Which is the most significant dialect group in china and is there a ranking?

[Conqueror]

Height Has Got Something To Do With Location

Northern Chinese girls are taller, fairer, better complexion and much prettier. This is mainly due to the diet. They eat wheat-based food e.g. noodles and dumplings
When I go KTV, I prefer girls from Beijing, Dongbei. Girls from the north speak much better mandarin. Melodious. Its their dialect, anyway.
Get a high just from listening to them talk.

Southern Chinese girls are usually shorter, darker and not so pretty. With the exception of girls from Chongqing. Chongqing girls are yummy.
Southern chinese eat mainly rice. Thus, smaller physique.

[video=youtube;-O9SGgn5L3M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O9SGgn5L3M[/video]



The Hmong Mien claimed that their forefathers were like 蚩尤 Chi You, tall and fair. But, look at the Hmong now. They still maintain that blonde hair. My God ! They are the only ones that looked like the Scandinavians - blonde !

The language above sounds like ... Mandarin plus Foochowese ?



黄头鲜卑入洛阳，胡儿执戟升明堂。
晋家天子作降虏，公卿奔走如牛羊。
紫陌旌幡暗相触，家家鸡犬惊上屋。
妇人出门随乱兵，夫死眼前不敢哭。
九州诸侯自顾土，无人领兵来护主。
北人避胡多在南，南人至今能晋语。

 

[Fook Seng]

thats true....in NY,Vancouver & London Chinatown...i only hear Cantonese...

Ditto for Brisbane Chinatown...

KL no nid say - Cantonese.

but not for BKK Yaowarat...i think its Toechew being dominant.

Whether these overseas Chinese speak Cantonese or some other dialects depended on when they emigrate. In the earlier years when the Pan American railway was constructed and gold mining took place in California, the emigrants were from the seaports in the South. At that time, the predominant port was Canton. So you have Cantonese in places like San Francisco, Vancouver and London. In later batches, after the Ching and then with the rise of the Communist, emigrants from other parts of China took to the road and arrived at even further cities of the world. Therefore you find that although Toronto and New York do have sizable Cantonese, the Northern Chinese who speak a Mandarin dialect are also found in numbers. Washington D.C., for example, seems to have more Mandarin speaking than other tongues. As for Singapore and Malaysia, the earlier settlers worked in the tin mines came via Canton and spread to the other cities in Malaya. In Singapore and Penang, the earlier settlers were Hokkien from the sea-port of Fujian Xiamen. The Cantonese who left earlier probably found the other parts of the world more promising. Following the Hokkien were the Teochew. Cantonese came after these groups. Of these immigrants into Singapore, the Hokkien and the Teochew who were here the longest acquired the most wealth, pulling others in from the clans. Cantonese and other minorities being latecomers were able to survive only as craftsmen, electricians, mechanics and food and services industries, but not as merchants, although their home towns do have merchants in abundance but very few came to Singapore. For the other parts of SE Asia, I guess it depends on which wave of emigrants they came from.

 

[Ramseth]

The Teochews in Thailand and Bangkok Yaowarat Chinatown predated the Canton and Hokkien labor exports. The Hokkien Peranakans in Malacca also predated even the Portuguese and Dutch and British tussle over it. They were in there since the Ming Dynasty without any intention of returning to China. The later Chinese migrants (most of our ancestors) actually had the intention of returning to China but that idea was quashed with the CCP victory over KMT and establishment of PRC.

 

[Fook Seng]

When I go KTV, I prefer girls from Beijing, Dongbei. Girls from the north speak much better mandarin. Melodious. Its their dialect, anyway.
Get a high just from listening to them talk.

Mandarin has 4 tones and if you include the silent tone, altogether 5 tones. Maybe the Northerners use more of the silent tone than people in the South when speaking Mandarin which give the impression that they are more melodious. The Southern dialects in fact have more tones. Hokkien I understand has 8 tones while Cantonese has 9 tones in all. Both are very old tongues when compared with Mandarin. You will notice when you sing canto pop, the lyrics of the songs seem so much as speech itself. You can practically find the right word for every lyric of the song without changing its tone.

