A response to MM Lee
KJ
There is a lot to be said for Singaporean-Chinese, myself included, to be ascribed a ‘mother tongue’ that is not really my mother’s (or for that matter, my father’s), one that we have to learn from scratch, in effect as a second-language, and one with which we have little affinity.
What is more lamentable is the fact that these decisions are borne out of unquestioned, state-mandated economic necessity, and subsequently implemented with such swift ruthlessness. Cold, hard-headed decisions that, without our realizing, put a stopper to our personal relations and halt our life stories. How many times have I found great difficulty in conversing with my grandparents, who were by then too old to abandon their original tongues and acquire new ones, while I on the other hand had been discouraged from speaking in their native ones (i.e. my real mother tongue[s]), and force-fed a foreign language called Mandarin.
Singapore prides itself on arriving from ‘Third World to First’ in one generation – (have we really?) – this is the same reason for our extraordinary ability to extinguish our rich southern Chinese heritage, one that is as old as centuries if not the millennia, in a single generation.
Is this something that we, that is to say, Singaporean-Chinese, in the name of economic achievement should be proud of?
I doubt that our ability to speak Mandarin has been, as MM Lee would have us believe, a ‘key advantage’. As academic Linda Lim remarked in an interview with the Straits Times last week, our self-appointed role as conduits to China and India is counter-productive, if not redundant. And after expending so much energies and resources into its teaching and learning, how many of us are truly proficient in Mandarin, beyond the rudimentary phrases needed to get one past the wet market?
Having to master both English and Mandarin without a ‘natural’ cultural-linguistic environment that is necessary for one to be proficient in either language has resulted in us floundering in both. Drowned in this process is our chance and ability to master our true ‘mother-tongues’. It is well-known that the Mainlander Chinese and the Westerners constantly mock our lightweight grasp of Mandarin and English, and, for those doing business in China, they are taking Mandarin lessons to make up for their linguistic lack. Beneath these foreign mockery is the sneering at our cultural ignorance, superficiality, and philistinism. Further, if the ability to speak Mandarin is such an economic asset, why do our education policies prevent our non-Chinese compatriots from learning it? And should Singaporeans be learning Mandarin just so we can ‘bring value-add to China’?
Such vulgar economic justifications for ‘national survival’, for learning languages, for effacing cultures.
Whatever the material benefits I might reap by way of Singapore’s ‘economic usefulness’ to the rest of the world, I derive no dignity in being treated as a cog in a machine, as a means to an end. I would gladly trade, pardon the pun, GDP growth with the ability to speak my native language (it is neither English nor Mandarin) even if it is the most economically unviable language in the world. For that matter, I would be proud to be a Singaporean even if it is the poorest country there is around. What consolation does it bring, to be able to speak to 1.3 billion Chinese all over China if I cannot even engage in a proper conversation with my own family?
That is not to say we should not have encouraged the learning of Mandarin. But it certainly could have been implemented in a less mechanistic manner, and for less utilitarian reasons. It is for these very reasons that we do not want to, or we are unable to, appreciate the value of a language and the beauty inherent in all languages, that exist beyond the jargon and jarring phrases of multinational companies and Internet data banks and global financial-speak.
The choice of languages learnt need neither be government-sanctioned nor mutually-exclusive. Contrary to what the government and the media would like us to think, we are not the only country that adopts a bilingual policy. But compared to other such countries, we are far from being as successful. Learning from them, we might realize that mastering Mandarin need not have come at the expense of our ancestral tongues. Our lack of fluency in multiple languages is not just due to biological limitations (which is far from being a fact). Ill-conceived, flip-flopping government policies and crass economic rationale for learning (or un-learning) languages have contributed to this predicament too.
In two generations Mandarin would be our mother tongue, proclaims MM Lee proudly. But with our appalling level of proficiency in Mandarin, it is not hard to foresee how much and what kind of a ‘mother tongue’ it is going to be. It will probably not be much.
