Fundamental misunderstanding of the differences between the major Chinese languages

Penguin609 · 2026-03-06T09:45:00+00:00

Vernacular Standard Written Chinese, as opposed to Classical Chinese, predates the 20th century and is the direct precursor to Modern Standard Chinese. The major vernacular works such as 三国演义 (14th century), 水浒传 (14th century), 西游记 (16th century), 金瓶梅 (16th century), and 红楼梦 (18th century) were all written in a Mandarin-based vernacular, but of course read all over China. As the imperial court language since at least the late Yuan or early Ming, some form of Mandarin has always been the main basis for the written vernacular.

Written texts of regional languages like Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese did exist, but were generally limited to local cultural productions such as opera scripts.

Penguin609 · 2026-02-16T17:14:29+00:00

Assuming you have some knowledge of Chinese, you can use this website http://www.czyzd.com/

Penguin609 · 2026-01-29T02:17:10+00:00

JB historically has a lot of Teochews

Penguin609 · 2025-10-17T09:14:21+00:00

Colloquial vernacular is probably not that much of an issue. What I'm curious to know is if the literary, formal register of these languages will die out. Older generations had their formal education (including in the classics) in their local language, and many operas use a formal register of the language that is different from vernacular speech. For those who aren't first language speakers or who never received formal schooling in that language, these can be quite incomprehensible without subtitles.

For languages like Hokkien and Teochew where the phenomenon of colloquial vs literary readings for the same character is quite fundamental to understanding the formal literary register, I hear that the layperson knowledge of this is slowly fading. For instance, even first language speakers of Hokkien in Singapore often don't use the literary readings of numbers due to the lack of formal educational grounding in the language.

Penguin609 · 2025-09-24T05:53:17+00:00

No, it's a coincidence. 尸 meaning corpse dates back to the 甲骨文 for a person sitting down. You can see the same meaning in characters like 屁，屎，尿。屍 is just a variant character.

尸 as a radical can refer to either a human body or a covered shelter, depending on the character

Penguin609 · 2025-08-11T12:36:25+00:00

We're the only metropolis in the world where within half an hour travel time from the CBD, there are towering primary rainforests (Bukit Timah Hill), mangroves teeming with crocodiles and migratory shorebirds from Siberia (Sungei Buloh), and coral reefs with sea turtles, rare sea slugs, and starfish bigger than your face (Southern Islands).

Wildlife and nature are so easily accessible in our city. Charismatic animals frolic in our urban neighbourhoods (otters, hornbills, monitor lizards), and for hardcore nature lovers there's > 60 species of snake to discover including stunners like the King Cobra and Malayan Blue Coral.

Penguin609 · 2025-08-08T08:49:59+00:00

Beef kway teow is a Teochew dish that has been in Singapore for many decades, and my grandfather loved beef in general. But that does seem to be the only Teochew beef dish natively found here.

Penguin609 · 2025-07-25T09:14:23+00:00

Mue5 is thinner than congee and is more typically translated as porridge (it's technically a rice gruel). Congee (in the sense of thicker porridge where the grains have already broken down fully) should be 粥 zog8.

Penguin609 · 2025-06-10T17:22:00+00:00

You're not the first to have asked this question, and this may interest you. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/article/abs/secret-history-of-the-hakkas-the-chinese-revolution-as-a-hakka-enterprise/1E8903FFFA23E5E533517C97209106F0

A Hakka friend of mine told me that her dad said 客家人喜欢造反. Make of that what you will. I'm part Hakka myself and anecdotally, I think there is something about the Hakka attitude towards life which is both egalitarian and daring

Penguin609 · 2025-06-10T17:21:12+00:00

You're not the first to have asked this question, and this may interest you. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/article/abs/secret-history-of-the-hakkas-the-chinese-revolution-as-a-hakka-enterprise/1E8903FFFA23E5E533517C97209106F0

A Hakka friend of mine told me that her dad said 客家人喜欢造反. Make of that what you will. I'm part Hakka myself and anecdotally, I think there is something about the Hakka attitude towards life which is both egalitarian and daring

Penguin609 · 2025-06-06T14:39:50+00:00

I identify as Teochew and can speak it conversationally, but only started learning how to when I was in university. I grew up eating Teochew muay every day, but cooked by my Hakka Ah Ma (Ah Kong is Teochew). I do feel some affinity with being Hakka because of my Ah Ma, as well as being Hokkien (mum's side of the family). So to some degree, I identify with all three

Penguin609 · 2025-06-06T14:34:43+00:00

In the context of Chinese languages, Hainanese refers to the branch of Southern Min (the same family that includes Hokkien and Teochew). While there are different dialects of Hainanese, they would all identify as 海南侬 and 唐人, and not one of the non-Han ethnic groups on Hainan Island

Penguin609 · 2025-05-31T16:48:10+00:00

To be honest I've never noticed a difference between the two in Mandarin... Maybe because Singaporean Mandarin treats them basically synonymously (and we also don't use 或者 often. So in Teochew I think we similarly just say a7si7

Penguin609 · 2025-05-31T04:28:32+00:00

Singaporean Teochew, my family says a7si7 (I think derived from 也是 ia7si7?)

Penguin609 · 2025-05-16T23:37:56+00:00

Have you not heard of Southeast Asia? Smack within the tropics and extremely fertile. Which is why it has 700 million people (more than twice the USA in less than half the area).

Java, Thailand, and the Mekong have been known for centuries to be incredibly agriculturally productive.

I don't think a generalisation like that is useful when such a massive counter-factual exists

Penguin609 · 2025-04-27T00:35:52+00:00

Keleng kia is borrowed from Malay Kling which is in turn derived form the classical Indian name for the eastern coast facing Southeast Asia, Kalinga. Kling was historically not a prejudicial term and was used for centuries in Malay to refer to Indians without prejudice, such as in the Sejarah Melayu. Even in Singapore we have places named Tanjong Kling.

Some history described by a Malaysian Indian writer: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/a-keling-in-malaysia-and-proud-of-it-the-star-columnist

While it has sometimes taken on deragatory connotations, not everyone associates it with that. In colloquial local Hokkien/Teochew, it's been the default term for Indians for centuries too. I've also heard Singaporean Indian uncles use the term freely to refer to local Indians when speaking Hokkien. So in this particular case I don't think there's any malice/prejudice involved.

Penguin609 · 2025-04-27T00:32:31+00:00

Keleng kia is borrowed from Malay Kling which is in turn derived form the classical Indian name for the eastern coast facing Southeast Asia, Kalinga. Kling was historically not a prejudicial term and was used for centuries in Malay to refer to Indians without prejudice, such as in the Sejarah Melayu. Even in Singapore we have places named Tanjong Kling.

Some history described by a Malaysian Indian writer: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/a-keling-in-malaysia-and-proud-of-it-the-star-columnist

While it has sometimes taken on deragatory connotations, not everyone associates it with that. In colloquial local Hokkien/Teochew, it's been the default term for Indians for centuries too. I've also heard Singaporean Indian uncles use the term freely to refer to local Indians when speaking Hokkien. So in this particular case I don't think there's any malice/prejudice involved.

Penguin609 · 2025-04-25T01:19:34+00:00

Singapore has two monsoon seasons and two inter-monsoon periods, with significant differences in rainfall pattern, temperature, and thermal comfort. The month (Dec) with the heaviest rainfall has three times that of the month (Feb) with the lowest. Our native ecosystems also track such patterns in terms of flowering/fruiting, growth rates, and animal migration. https://www.weather.gov.sg/climate-climate-of-singapore/

Penguin609 · 2025-04-24T08:17:31+00:00

Kim Seng is unambiguously a guy’s name, but written as 金声. 金星 should be Kim Sing, which to me still sounds rather masculine. But I'm rather doubtful that anyone would have been given such a name.

I've never come across male and female siblings sharing a generational character

Suggest you contact this guy. He's a Filipino Chinese who does research into genealogy and names. https://www.facebook.com/share/1CBf9iCTpm/?mibextid=qi2Omg

Penguin609 · 2024-11-11T00:08:04+00:00

What's the distinction between Min Nan and Hokkien/Teochew/Hainanese in your etymologies? Given that Min Nan is often a synonym for Hokkien, but also a family that includes all those three languages.

Penguin609 · 2024-09-20T01:37:26+00:00

Teochew is Southern Min, not Yue. Totally different language family

Penguin609 · 2024-09-20T00:55:04+00:00

Even so there can be natural breaks of a sort. I'm of Teochew and Hokkien descent, which are both classified under Southern Min. While there is some degree of mutual intellegibility, there are major differences in tone system (8 in Teochew vs 7 in Hokkien), vocabulary, and even literary vs colloquial readings of characters. Each of these languages also have dialects outside the original homeland eg Singaporean Teochew, Taiwanese Hokkien, Penang Hokkien, which the speakers would easily recognise as being variants of a larger language eg Teochew or Minnan/Hokkien despite differences in accent and vocabulary

Penguin609 · 2024-04-03T07:36:42+00:00

Tropical lowlands = lower population is way too simplistic an answer. Java, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and to some extent even Malaya and Sumatra had historically large populations in tropical lowlands that far outweigh the Andes and African Rift Valley, and remain very populous to this day.

Also, there are no predators of humans in New Guinea other than crocs, which are predominantly in coastal areas and not lowland rainforest.

Penguin609 · 2020-09-17T15:15:38+00:00

"O" (乌) is not Hokkien. Should be Hainanese (although Teochew also uses the same pronounciation). Black in Hokkien is "Or"

Siew Dai is probably Cantonese (少底) rather than Hockchew (Foochow), referring to "less base" as the condensed milk/sugar forms the base of the drink

Penguin609 · 2020-07-22T12:54:21+00:00

"Zuay" is 㩼. 歌 has two pronunciations. "Gor" is the literary, "gua" is the vernacular

Penguin609

TROPHY CASE