writing" but to use the verb "write" to derive the gerund "writing". For eg, the word in malay is "perkataan" which is clearly derived from "kata" = say/speak. So, the fundation of chinese languages is writing words form which all chinese languages are derived. The word "language" in chinese have to be tranlated as speechwriting語文(the combination of speech and writing, not just understood as speech.) A feeling, If the common language speech is popular in chinese, I think it is no need for this video to make in engliah medium, it will be in PuTongHua/HuaYu. This video is made in english, I think a great reason is that many of the chinese are not chinese educated but english educated. Well, if Penang Hockien, or chinese in any other place of the world that their own dialects are not affected by HuaYu/PuTongHua but strongly affected by english just like the chinese in Singapore today, english has entered the home familty, parents do talk english with their children, then, may be 20 to 30 years later, singapore chinese will forget their Chinese identity. What I want to remind is, when we are awakened of our heritage dialects are declining we check that it seems HuaYu/PoTongHua has been a strong presence in our environment(HuaYu seems take over the role of dialect), but we do not feel the other greater threatening from both national language with great political advantages and international language with great economical advantages are acting as the power sources to turn our next generation to approach them. So, this should be rounded back to the first sentence said: "The conservation of a language depends on the family members, we should self create the dialect speaking environment for the next generation children at home since they were born."
Thank you so much for your detailed explanation. I have no chance to read it in full yet, and will come back to read it once I have the chance. Thank you again.
Very enlightening. Thank you for the good work. Luckily China undergone revolutions to destroy the old structures and reconstruct everything anew quickly. Without which no chance for China to emerge as a dynamic country.
Glad you enjoyed it. In subsequent videos, we will scrutinize the transformation that took place in the early 20th century, as China put away Literary Chinese to embrace Mandarin.
While Mandarin, Putonghua .. grows in importance, rightly & necessarily so (for Chinese unity), I pray all dialects (Cantonese, Hokkien, etc) could be preserved & maintained. Not only the dialects but also their unique customs & individual cultures.
Most certainly sir. But it takes monumental effort. I have been doing this for Penang Hokkien for the past eleven years, and come January 2025, I enter the 12th year of working to preserve, develop and modernize Penang Hokkien for the 21st century.
Im teochew.... My maternal mum is hakka, so i understand hakka too. In my opinion, if one understand hakka, its easier to understand cantonese. By the way, the teochew has 3 sub ethnic which is chaochow, chaopu, and the chaozhang. Chaozhou could understand the chaopu quitewell... but chaochow would have a difficulties when listening to the chaozhang...... that happens to my great auntie who married my great uncle from chaozhang...
May I ask 1. While all Msian Chinese schs teach in Mandarin from start, up today , HKong & Macao schs taught in Cantonese, not in Mandarin. Why so? 2. Do u know of any Chinese schs in the world that teach in any other dialects? 3. Apparently, most Chinatowns all over the world used to speak Cantonese, not until recently, how come?
The prominence of Cantonese as the main lingua franca in many Chinatowns worldwide is closely tied to the historical migration patterns of Chinese communities. During the mid-19th century, large numbers of Chinese laborers migrated to various parts of the world. This is spurred by, among others, the California Gold Rush, construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, and demand for labor in the Americas and Oceania. Many of these migrants originated from the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong Province, where Cantonese is the primary language. At the time, the region experienced severe economic hardship due to factors like the Opium Wars (1839-1842, 1856-1860), the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), and natural disasters.
@@learnpenanghokkien Truly appreciate ur effort. I had a grandaunty who is a Taishanese who came to Msia towork as a maid in the 1940s, returned to China in 1960s. When we heard her speaking Taishan dialect, v were amazed, quite diff from Cantonese. Can u say something abt Taishanese?
Interesting explanation but many speculative claims that are not true or accurate. Chinese people in Malaysia not heard of Mandarin in 1900? Is that a fact?
Wrong. Mandarin was introduced to Penang in 1904, through Chung Hwa School in Penang, Malaysia's first Mandarin School founded by Cheong Fatt Tze. Today's Chung Hwa School, now known as Chung Hwa Confucian High School, and Chung Hwa Primary School. Your video is very misleading please do more research and correct it and re-upload your misleading video. Btw, first Chinese school in Penang is not Chung Ling.
If Mandarin were introduced to Penang in 1904, sir, it would be Mandarin reading of Literary Chinese, as at that time, a standard writing system has not been established for Mandarin. Thanks for pointing out the founding of Chung Hwa School. Certainly I would at times be incorrect, and I thank you for pointing out.