 

[Ramseth]

Mandarin has 4 tones and if you include the silent tone, altogether 5 tones. Maybe the Northerners use more of the silent tone than people in the South when speaking Mandarin which give the impression that they are more melodious. The Southern dialects in fact have more tones. Hokkien I understand has 8 tones while Cantonese has 9 tones in all. Both are very old tongues when compared with Mandarin. You will notice when you sing canto pop, the lyrics of the songs seem so much as speech itself. You can practically find the right word for every lyric of the song without changing its tone.

Mandarin and Thai have the same five tones. They sound different because the frequency of tones are reversed. Neuter tone is uncommon in Chinese but common in Thai because of many loanwords from Pali. Tones 1 and 2 are reversed to 3 and 4 in frequency of use. Thai is further modified by long and short vowels, whereeas Mandarin has only long vowels. So, both languages are rhythmically distinctive from each other despite using the same set of tones. Hokkien has 8 tones and Cantonese has 9 tones. Other dialects, I don't know.

 

[Jah_rastafar_I]

Mandarin has 4 tones and if you include the silent tone, altogether 5 tones. Maybe the Northerners use more of the silent tone than people in the South when speaking Mandarin which give the impression that they are more melodious. The Southern dialects in fact have more tones. Hokkien I understand has 8 tones while Cantonese has 9 tones in all. Both are very old tongues when compared with Mandarin. You will notice when you sing canto pop, the lyrics of the songs seem so much as speech itself. You can practically find the right word for every lyric of the song without changing its tone.

Mandarin and Thai have the same five tones. They sound different because the frequency of tones are reversed. Neuter tone is uncommon in Chinese but common in Thai because of many loanwords from Pali. Tones 1 and 2 are reversed to 3 and 4 in frequency of use. Thai is further modified by long and short vowels, whereeas Mandarin has only long vowels. So, both languages are rhythmically distinctive from each other despite using the same set of tones. Hokkien has 8 tones and Cantonese has 9 tones. Other dialects, I don't know.

I've heard of this before. The thing is for cantonese i cannot imagine it. Like when i was studying hanyu pinyin in school the teacher taught us the intonations hence i'm aware of them. I've asked a cantonese speaking fren about this but he couldn't give me an example.

It's actually pretty difficult to visualize this in sound form for lack of a better word. Are there vids out there that show this in example form?

 

[Ramseth]

I've heard of this before. The thing is for cantonese i cannot imagine it. Like when i was studying hanyu pinyin in school the teacher taught us the intonations hence i'm aware of them. I've asked a cantonese speaking fren about this but he couldn't give me an example.

It's actually pretty difficult to visualize this in sound form for lack of a better word. Are there vids out there that show this in example form?

Hokkien and Cantonese actually have the same 8 tones except Hokkien doesn't have the neuter tone whereas Cantonese does, making it 9 tones. The basic set of 4 tones are high, low, rising and falling. It becomes 8 tones with half high, half low, half rising, half falling, and 9 tones if there's neuter.

 

[Froggy]

Hokkien and Cantonese actually have the same 8 tones except Hokkien doesn't have the neuter tone whereas Cantonese does, making it 9 tones. The basic set of 4 tones are high, low, rising and falling. It becomes 8 tones with half high, half low, half rising, half falling, and 9 tones if there's neuter.

An old learned history professor I met one day in Guangzhou during dinner explained to me that In the old days during the first emperor Qung Shi Huang as he conquered completely the northern part of the north he also wanted to take over the south so he sent thousands of soldiers to the south like Guangdong and Fujian areas. But during those days they could not travel directly down south so they have to take the SW route through Sichuan and then Guangxi area. This took years of travel and during the traveling some soldiers "awol" and mixed with the southern people. Now when they arrived in Guangdong and Fujian areas they also did not fight and could not go back also and at that time the emperor also mati liao. So they settled down with the local people instead of going home because it is almost impossible to reverse. The influence on the local dialects was great with many tones.

