Hello,
Mark Williamson wrote:
What I think is this: if there are people who want to write it, and people who want to read it, no matter the number on either side (as long as it's more than 2 or 3 people total), it's rediculous to send
I think someone was talking about moving this conversation somewhere else? I was vacationing in mainland China and didn't catch where this was moved to? Would some kind soul please inform me? Thanks.
varieties and in some places there is the stereotype that a Mandarin speaker expects everybody to speak Mandarin, and if they don't, they must be daft (not that everybody fits this stereotype). Accommodations for Cantonese, Minnan, Hakka, Wu, Minbei, Gan, etc. are rarely made, and when they are it's usually in minor local issues, and nowadays it seems it mostly happens in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan.
Actually, the attitude in Hong Kong has always been that you must be daft if you can't speak Cantonese with the perfect Hong Kong accent. It's only after 1997 that the various public transportation, etc. have Mandarin announcements. The "official" Hong Kong stance is two written languages and three spoken languages. Most people ended up writing bad English & somewhat sufficient Chinese and speaking perfect Cantonese, somewhat okay English, and lousy Mandarin.
Since I've been going to Guangzhou a lot lately, I've noticed that there is a big difference between the attitude about Cantonese in Guangzhou vs. Hong Kong. And in Macao, even the Macanese speaks great Cantonese, though they all speak Portuguese at home.
As to the written system, Hong Kong has always used traditional Chinese and I hope that never changes. I can read simplified Chinese but I think it's the ugliest thing ever. And it's not like it helped the literacy rate or anything, since both Taiwan and Hong Kong have a higher literacy rate than mainland China. But I'm little old me and I'm not stupid enough to go against the whole Chinese government.
As Stirling Newberry noted, there is a fairly recent phenomenon of material emerging in "CWY" (colloquial cantonese). Similar signs have
Depends entirely on what you think of as recent, as plenty of popular HK fiction in the 80s are written in Cantonese. But to the older generation, even if they are Cantonese speakers themselves, baihua is simply how you write. It's not just prejudice against Cantonese, but also prejudice against mass culture/pop culture.
little Alex