CH was founded by Qing Dynasty bureaucrates, all literatures were read and learned in Mandarin, it took more than a decade to successfully making Mandarin as the language medium of instruction in schools and media. That's why CL was then founded by Kuomintang supprters after a decade later in 1917. CH has played an important role to standardise the Mandarin Chinese school system in Penang and Msia but it's forgotten in Malaysian history.
Somehow, Cantonese decided on unofficially on standardization of dialect characters. But Hokkien (& others?)seem to have personal choice of which characters to use.
Hokkien also has its own written characters, although some are similar to Mandarin, but read as hokkien. I remembered my dad used to read hokkien newspapers in my early years. Even in this modern day, hokkien church songs are written in hokkien characters, where some of them are not found in mandarin pronunciation, as they are not mandarin written characters.
The mountains are high, and the emperor is far away. The Imperial Court and officials use the convoluted Beijing language while the people converse in their respective dialects. Following the May 4th Movement, Hu Shih at Peking University and his compatriots championed the use of a vernacular language that the masses can comprehend. This educational renewal eventually spread to Nanyang.
Creating this series of videos, I am well aware that there would be instances of discrepancies, errors in facts, errors in general opinion, distortions and misleading information. Despite all that, I endeavor to bring you the history based on what I have researched, according to the information I have at hand, and also based on my understand and interpretation of what I have.
I do apologize for any error that appears. I will add these to the description text when these are pointed out to be and can be substantiated. Consider each video as work in progress as we continue to expand on our knowledge. What is important is that these videos help us ignite conversations of our past, which others may not have stated.
If you discover an error, please inform me in the common in the most courteous way. Any discourteous comment will be removed. It is not in my habit of responding to rude comments, my usual action is to scrub the comment section of any discourtesy, so that others enjoy a pleasant reading of one another's comments. Anyone who is rude may also be muted, so think twice before penning something offensive. It may result in your not being able to comment in the future.
As a general rule, I address all as sir, unless I know you as a woman, then I will address you as madam. I will not be calling you brother, bro, sis, sister, miss, ms or mister. By this, you will have a good idea of the general tone of this platform.
interesting ! :) ua-cam.com/video/6q_TAG1O8Yg/v-deo.html
You are absolutely correct. Each group read the Chinese characters in their own language (some would say dialect). My late father wrote Chinese and read them in Hakka 😂
Agreed, I remember my maternal grandfather in the late 1970's reading me the newspaper with Chinese characters but read out by him in Hakka.
He migrate direct from Southern China to Sarawak.
Memories!!!!
As an Indian, Chinese language history is very fascinating. Similar to how modern day Hindi came to be. Hindi is one of the newest languages in India but has been standardised and adopted for government work but did not exist a while ago similar to modern day standardised Mandarin. Great video ❤
You have a new subscriber!
That is most interesting sir (to get a glimpse into the languages of India). Just I research and share about the languages of China, I appreciate your comments, as you give me some knowledge about the languages of India.
@@learnpenanghokkien the pleasure is all mine :) thanks for making this video! It has piqued my interest into Chinese languages🇨🇳
Your video brought back alot of memories about my father. Tqvm! . In the 60s, many of his china/guangzhou kampung folks came to our shop to seek my father's help in writing letters home. Also to read their replies coz they are illiterates. Also, using our shop as mailing address. Despite my father having an education level (in china) which is equivalent to our standard 6. You can say my father is also a scribe offering free service. 😊
Thank you for sharing your family background, as it relates to the issue of literacy.
that's why its so important to make sure the dialects are never forgotten ! :)
Your video is very educational. Like everything else , there is always room for improvement, like giving some examples in the actual spoken vernacular languages or dialects. I could relate to everything yo have said and described . Good work!
Thank you very much!
No matter what, I still love my language Hokkien. Hokkien is my mother’s tongue, not Mandarin. When I was 12, at my grandfather’s funeral the “ funeral director “ recited the Buddhist’s Chinese text in written Hokkien. It sounded partly familiar but mostly unfamiliar. I was very enchanted. 50 years later, that scene is still very fresh in my mind.
Wow!! So interesting and insightful!! I always remember my father reading letters from his family in China written in Chinese characters but he reads it out in Hokkien!! Also remember in local Koiptiam serving kaya toast and soft boiled eggs over hearing chatter by some customers reading Chinese newspapers aloud in Hokkien sometimes Cantonese over their opinion of what they had read!!
My grand uncle who used to served in the army back in China used to read Chinese newspaper but read it aloud in SingNing!! Now I understand!! Thanks !! 👍🏻👍🏻
Your grand uncle was possibly a Taishanese, like myself, but he has had the privilege to learn to read Literary Chinese in the Taishanese literary reading. As a result, he reads it out in Sinning.
The Chinese have always had many languages . There was an ancient book that surveyed region speech 2500 years ago. There is no Chinese Language but Chinese languages.
Just like the Europeans also have many languages. So there is one China, but many Chinese majority countries, such as Singapore and Taiwan. Taiwan should be recognized as a country and not part of China. So is Singapore not a china province.
@@musico3415Singapore's name is a huge give away as a separate country with its own identity
My father came from China before the second world war like millions of poor people escaping war and famine. He studied 2 years in Cantonese at the village school. Upon arrival in Ipoh in Malaya in the late 1930s, later migrated to Kota Bharu, that was where he encountered Mandarin for the first time because of our schooling. Hardly any parents turned up at PTA because few parents spoke Mandarin. Our Chinese teachers came China or Taiwan. Despite 3 generations of Chinese schooling in KB, Kelantan Hokkien is still the main language amongst Kelantan Chinese.
Thank you for giving me a glimpse of the Chinese language situation in Kota Bharu.
It's wrong to say Chinese has no written language before 1900. Chinese has been using a common written language since the Qin Dynasty. Different dialects were used to teach the language. That's why Chinese from different parts of the country were able to sit for a common exam.(科举). The language continues to evolve from 文言文 to 白话文，then standardised pronunciation, Pinyin and simplified form of writing.(简体字）. Mandarin is not a new language, its just an evolvement of the Chinese language.
No sir, if you heard that Chinese has no written language, you did not hear it correctly. Literary Chinese is a written language, and the Chinese character has been around since, as you mentioned, the Qin Dynasty. Re-watch the video to understand that Chinese HAS a written language.
You're right, back in those days in China
Once you passed the general exam. if you're selected to serve the imperial court, you have to know the official Imperial language (官方語）. In Qing and Ming Dynasty， Mandarin was the Imperial language. if you don't know Mandarin, it's hard for a scholar to serve the imperial court. I don't know why this video is against the Mandarin literature, of course in those days, dialects are commonly taught or used but when going to imperial palace, you have to use the imperial language.
That's why I feel that this video is very misleading, Mandarin was there to serve the emperors, it's as old as the other dialects, but it evolved and standardized systematically, then well accepted by all Chinese. We have to understand that all ancient Chinese capitals were in North China, not south. It's just like Malay, was evolved and standardized then adopted by Javanese as Bahasa Indonesia. In fact, Malay language is not the Javanese mother tongue.
We have to understand in those days, most of the Chinese came to Malaysia were miners or farmers, or fruit pickers, most of them were not well educated, never have a chance to approach Mandarin, the imperial language of China. Only those who passed the general Imperial exam have the chance to learn Mandarin. They're mainly known as scholars or the mandarins.
@@boonseow8338Nanqing was the capital of imperial China several times... But regardless of its location, people would have used the imperial standard for communication there. Standardization to Beijing dialect in speech regardless of location really in the republican era, and was only accelerated after the communist government gained control.
literary language = 文言文(text-speaking text, or literally speaking text), this was the speech or vernacular language used in ancient chinese and was recorded in text documents since ancient time of china history. Each dynasty will have different writing style of text or articles. It was inherited from and derived from ancient time of china in HuangHe(Yellow River) area, or rather the Loess Plateau黃土高原 or Central Plain中原 as called in chinese martial arts novels, where the chinese civilization initiated(in fact this is one of the many civilizations appeared in china history, but it was the conqueror that conquered and unified all other regional civilizations)
The dialects, or regional vernacular languages are from those conquered ethnicities. When the conquerer from central plain came and brought in his language especially the writing, the local languages of conquered ethnicities would mix with the new comer's language based on writng to give the new dialects. No matter cantonese, hockien, teochew, hainam, ...... are formed in the history in this way to become the different dialects of china.
Penang hockien as well as the north malaya hockien is one branch of MinNan dialects from the ZanChow漳州 area of FuJian province, while south malaya hockien like those of malaca and singapore hockien are from ChuenChow泉州 area of FuJian province. Both are MinNan dialects.
Thank you so much for sharing your insight!
17:30 my family are from ZhongShan, a very diverse area with many village dialects. Cantonese was the language of business and trade.
My family spoke its own family home dialect, that was foreign to Cantonese in the region, LongDu from the region of ShaXi.
There is a saying, we do not care what you spoke, if you had money, we would speak your language.
LOL
There is Zhongshan Cantonese,
Zhongshan Hakka, at least.
1st president of China Sun Yatsin
was from Zhongshan. That county
at 1st called Heung Shan.