Is the sole value of a language its ‘usefulness’? I don’t think so. On the one hand, use-value is subjective, personal, and should not be decided for me by, of all things, the state. On the parallel, the value of language is in language itself. Languages do not appear out of thin air – we human beings create them, keep them alive, and they live for a simple reason – above being basic tools of communication, they are expressions of our emotions, our humanness. Expressions that, like culture and the arts, live outside the world of money.
We would have been better-off leaving our language habits alone, and letting our ‘adulterated Hokkien-Teochew’ languages evolve on their own. And why not? Languages, like cultures, are living things and they evolve all the time. And over time, our aesthetic sensibilities are honed along with our constant polishing of our tongues, and from where the beauty and poetry in the language emerge. This is true for all languages, from the first grunt in the dark cave eons ago, to the final stanza in the gilded library just now. And why, our Singlish vernacular might one day become high language too, with its inimitable trove of stories and sonnets. If only we would let it, and let our local poets light the way.
But of course, such frivolous pursuits have no place in a country where economic necessity and cultural cringe must prevail. While the sun of the British empire might have set, and the Middle Kingdom’s might yet arise, it seems as long as the ruling regime’s socio-economic ideologies persist blindingly, Singaporeans will always remain colonial subjects, servants to capital.
The way we have gone about picking ‘winning’ languages and experimenting with them as one would in a laboratory, it is what kills language. But not only that – as fellow TOC contributor Deng Chao noted recently, what is wiped out is more than our Teochew, Hokkien, Cantonese, and Hainanese languages. Gone with them would be the irreplaceable and age-old cultural treasures of folklore, poetry, aphorisms and histories, riches that are later infused with the tropical air of the Straits Settlement – a natural confluence of cultures. What is wiped out will be life itself, supplanted by the mediocre, the vulgar and the kitsch.
One day I might become a grandparent too, but what would the world be like then? I do not want to punt on the vagaries of the market or the flow of global finance. I certainly do not want to be enslaved by them. Small as Singapore is, there nonetheless are things that do not and cannot have a price tag. The ability and the freedom to speak, for instance. Invaluable things.
Am I romanticizing the village?
But how did the village come to be something pejorative in the Singaporean imagination?
What kind of a city are we still building anyway?
Looking at my grandparents, I do wonder what their Singaporean world has been like, for them to one morning find themselves strangers in their own land, unable to be understood and unable to understand, the foreign chatter on the streets, and recounting life stories in a voice whose sweetness their loved ones would never know.
And how much are Singaporeans and our nation, for all our economic growth and material riches the poorer for it, living on benighted money, leaving our history behind.
———
The last time I was in China visiting my in-laws’ village in prospering Fujian province, the good folk were far more inclined to warm to me after I spoke in my native Teochew rather than the polite but somewhat officious Mandarin (the language of bureaucrats) we’d used up till then. Mind you, this wasn’t anywhere close to a Teochew speaking community, but they appreciated the gesture.
Talk about developing guanxi….
Yea I did sometimes regret it to myself that I lost the touch to speak in my dialects to my grandparents . Thus the generation gap was widened between me and my grandparents.
As for my own learning journey for journey, it goes like this. When I was a young kid , I spoke mostly chinese. I was really lousy in English. My school being one of elite Anglican school, introduced a reading program for all to brush up on English . Gradually, My command of the English language caught up gradually and I scored better in English than Chinese at ‘O’ levels. I always kinda felt bad for it.
When I went over to the America for studies, I grabbed the chance to re learn Chinese , albeit to make up for it. Maybe in the near future, I will re-pick up my dialects again
I feel like crying!
The Speak Mandarin Campaign has been around in Singapore in the last 30 years way before the ang mos were awakened to the importance of Mandarin. This age is likened to an experienced person in adulthood supposedly already endowed with skills necessary to earn him a livelihood in the next 15 years. Yet, many Chinese Singaporeans today cannot speak Mandarin properly. Even LKY for what he said about Mandarin is not able to handle a discussion in this language with reporters in China properly. The likes of GCT and George Yeo had to use interpreters most of the time. Having said this, I think after 30 years of investing heavily in Mandarin by those in Authority, the final result is a resounding “FAILED”. If you don’t believe, then watch out for the advertisements in this year’s SpeakMandarinCampaign. They used ang mos to remind us the importance of Mandarin. Is this an encouragement or a humiliation? Or an admission of the failure of government policy after witnessing so many ang mos spoke Good Putonghua in CCTV 4.
sad… even there’s lot of wrongly written or mispronounced characters in our Chinese newspaper and i believe in sks…
I believe the reason why Singaporeans cannot speak proper Mandarin is because many Singaporeans speak English at home.
Put it this way, if your home environment is entirely English-speaking, and school is also English-speaking, how much of your environment is exposed to Mandarin? If you’re only exposed to one language environment, needless to say, the other will be like a ‘foreign language environment’ to you and you will grow up trying to resist that language. That’s exactly what many young Singaporeans are facing.
To be effectively bilingual, I believe you need to be exposed two language environments, i.e. English and Mandarin. If you speak Mandarin at home, you will at the very least grew up speaking the language. You will naturally learn English, because you’re forced to learn it in School. In the end, you will grow up being able to speak both languages well.
I am quite fortunate to be tri-lingual (NOT bilingual). That’s because I’m exposed to 3 language environment: Mandarin, English and Hokkien. I can also speak basic German because I studied in Germany for 6 months.
I speak Mandarin with my parents from age 7 till 19. My parents speak to each other in Hokkien, so I grew up being able to ‘understand’ Hokkien, but limited speaking. However, because I have been speaking both languages: Mandarin and English from age 7 till 19, I grew up being fluent in both languages.
I started to speak Hokkien with my mum at 19 years old. It was very limited, but as I spoke more with my mum, it gradually pick up momentum and now I can relatively communicate my ideas in Hokkien.
Thus, what I’m saying is that to be good in Mandarin, you should speak to your kids in Mandarin at home, while speaking Hokkien or other dialects with your relatives. English is spoken at work and at school, so one will naturally learn it. That’ll create 3 language environments and your kids will know 3 languages after they’ve grown up.
What’s wrong with speaking Cantonese, Hokkien and other dialects? Malaysian Chinese community also speak Mandarin fluenttly but they can still speak another dialects, too. As long as I know no Chinese leaders there (be it BN or Pakatan Rakyat) try to treat Cantonese, Hokkien etc. like some sort of pariah language as LKY did. Speak Good Mandarin doesn’t mean you had to declare war on other dialects!
Man, being a Singaporean born during the SGM era, I suffered psychologically when I trying like hell to chat with my Malaysian relatives in Cantonese. Luckily they understand what I had to endure under this misguided SGM policy!
Well, SGM can also be defined as Speak Good Mandarin and Destroy Another Dialects!
Few years down the road I dont think there will be anyone using dialect in writing thier names in english letter. For example, Lee Yew Yew is called Lee Yao Yao. NG HOCK SOON is called HUANG FU SHUN? Simply Han Yu Pin Yin. No more dialect. So sad for Singapore. How can we attract tourist to come to our country? Multi cultural as an attraction? LOL. The generations now dont even know where there roots are.
Total Slaves: All U.S. States (1790-1860) Over 4 million
Do we have to be like the Black Americans? Only can YO YO YO? Not able to speak our mother tongue? Yes we should learn mandarine to communicate to all Chinese,but we should not forsake our REAL mother tongue. Many Chinese immigrants in the US and other countries around the world still speak thier mother tongue. Alright, perhaps they dont know how to speak mandarine. But at least we should try to preserve it and not to ban dialect speaking on TV.
Even the Australians are now trying to help the aborigins(natives). To prevent a something from dying up, the government got to do something.
Alot of languages died out throughout the decades, instead of preserving, we singaporean only think of the economical benefits of a language. Should we be regretting when it is too late or shall we start to do something before its too late? Endangered languages is the same as endangered animals, once its extincted, IT extinctED.
NO MORE. YOU WANT ALSO DONT HAVE.