Then of course over the years the northern language was influenced by what we now know as modern putonghua with 4 tones and a neutral. The original language with 8-9 tones survived in the south. This is the true Han language not our current putonghua. He also told me that until today Beijing opera is not popular as Catonese opera as when all those ancient texts are read in Cantonese or Hokkien it sounded like music to the ears but when it is read with Mandarin it sounded bland. So it goes with all those old and ancient poems that old scholars wrote.

Also during the independence of China in 1911, Cantonese almost became the official language as much was spoken among the government officials too at that time. But the Dr. Sun Yetsen made a decision that Mandarin to be use as the capital city will be in Beijing.

Oh by the way I was also told by him that we from the south, Cantonese and Hokkien people are not Han. We are more Malay than Han by blood.

Guess that's why sometimes I love to hide in one corner with my pot.

 

[sleaguepunter]

hokkien and teochew are seafarers and merchants in the past. they travelled and settled down in southeast asia since the ming dynasty. The cantonese only started leaving china during the 1800s and most left as coolies and many cantoneses were attract by the gold rush that was happening in the west coast of america and australia. Just look at the unofficial name cantonese use on san fransico, old gold mountain, will tell u the impact of the gold rush had on the cantonese.

Cantonese was spoken as common langague but different regions speak a slightly different dialect from the common cantonese. What we now heard on TVB is machiam like the putonghua version of the cantonese where ppl of guangzhuo can understand each other. because i was raised by my maternal grandmother who speak the common cantonese so i cannot understand what my paternal grandmother was saying who was speaking in the dialect of my ancestral hometown.Seiyap, 四邑方言 was suppose to be my dialect group and that langague was still divided by districts so different districts speak a slightly different version of it. i am sad to say i cannot speak and understand a word of it as my father never speak it with us and i think only my granduncle and grand-grand uncle wife still can speak the langague.

 

[Liquigas]

......Oh by the way I was also told by him that we from the south, Cantonese and Hokkien people are not Han. We are more Malay than Han by blood. Guess that's why sometimes I love to hide in one corner with my pot.

Yes, the aborigines living in Southern China are the ancient Yue people native to Guandong, Fujian, Guangxi and Zhejiang (Wenzhou area). The Hans are people from the Northern and Central Chinese plains. Beyond the Great Wall are the normadic peoples. With migration over the centuries of people from the north to south and intermarriages the bloodlines become blur. So in a strict sense people from the southern provinces are not pure Han Chinese but hybrid Han/Yue. This is why a northener is different from someone from the south in both facial feature and stature and this could be due to reason other than the climate and diet.

 

[Narong Wongwan]

Yes, the aborigines living in Southern China are the ancient Yue people native to Guandong, Fujian, Guangxi and Zhejiang (Wenzhou area). The Hans are people from the Northern and Central Chinese plains. Beyond the Great Wall are the normadic peoples. With migration over the centuries of people from the north to south and intermarriages the bloodlines become blur. So in a strict sense people from the southern provinces are not pure Han Chinese but hybrid Han/Yue. This is why a northener is different from someone from the south in both facial feature and stature and this could be due to reason other than the climate and diet.

So those of us chinese sinkies can start changing the indication in IC to Yue?

My PRC ex wife was pure Manchu from Jilin Manchu autonomous region, used to go ICA to apply for green card and PR back then and whenever she fill up Manchu as race in the forms, the ICA staff would always change to 'chinese'.

 

[Forvendet]

I can speak some Shanghainese.

Nong ho bah?

So those of us chinese sinkies can start changing the indication in IC to Yue?

My PRC ex wife was pure Manchu from Jilin Manchu autonomous region, used to go ICA to apply for green card and PR back then and whenever she fill up Manchu as race in the forms, the ICA staff would always change to 'chinese'.

My great*x grandmother was Manchurian-Shanghainese and our Eurasian lineage began when she married my great*x grandfather, an Englishman, and migrated to Penang, then Malacca, then Singapore as he was with the British foreign colonial service. By two generations ago, we had lost all ideas of what the Manchurian language and Shanghainese dialect sound like, not even a single syllable. I myself have never been to anywhere in China before, except HK.