@ to be precise, Sun Yut Sen spoke with a heavy Sek-Kei accent of Cantonese (youtube has an old speech of him). Yes, Zhong Shan is named after Sun Yut Sen, Chinese name. It use to be called fragrant mountain, like the fragrant port, Hong Kong. Hawaii, was called Tarn-Heung-Shan, before it became a state of the US. A lot of people from ZhongShan pilgrim and settled in Hawaii, because Sun went there when he was 8 years old.
To be precise, Cantonese is the lingua franca of people living in and around Guangzhou (Canton to foreigners). And yes, there are many sub-dialects in Guangdong. In the 1960s, the Chinese school that I went to had standard Cantonese as the medium of instruction. My classmates spoke Sze-yap (siyi), Loong-du (longdu), Shek-ki (shiqi) and of course standard Cantonese. Sadly, many of these sub-dialects are on their way out as native speakers die out. As for my old school, Cantonese has been replaced by Mandarin as the medium of instruction, possibly to cater to students whose parents came from mainland China. A bit sad really.
😊🙏 Always wanted to know why in KL there speak more Cantonese dialects & in Penang & JB they speak more Hokkien dialects among the Chinese speaking community in Malaysia! Thank You So Much for these detailed languages educational tutorials! Many Happy Good Blessings in Return to You All! 😊🙏🕯🌷🌿🍎🍊🌎✌💜🕊🇲🇾
Thank you for enjoying the video!!
There were a number of dialect Chinese schools in Thailand in the 19 th century. Under Thai law survived one changed their nature and teach only Mandarin Chinese.
That is interesting sir. I wonder whether the enrollment is limited to sons of wealthy Chinese families of Siam, or is it open to all Chinese children.
Hakka & Hokkien were used as imperial language in Tang & Song Dynasties. Mandarin (Putonghua) as it is today was the dialect spoken in Beijing. So it probably is a matter of which dialect was chosen as the 'national language' at different times in the history of China. The Chinese written characters however remained the same through time....
In the next video, I mention the national language, but of more recent times, of the Qing Dynasty.
Going to chinese school even in the 50s was expensive, thats why my mom wasnt sent to school until she was 12 and a xtian missionary convent was opened (free ed)
Thanks for the fascinating insight into schooling in the 50s.
Great contents. Thank you for the knowledge 😊
Glad you enjoyed it!
Even today Chinese TV programs put standard Mandarin script subtitles on screen, allow dialect speakers to understand what is being said. The % of non Mandarin speakers is a lot smaller than it used to be, but the number of readers has increased.
Until the 17th century, European elites had a common written language, which was THE Latin. This is why Newton and Euler wrote their books in Latin. In Italy and France most people did not speak the national languages until the 19th century. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand the complex language situation in China.
Yes sir, the situation in Europe exactly mirrors that of China. Brilliant observation sir.
Fascinating!!! China is able to rein in 56 ethnicities to come under one umbrella of national language identity!! 👍👍💯💯
Not without costs. millions of people had to die or their lives unrooted and cultures obliterated to achieve this "unity". And this "unity" is really tenous. Still held together by force.
love the photos - like a time machine ! :)
Glad you enjoyed it
@@learnpenanghokkien I sure did ! by watching your videos we can go back and see life was back then ! :) and lots of tid bits of information we would never know except for watching your channel ! thanks ! :)
Thank you very much. To fully understand the past, we often have to put aside the present, or else we will not have the true picture of the past. When I talk to people, often I can see that some do not fully understand the past, because they often allow the present to intrude into their understanding.
@@learnpenanghokkien I hope you go deeper into it in your coming videos ! It is so interesting ! :)
It may not be entirely accurate to say that the 'lower register' refers solely to dialects spoken by common people. Dialects or languages-what is classified as a language is often politically motivated-like Hokkien and Teochew have their own range of registers. For example, Teochew includes both spoken and written forms, indicating a richness beyond what the term 'lower register' might imply. Additionally, it's not surprising that Mandarin, the native language of northern China, was historically neither heard nor used among Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia, who primarily came from Guangdong and Fujian provinces. Mandarin was not their mother tongue. However, partly due to language policies, many locals today, except those with northern Chinese heritage, have been led to believe that Mandarin is their mother tongue, regardless of whether it is used in formal or informal contexts.
Yes sir, it "may not be entirely accurate". But until Mandarin was selected as the main vernacular language with a fully developed written form, the Chinese language is viewed by linguists as Lower Register and Upper Register. It is indeed accurate that Mandarin, the native language of northern China, was historically neither heard not sued among Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia. But those (Chinese) who did learn to read and write in Southeast Asia, they did so be it in Hokkien, Teochew or Cantonese, in Literary Chinese, read in the literary readings of Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese. These people who became literate did use the Chinese characters to "at times" write the vernacular, or spoken form of their dialects, but that is not the proper way of writing Chinese. The proper form is Literary Chinese.
