Hello and Thank You

No, 'Hokkien' is the Minnan pronounciation of 'Fujian', and it's the word that English speakers in Singapore use to refer to Minnan dialect.

The Kejia language is far

Wrong, Hakka is a distinct dialect of Chinese, albeit a fairly diverse one. There is of course the old debate over whether the different branches of Chinese should be called dialects or languages, but I'm not getting into that here.

It's

I don't think you'll find support for that anywhere, unless your friend is a Zhuang-speaking Hakka or is confused about what he speaks, which is pretty common in China.

Chaozhou language is

Chaozhou was settled by people from around what is now Xiamen during I believe the Tang dynasty. 'Chaoshan' is the term for the dialect of Minnan that is spoken in Chaozhou, Shantou and the surrounding area. It is accurate (not to mention commonplace) to say that Chaoshan is a 'dialect' of Minnan, because the homeland of Minnan is in southern Fujian, hence the name Minnan, and because it was brought to Chaozhou by emigrants from that area. This is exactly analogous to saying that American is a dialect of English, but that English is not a dialect of American.

You are correct that many languages are spoken in Hainan. However, Han Chinese people (as opposed to minority groups) who live on the coast of Hainan Island are also descendants of Fujianese seafarers, and speak a dialect of Minnan. This speech is referred to as 'Hainanese'.

Wenzhou language is also

Wenzhou dialect is a dialect of Minnan that is close enough to what is spoken in Taiwan that I can understand it fairly well. See below.

They get it from linguistics professors in PhD programs at major universities. I get it from a BA in linguistics and anthropology and from living and travelling in China, Taiwan and SE Asia and from constantly pestering my Chinese friends about the dialects they speak with their grandparents.

You

I've spoken to someone from Wenzhou in Taiwanese and she understood me perfectly well, and as I mentioned earlier my Taiwanese is miserably bad, so you're wrong there (although, I did get some sidelong glances). Haven't tried it with anyone from Hainan but I hope to have the chance someday. I got a Hainanese-American friend to count to ten and say 'hello' and 'eat rice' in Hainanese, and it was obviously a variant of Minnan.

People in Singapore have been 'strongly encouraged' to speak Mandarin since the 1980's. Singapore Chinese are about 45% of Southern Fujianese origin, and Hokkien/Fujian/Minnan is the most common Chinese dialect spoken at home in Singapore. About 16% of Singapore Chinese are of Cantonese ancestry. They are now allowed to show Cantonese-language TV (from HK) in Singapore, so Cantonese-speakers are getting a little boost from that.

I'm at work and thus don't have any of my language books around, but if you're still dubious I can cite everything I said later. If you don't trust Wikipedia, which by the way is a great source for this sort of information, a very good place for to start would be Ramsey, The Languages of China.

Your definition of Chinese is what, Putonghua? Don't tell me that I am wrong simply because you found some website online. The Kejia language has become eroded over about a thousand years and each place has it's own distinct accent and special words that they use. Just around my friend's hometown, each small place speaks a different version of it...you don't call that diverse?

I find support in person. I have learned some of their language by talking to them face-to-face on a daily basis. I have asked some of my students that are Zhuang people about their language and there are some very interesting similarities. For instance, the numbers 1-10 sound very similar phonetically. My student in Guangxi and my best friend's hometowns are nearly a thousand kilometers apart...that's too far apart to be just coincidence.

My friend is a Kejia...they can trace their family history back to the North.

Chaoshan refers to the geographical area that encompasses Chaozhou, Jieyang, Shantou, and the areas around there; it is not the name of any specific language. The Chaozhou and Shantou languages both share similarities but are not exactly the same as that website states. The site didn't mention the countless variations that each area has, and it is simply countless. In China, one could take a lifetime to study the languages within a 30 mile radius. There are no absolutes; you should know that.

It is not commonplace to mention that Chaozhou language is a dialect of Minnanhua. Come down to Chaozhou sometime and ask the locals there, and see what they tell you.

Have you been to Zhanjiang, Maoming, Yangjiang, or perhaps Jiangmen? Each of those towns are in the place that you mentioned, around the coast of Hainan and I have never heard them refer to their language as "hainanhua". The people in Zhanjiang speak Li, just like most of the local people on Hainan island. There are many Northerners that live in Hainan now that speak Putonghua. I have spent a considerable amount of time in Hainan as well as the areas around the coast on Guangdong, and I can tell you from firsthand experience that they do not speak anything that even resembles Minnanhua.

The Wenzhou language and some of the other languages in Zhejiang share very little with Minnanhua...there could be a small population of people that speak it, but I am unaware of them. I have little experience with the peoples in Zhejiang, but they don't think they speak a dialect of Minnanhua.

That is to say that my BA in lingustics isn't as good as your BA in lingustics? ;p I also currently live in China and can speak some of several dialects and am learning more the longer I stay here. I just cannot agree with you assertions on the lingustic power and how widespread Minnanhua is. I have been to and spent much time in the places that you mentioned, and there is little that you can do, or those lingustic PhDs, to convince me that all of those languages are that similar to Minnan language. When I get a PhD behind my name in the future, maybe I will be able to convince you.