 

[Unrepented]

Does she belong to any one of the eight banners or not

So those of us chinese sinkies can start changing the indication in IC to Yue?

My PRC ex wife was pure Manchu from Jilin Manchu autonomous region, used to go ICA to apply for green card and PR back then and whenever she fill up Manchu as race in the forms, the ICA staff would always change to 'chinese'.

 

[Fook Seng]

Yes, the aborigines living in Southern China are the ancient Yue people native to Guandong, Fujian, Guangxi and Zhejiang (Wenzhou area). The Hans are people from the Northern and Central Chinese plains. Beyond the Great Wall are the normadic peoples. With migration over the centuries of people from the north to south and intermarriages the bloodlines become blur. So in a strict sense people from the southern provinces are not pure Han Chinese but hybrid Han/Yue. This is why a northener is different from someone from the south in both facial feature and stature and this could be due to reason other than the climate and diet.

With the migration of Yue people southwards by war, the people who were occupying Kwangtung today were driven more south to what is Vietnam today. That is why some Vietnamese words sound Cantonese while others are like Hainanese and have the same meanings as their Chinese equivalents.

 

[Liquigas]

With the migration of Yue people southwards by war, the people who were occupying Kwangtung today were driven more south to what is Vietnam today. That is why some Vietnamese words sound Cantonese while others are like Hainanese and have the same meanings as their Chinese equivalents.

Vietnam is 'Land of the South Yue' so we can say the Vietnamese and southern Chinese are of the same stock. Very much like the Slav peoples of Europe with Russian/Poles being northern Slav and the Serbs/Bosnians/Croats are the southern Slav.

 

[Maximilian Chua-Heng]

Vietnam is 'Land of the South Yue' so we can say the Vietnamese and southern Chinese are of the same stock. Very much like the Slav peoples of Europe with Russian/Poles being northern Slav and the Serbs/Bosnians/Croats are the southern Slav.

The Thais also have its roots from 傣族 in China? Or vice versa?

 

[Ramseth]

With the migration of Yue people southwards by war, the people who were occupying Kwangtung today were driven more south to what is Vietnam today. That is why some Vietnamese words sound Cantonese while others are like Hainanese and have the same meanings as their Chinese equivalents.

By the time of the 7-Kingdom Warring States (not the same but after the Spring & Autumn Multiple Warring States) the State of Yue was no more and there was a mass exodus fleeing down south. Those were formative years for what is now Vietnam. After Qin Shihuang unified the 7 states into an united China, more fled northward and north-eastward mostly from the States of Zhao and Yan. Those later evolved into Jin, Mongol and Manchu. Those that remained in the central plain between Yellow and Yangtze Rivers then became the Han race.

 

[halsey02]

Singapore Chinatown was also Cantonese dominant. Hougang was Teocheow dominant. But all kana conquered by Hokkien especially power Hokkien vulgar language LOL

SINgapore is Hakka dominant... ha ha ha ha " tell ai see foot".

 

[halsey02]

Yes, the aborigines living in Southern China are the ancient Yue people native to Guandong, Fujian, Guangxi and Zhejiang (Wenzhou area). The Hans are people from the Northern and Central Chinese plains. Beyond the Great Wall are the normadic peoples. With migration over the centuries of people from the north to south and intermarriages the bloodlines become blur. So in a strict sense people from the southern provinces are not pure Han Chinese but hybrid Han/Yue. This is why a northener is different from someone from the south in both facial feature and stature and this could be due to reason other than the climate and diet.

North of the Yangtze River & South of it, is the divide!

 

[kopiuncle]

i hear plenty of jiangsu people, shantong people, fukien people speaking...they look very rough and very unrefined...i don't mix with them...they treat me nice ..maybe they think i got plenty of cash..how wrong..but they're not good looking.they speak their own dialects. i don't understand...

i prefer those northern girls...from beijing and dongbei...taller, whiter,more refined and better looking...but they're reallytall...and big.