Yes, typical Penang-centric opinion
SOOOOOOOOO INTERESTING! ❤
Thank you so much for watching. Look forward to having you watch the subsequent video, where I will detail what happened in the early 20th century, resulting in the end for Literary Chinese and the beginning of Mandarin.
yep. it was really interesting ! - I can't wait for more ! :)
Until then, sir, please go through the catalogue of earlier videos, to see what you could learn from the previous videos. And do subscribe!
@@learnpenanghokkien this channel is like a time machine ! :)
Delighted you think so. Yes, every video is a time capsule.
Timothy, thank you for your research. Great work and very interesting. It is sad that nowadays the younger generations are losing the ability to speak in the dialects/languages of Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka etc. All they speak is only Mandarin. I think the parents are to be blamed. Yes while Mandarin is important these days, there’s no good reason to drop their “mother tongue” totally! So sad.
I can't help with the other dialects, but I am working hard to preserve, modernize and develop Penang Hokkien which thankfully is still being used quite extensively in Penang, where I am. Part of the efforts to encourage the younger generation in learning Penang Hokkien (which other dialects can learn) is to make the language fashionable as well as easy to be written on all communication devices.
Excellent research. Make sure you compile everything into a book and I'll be your first Customer. My great grandfather opened the first Chinese school in Nibong Tebal, Province Wellesley south in 1929 with donations from himself and his business associates. The school is called Pai Teik Primary School. The school expanded drastically and a new site was chosen for the expansion. The old but still existing building became the school's Union. I guess, written Mandarin was made available to the town folks here from 1929 onwards. Ironically, many of my great grandfather's descendants including muself, studied in the only English language school (Methodist school) in town.
Wow, I really do not know exact at what point, at each school, the language switched from Literary Chinese to Mandarin. I do know that in the early Chinese schools founded in Malaya, they initially used Literary Chinese to teach, and only later switched to Mandarin. It took a while also for the teachers to learn Mandarin in order to teach in that "whole new language".
@@learnpenanghokkien Those days we used to import experts of various skills from China. I'm sure they did engage Mandarin teachers from China. Can you also check what language they used to conduct at Whampoa Military Academy. Hangpu , Guangzhou, during Chiang Kai Shek's era? My grandfather was a graduate officer from there but never served the army coz he was banned by my great grandfather from getting involved.
The research itself came from referencing books. I do not plan to repackage them into my own books, but rather, in future I may do book by book review, telling people what you can find within those books, and recommending that those who are interested should get a copy and read.
If it were in Guangzhou, it would not be surprising if the language was Cantonese.
@@learnpenanghokkien Then why did it changed to Mandarin when Chiang Kai Shek retreated to Taiwan and ruling the island as first president?
Hey you forgot to include Malacca, the bastion of Amoy - Quanzhou Hokkiens!
Not forget, sir, I do mention Malacca in the other videos. As this video is pertinent to 1900, I just pick the three main cities of the peninsula. Malacca features prominent in the other videos. Do enjoy them!
@ thanks.. you can’t please everyone 🤣
When Medhurst went to Singapore, Melaka, Penang and Batavia in early 1800s, the lingua franca there was Zhangzhou Hokkien. In 1891 Census in Melaka out of 18000 Chinese in the city, There were 4600 Hokkiens, 4300 Hainanese and 4900 Peranakans. Not everything is about Melaka.
I might devote an entire video just on Medhurst.
@@learnpenanghokkien Looking forward to this one. Maybe you two can collaborate on the Medhurst story, which I know nothing about.
I suppose the development of Chinese school in Singapore and Malaysia comes hand in hand with the revolution in China, when the last dynasty was overthrown and people there start to emphasize more on disseminating Chinese knowledge and education to common peoples using one, single modern standard Chinese in order to unify the many ethnicities in China and abroad.
In a way yes, the revolution that brought down the Qing dynasty also introduced new ideas, new thinking, and among them, the overhaul of the language and the introduction of mass literacy, which until then was the privilege of the elites.
They never stated that Mandarin. Has been used all along.
When communism took over, the party decided that to be truly unified, everyone must speak the same language. Hence the compulsory use of Mandarin.
Actually it happened earlier than the Communist take over, though the Communist carried on with the work. In my next video, I will explain what brought about the change to Mandarin.
It seems Anglo-Chinese College in Melaka might have preceeded all the other colleges or schools mentioned. It was the first ever built by the British missionaries and even predate any other British institutions any where in the Far East.