I have several students and people in my company from Wenzhou and they strongly disagree with what you have just said. I have also asked my Taiwanese student and he is not exactly sure why you are saying the things you are saying. The Minnnan language is simply not as widespread as you think it is. The prevailing language that is spoken in Hainan is Li hua; a minority language. Even the Han that live there speak it; especially around the Southern areas like in Sanya city.

Look, I am not here to bicker with you about languages. I am here in China and I can use my limited BA skills to study the languages from my first-hand experiences though my close friends, students, business associates, and peoples local to the places we have mentioned. It is natural to have disagreements, but I think you should visit the places that you are talking about before you try to form hardened ideas in your mind about the languages spoken there.

Your telling me that I am "wrong" simply because I don't agree with you isn't exactly that polite, is it?

Sentence one there is proof that we are talking past one another. I'm talking about Hanyu. I'm telling you that you're wrong because this is something that I know a lot about. I did say that Hakka is diverse.

Zhuang and Hakka are totally different languages. Zhuang is similar to Thai and Hakka is Chinese (not putonghua, Chinese). Very few people still speak Zhuang, and my best guess based on what you have told me is that either a) you are attributing a false similarity to two distinct languages or b) your Zhuang friend is in fact speaking not Zhuang but a dialect of Chinese.

Sorry, it is commonplace among the informed to state that Chaozhou is a dialect of Minnan. I know that people in Chaozhou or Singapore are not necessarily aware of this.

...

I'm sorry, you're wrong. In northern Zhejiang people speak Wu dialects like Shanghainese and Suzhouhua, and in Wenzhou they speak a variant of Minnan. You can do little experiments yourself to convince yourself of this, since you seem to have access to people from Wenzhou and Minnan; just get each of them to count to ten and say a couple simple sentences.

That was remarkably fast considering our two posts were one hour apart and it's eleven o'clock at night in China.

The Minnnan language is simply not as

It's funny that your general distrust of anything Chinese doesn't extend to offhand comments made about languages by non-specialists. The problem seems to be that it is very difficult to convince you of anything. I don't feel like spending a lot of time explaining what a dialect is and proving all my other assertions, and I suspect that, even if I did, you wouldn't believe me, so I suggest you spend a while reading up on this and then we can discuss it later, if you still want to. If you can't get Ramsey in China then I would start with Hanyu Fangyan Gaiyao by Yuan Jiahua, which is a very good overview and shows how the methodology works.

You assume I know little about Hanyu why, exactly? I can speak it, write it, and I work using it...I also speak some Hakka.

It's spoken widely by the Zhuang people in the Guangxi province and a few different settlements in Yunnan and Guizhou. It is the one minority language that has been the most widely studied, so it's far from death. I never said that those two languages were the same, but I did say that the language my friend speaks has some small similarities.

Since the local people apparently aren't aware of the language they are speaking, whom exactly is the "informed" state. It certainly isn't the Chinese, according to you.

Suzhou is in Jiangsu.

What are you talking about? I had class at 7:15.

My general distrust of most things Chinese comes from living in China (Guangdong mostly)and seeing the way they do things. This has little to do with my ability to understand or study their language. I have looked at some of the texts you mentioned; are they completely 100 percent free from criticism, I think not.

Wait a minute. What texts have you looked at that I mentioned? And, what specifically would you criticize about them? That sentence makes me suspect you are actually full of s*it, because you could not possibly have read either Ramsey or Yuan. Please explain what you meant.

Other than that, we're talking past each other to such a degree that there is really no point in continuing the discussion. Aside from this one point: Suzhou is in Jiangsu, but Suzhouhua is a prestige version of Wu, which is the dialect family spoken in the coastal areas of southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang.

Ya, you are right. How could I have possibly read or even seen two well-known, popular texts on Chinese languages that are still given to Asian Study students? That would be the Fangyan Gaiyao that was written in 1983, right? A time where China had just begun to recover from years of destruction of their culture and languages; a time of immense political instability. Sure, and the Ramsey that you mention that was written in '87. Both of these books, one 23 years ago and another nearly 19 years ago...

No, never seen them or heard of them. Yes, I am full of s*it. You do realize that much of the research done in those books are considered to be broad strokes at a time in which much of the country was inaccessible. At least, that's what my PhD lingustics professor, from Shanghai, told me the last time I had his classes.

Talking past each other? I don't see it unless you mean "talking past each other" as you saying something like "I don't know know what I'm talking about" as you continue to cite 20 year old texts. That must have been it!

Read them again and get back to me.

Guys, guys, guys! I know next to nothing about Chinese, but I've been trained in linguistics. That last, along with a couple dollars, gets me on the subway in NYC, so don't knock it..

I am tempted to bore you all with some linguistic theory regarding such outmoded concepts as "dialect," but thought better of it, you'll be pleased to know. I would say that I think a lot of your discussion suffers from your occasional attempts to find absolute truths in concepts that are relative in nature. Having said that, I thoroughly enjoy your thoughts, and am attempting to follow the thread. Just play nice. That's the ticket.

I'm drinking a Ti Lo Han picked in the

Michael

I've learned that Mydnight is more native than I would have thought from his posts.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:

Space snipped-for-privacy@n13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com8/8/06

Jim, me thinks the natives are revolting! Michael

That's because they have to go through China Post just like us. My last order two weeks SAL from Shanghai. The slow boat from China was in port. The Xiaguan FT BaoYan is highly recommended. It doesn't require the Yak.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote: