Talk:Mandarin Chinese

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Yulu Tian. Peer reviewers: Wongoc.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:14, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Questionable origin of name

During my linguistic studies I intended to interview a Chinese student about "Mandarin" words, which immediately caused him to teach me that he does not like this expression, because "man-da-ren" in his view means, "the Man(dzhou are a) great people". This phrase had to be said by visitors to the foreign Mandzhou emperor when they were on the ground in front of him.HJJHolm (talk) 17:05, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

This is mentioned in note (a) in the article. The real etymology is well documented. Kanguole 17:43, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Lost in translation?

I'm not capable in either, but do Mandarin and Cantonese both use the same translations of the same ideograms? Or would they produce different English transliterations (if that's the word to use from ideogram to letters...)? 184.70.60.42 (talk) 20:04, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Much of Mandarin and Cantonese vocabulary is cognate (i.e. the same morphemes written with the same characters, but pronunciation shifting over time), but a huge chunk of it isn't—I've seen figures as high as 50% of vocabulary being different between Mandarin and Cantonese. Many morphemes present in both varieties have simply evolved divergently over time. I have been learning Mandarin, I can read some written Cantonese—but I can listen to and understand no Cantonese whatsoever.

For example, the Cantonese copula ('to be', 'is'/'am'/'are', etc.) is 係, which was actually originally used like a copula much more in Classical Chinese, compared to the Mandarin copula 是, which originally meant 'this' (a proximal demonstrative) in Classical Chinese.

There are also some grammatical differences—in Cantonese the indirect object in basic sentences usually comes after the direct object in the sentence, while it comes before in Mandarin: 给我笔 is "give me (a) pen" in Mandarin—in Cantonese, this is usually 畀笔我 "give (a) pen (to) me". (The pen is the direct object, because it is what is being given, while 'me' is the indirect object.)

Also, a lot more loan words from English etc. in Cantonese. hope this helps! Remsense留 00:02, 21 December 2023 (UTC)