I suppose it was built after the British took over Melaka from the Dutch in the interim before the official handover of Melaka to the British by the Dutch. Anglo-Chinese College, according to my sources, was built in 1818, two years after the founding of Penang Free School.
Perhaps it's because Anglo Chinese College was specifically yargeted at Chinese and intended to teach English and Chinese ligature
Literature and history whereas PFS did not have such a targeted objective.
Because Canton, Singapore, Malaysia(Penang) are all in Southern China. Howevern Beijing is in the North, very very far away. That is why the older Chinese dont speak Mandarin, only Fulien , cantonese or Hakka
how did people from different parts of china used to communicate back in the 1900's ... could they ? or did they mostly stay in their own province so it was never a problem ?
Unless the person belonged to the elites of the province, that person would be illiterate and cut off from national communication. You can't start to imagine how hard life was back then, when you are controlled by people who can read and write. If you climb a hill over to the next valley, the people across the valley may be speaking a different dialect from you. This keeps the poor people rooted to where they were.
@@learnpenanghokkien wow thanks for the insight into how life was back then ! :)
And you will be discriminated if you speak another language other than the local one. That why you have Hakka and Cantonese Punti wars the killed millions in the 19th century. By the way Hakka means Guests and Punti means Original from the soil. Sound familiar?
@@sonnymak6707 i read on another youtube channel that in america their chinatown is organised into different streets where people from different provinces of china have their different businesses. even in thailand now apparently there's a new chinatown which is all mainland chinese shops compared to the older chinatown which is like malaysia's ... I saw that on the youtube channel stuart jay raj ...
People who were educated I.e. could read could communicate with pretty much anyone else who could write. However only a very small % of people had the opportunity to learn.
It seems strange to us living in this era of almost universal literacy, but 150 years ago the vast majority of people on the planet were nonreading monolinguals, most of whom lived in the same place as their parents and grandparents.
Many Incorrect informations about the Chinese history and Chinese language and the first Chinese school established in Malaya and Singapore. Sad to see that many of the younger English educated Chinese are out of touch with their Chinese roots and Chinese culture. .
That's why I am revisiting the information, at times correcting the information, but when I myself am incorrect, I will make known so that over time, we will progressively get things improved. As long as we maintain the conversation, we have chance to correct what is previously incorrect.
pls post what you know to correct the incorrect information. thank you.
Wow! Very informative! Hometown: JB. Current residence: Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.
Very cool!
find another Hokkien, Teochew, etc to speak with
Very very true.
Thank you for watching.
Same thing happened around the world. Try to research on Arabic, Indians and European languages to get a better picture. An English man and an Irish man can't understand each others too. Even the English language was not the original language of Britain, it was developed much later by a mixture of German Anglo Saxon.
in china it was mao tse tung, that ask the chinese population to speak putonghua, instead of their local language. in taiwan, it's was chiang kai shek that force it's people, those that are not speaking their mother tongue of putonghua. to forbid them from speaking their own mother tongue language. in singapore it's was lee kuan yew that banned all local chinese from speaking their own mother tongue language, to speak only putonghua. as for malaysia chinese, maybe they just copy what others are doing. there is a hakka saying " 宁卖祖宗田，不忘祖宗言。i'd rather sell my ancestral land than forget my ancestors' languages " . lee kuan yew was a hakka.
Well...RTM still carries the vernacular news every evening at 9 pm.
Ah, I see. Vernacular, as in what language?
The conservation of a language depends on the family members, we should self create the speaking environment for the next generation children at home since they were born. If family members talk their own heritage language, outside influence may not be able to have any effect. I have been practicing this for more than 30 years in a mandarin vast environment, it works! If children talk what is other than your heritage language, dont answer! and remind him/her to change back to your home heritage language. So, the method is simple.
And, within a chinese environmet speaking mandarin, remember to use your own dialect to think in the job, and any text operation like reading, writing, typing(remember to use the best glyphic type chinese input method, the CangJie chinese input method. Never never use phonetic method like HanYuPinYin or ZhuYin bopomofo, with which your thinking language will be kidnapped by the PuTongHua/GuoYu/HuaYu.), only use mandarin when you need to speak or communicate with your colleagues or job coworkers.
Even, with an english speaking environment, do the same thing! You know? English reading can be changed into your own chinese dialect to think in your mind(who can force you in you mind? it is your private space) and understand(only word translation level, grammar may not be able to be so successful and have to follow english grammatical order sometimes. This needs some practice).
Here is a live example : mandarin native speaking wife and children speak cantonese to dad(automatically)! Job environment is english, and customers talk madarin/PuTongHua. Meeting not more that 10 heritage language speaking persons within 50 years but still keep fluently speaking ability in cantonese and Penang Hockien, no any degradation.
I must, and have to ,and need to say , loss of heritage home language is the responsibility, and fault of parents who dont creat an heritage language for their children. We cant control the outside big environment but we can control ourselves and home environment. If there are curves and rugged roads on the mountain, the mountain will not turn to let you get a straight road, why won't you turn yourself to adapt to the curved and rugged roads, so that you will encounter a straight road.
From the view point of a government, or a country's politic leader, it is understandable that the whole country to use one type of common language speech and writing will give the the lowest cost for country operation. It promotes effective communication, and hence the effective country administration. It is right for Chinese people with various dialects to need a common language to unite, especially facing strong political pressure from another race. But as what we see from policy implementation in china mainland is too severe. It even teach the children to snitch his own parents that dont talk PuTongHua at home. This is to eliminate dialects. The govornment in Taiwan also put the mandarin/PuTongHua as the national language GuoYu, but it is less severe compared with what mainland china does. Common language speech is needed for a society with many dialects of various ethnic groups for effective communication, but it is no right for any regime or party to eliminate a dialects used at the home of students which is a private space not relating to public.
Language speech and writing is the carrier of culture. In western concept, their language is speech centric, the writing is derived from speech with alphabets as sounds symbol to form syllables and then word. Due to the variability and instability of pronunciation, the number of English spelling words has reached one million, according to a 2008 Singapore Straits Times report, while the number of Chinese words/characters has only been over 100,000 for thousands of years. Etomologically, English word "language" is from French word "langue" pronunced like "long gate" which means "tongue". On the other hand, concept of chinese language is reversed, it is writing centric, the chinese word is the character which is called zi4字, chinese words are single-charactered single-syllabled. Word is character, character is word(zi4字)(In modern computer technology, "character" is translated as 字符=word symbol). To expand or derive new meaning, compound word formed from more than one character has a special term called 辭ci2(mainland china uses the word 詞is wrong. It is to imitate words in western languages(to abolish "character" concept) as part of the plan of latinized chinese which is another story on the tragic history of modern Chinese culture(a part of overthrowing the traditional culture and aim for totally westernization), Western languages or all spelling languages which are speech centric have no special or specific term as word on "writing" but to use the verb "write" to derive the gerund "writing". For eg, the word in malay is "perkataan" which is clearly derived from "kata" = say/speak. So, the fundation of chinese languages is writing words form which all chinese languages are derived. The word "language" in chinese have to be tranlated as speechwriting語文(the combination of speech and writing, not just understood as speech.)
A feeling, If the common language speech is popular in chinese, I think it is no need for this video to make in engliah medium, it will be in PuTongHua/HuaYu. This video is made in english, I think a great reason is that many of the chinese are not chinese educated but english educated. Well, if Penang Hockien, or chinese in any other place of the world that their own dialects are not affected by HuaYu/PuTongHua but strongly affected by english just like the chinese in Singapore today, english has entered the home familty, parents do talk english with their children, then, may be 20 to 30 years later, singapore chinese will forget their Chinese identity.
What I want to remind is, when we are awakened of our heritage dialects are declining we check that it seems HuaYu/PoTongHua has been a strong presence in our environment(HuaYu seems take over the role of dialect), but we do not feel the other greater threatening from both national language with great political advantages and international language with great economical advantages are acting as the power sources to turn our next generation to approach them. So, this should be rounded back to the first sentence said: "The conservation of a language depends on the family members, we should self create the dialect speaking environment for the next generation children at home since they were born."
Thank you so much for your detailed explanation. I have no chance to read it in full yet, and will come back to read it once I have the chance. Thank you again.
Very enlightening. Thank you for the good work. Luckily China undergone revolutions to destroy the old structures and reconstruct everything anew quickly. Without which no chance for China to emerge as a dynamic country.
Glad you enjoyed it. In subsequent videos, we will scrutinize the transformation that took place in the early 20th century, as China put away Literary Chinese to embrace Mandarin.
The most spoken language in the world is mandarin... ❤❤❤
❤❤❤.. Love You.. ❤❤❤
Written chinese is just a series of pictures. That's why it was easily understood by all. The picture of a dog is understood by everyone. Etc
Good comparison.
Rather simplified. But it does imply the reality of the history of China as a political unit comprised of a variety of cultural segments.
While Mandarin, Putonghua .. grows in importance, rightly & necessarily so (for Chinese unity), I pray all dialects (Cantonese, Hokkien, etc) could be preserved & maintained. Not only the dialects but also their unique customs & individual cultures.
Most certainly sir. But it takes monumental effort. I have been doing this for Penang Hokkien for the past eleven years, and come January 2025, I enter the 12th year of working to preserve, develop and modernize Penang Hokkien for the 21st century.
@@learnpenanghokkien Really appreciate ur effort
I was always confused between Hokkien and Hakka ^^
They are very far apart, sir. A Hokkien speaker wouldn't be able to understand Hakka, and vice versa, unless they spoke both.
Im teochew....
My maternal mum is hakka, so i understand hakka too. In my opinion, if one understand hakka, its easier to understand cantonese.
By the way, the teochew has 3 sub ethnic which is chaochow, chaopu, and the chaozhang. Chaozhou could understand the chaopu quitewell... but chaochow would have a difficulties when listening to the chaozhang...... that happens to my great auntie who married my great uncle from chaozhang...
May I ask 1. While all Msian Chinese schs teach in Mandarin from start, up today , HKong & Macao schs taught in Cantonese, not in Mandarin. Why so? 2. Do u know of any Chinese schs in the world that teach in any other dialects? 3. Apparently, most Chinatowns all over the world used to speak Cantonese, not until recently, how come?
The prominence of Cantonese as the main lingua franca in many Chinatowns worldwide is closely tied to the historical migration patterns of Chinese communities. During the mid-19th century, large numbers of Chinese laborers migrated to various parts of the world. This is spurred by, among others, the California Gold Rush, construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, and demand for labor in the Americas and Oceania. Many of these migrants originated from the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong Province, where Cantonese is the primary language. At the time, the region experienced severe economic hardship due to factors like the Opium Wars (1839-1842, 1856-1860), the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), and natural disasters.
@@learnpenanghokkien Truly appreciate ur effort. I had a grandaunty who is a Taishanese who came to Msia towork as a maid in the 1940s, returned to China in 1960s. When we heard her speaking Taishan dialect, v were amazed, quite diff from Cantonese. Can u say something abt Taishanese?
🙂
that is the difference of 文言文 and 白話文
This would need a video to explain!
Well done,keep up the good work,chinese straits settlement.
Thanks sir, will do!
The "official stuff" or laws in North America aka Canada is in legal lingo is is practically in another language for the commoners 😂😆🤣
Interesting explanation but many speculative claims that are not true or accurate. Chinese people in Malaysia not heard of Mandarin in 1900? Is that a fact?
Generally sir, mainly because the Mandarin in the form that we know today does not yet exist.
Most of them came from southern china that don't get along with the Qing dynasty that spoke Mandarin.
I like the can of Coke in the bookcase.
LOL. It was made for me with my name printed on it.
Wrong. Mandarin was introduced to Penang in 1904, through Chung Hwa School in Penang, Malaysia's first Mandarin School founded by Cheong Fatt Tze. Today's Chung Hwa School, now known as Chung Hwa Confucian High School, and Chung Hwa Primary School. Your video is very misleading please do more research and correct it and re-upload your misleading video. Btw, first Chinese school in Penang is not Chung Ling.
If Mandarin were introduced to Penang in 1904, sir, it would be Mandarin reading of Literary Chinese, as at that time, a standard writing system has not been established for Mandarin. Thanks for pointing out the founding of Chung Hwa School. Certainly I would at times be incorrect, and I thank you for pointing out.
CH was founded by Qing Dynasty bureaucrates, all literatures were read and learned in Mandarin, it took more than a decade to successfully making Mandarin as the language medium of instruction in schools and media. That's why CL was then founded by Kuomintang supprters after a decade later in 1917. CH has played an important role to standardise the Mandarin Chinese school system in Penang and Msia but it's forgotten in Malaysian history.
So you can also say japanese as chinese dialect because the use kanji (chinese characters)🤪
That's an interesting idea!
Why is it Cantonese has a writing system for its spoken form while hokkien does not.
This will be covered in a video some time in the future, so stay tuned.
@learnpenanghokkien thank you.
Somehow, Cantonese decided on unofficially on standardization of dialect characters.
But Hokkien (& others?)seem to have personal choice of which
characters to use.
Hokkien HAS a written form!
Hokkien also has its own written characters, although some are similar to Mandarin, but read as hokkien. I remembered my dad used to read hokkien newspapers in my early years.
Even in this modern day, hokkien church songs are written in hokkien characters, where some of them are not found in mandarin pronunciation, as they are not mandarin written characters.
The mountains are high, and the emperor is far away. The Imperial Court and officials use the convoluted Beijing language while the people converse in their respective dialects.
Following the May 4th Movement, Hu Shih at Peking University and his compatriots championed the use of a vernacular language that the masses can comprehend. This educational renewal eventually spread to Nanyang.
I will be covering that in a future video, so that people, especially the Chinese of Malaysia and Singapore gain a deeper understanding of their past.