My mother tongue is Teochew and i dont need anyone to tell me what my mother tongue IS!!!!
I think we should consider the future as a long term plan rather than just a short term economic advantage. We should continue promoting good English among non-English speakers. Because we all know in 10 years time China will be the Largest English-Speaking Country in the world.
Why are Chinese Singaporeans so obedient to the government? The PAP party is not your god, why have to listen and obey them?
You as citizens have the constitutional HUMAN RIGHTS to speak whatever mother or father tongue you like. If the people of Singapore had demonstrated and protested like the way they do when Ng Eng Hen hinted to reduce the weightage of PSLE Mandarin, then the PAP would not have succeeded in its policy to downgrade dialects. Look at the Malays, and also the Tamils, they don’t care a hoot about the “STOP AT TWO” policy of PAP. The Malays still continue with four or five children per family. After four children already, the some Malays divorced and have another family of four children with the new husband. The Tamils still carried on with three or four children. The Chinese are so obedient to PAP, some have only one, some don’t even have one child at all. So sad. That is why Singapore gets so many talents from China. Otherwise Singapore will be like Malaysia, where the Chinese population went down to 25% from 50% in the 1960′s.
“In ten years China will be the largest English speaking country in the world”
With China’s population size and rising prosperity, China will the largest EVERTHING in the world. But they will not abandon their mother tongue, like some foolish Singaporeans. Singaporeans care only about 5 Cs and MONEY. China with 1.3 billion people will not lose their mother tongue, rest assured. While some people in major Chinese cities may want to learn English, the overwhelming majority of Chinese people will not want to learn English. Same for Japan, Korea, Russia, Taiwan, Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina, Arabs, Africans, Iranians, Vietnam and so many other countries. Chinese will be the second most important International language, after English, in the world in ten years time. Better learn and speak your Mandarin, better still speak Mandarin to your children at home. Don’t speak English at home to your children, they will learn it in school and at work. Don’t lose out to foreigners who will be able to speak better Mandarin than you and your children. It will be such a shame (pity) if your children cannot speak Mandarin.
China will the largest EVERTHING in the world. But they will not abandon their mother tongue.
China have the largest fall in population due to the one child policy and also the largest ageing population.
Most Chinese nationals have given up their mother tongue for Mandarin. Mandarin is a language spoken in the northern regions of China. Other languages such as Hokkien, Teochew, etc. are discouraged, thus obliterating the cultural heritage of these people. Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, etc. are not dialects of the Mandarin language. They are languages in their own right. They have their own syntax and lexicon. You may note that this is one reason why Singaporeans are said to be unable to speak Mandarin well. It is not the result of Speaking English. It is the result of speaking Mandarin with a Hokkien syntax. English is also spoken and written with differing syntax and grammar.
Why will Singaporeans lose out to foreigners? They will lose out because they have no native language, they are unable to communicate fluently in English and Mandarin and they are just too arrogant to see that.
At any rate, foreigners from India, Africa, Europe, Japan, Korea and other non-English speaking countries come to Singapore and communicate with locals in English. Chinese nationals who come to work in Singapore only communicate in Mandarin. Singaporeans are not all of Chinese descent. Singaporeans of Chinese descent are not from northern China. Who are Singaporeans?
The national language of Singapore in Malay. Learn Malay! Your neighbours are Malay, for goodness sake! It is a shame for Singaporeans to go to Malaysia and Indonesia to do business in Mandarin. In Europe, people learn the language of their near neighbours to trade with them. In Singapore, Singaporeans learn the language of the northern Chinese to give their wealth to them. China does not need Singapore. How many businesses have lost money in China and how many have made money in Malaysia and Indonesia; trading in Malaysian and Indonesian timber, rubber, tin, iron ore, cocoa, oil and gas, palm oil, commodities and manufactured products?
Mao Tze Tung got rid of the intellectuals, sent them to be re-educated, burnt books, etc. Has China not lost its culture and heritage through the cultural revolution? I suppose imposing Mandarin on the masses will accelerate the decline of the language and culture of the southern mongoloid people who live in the southern lands that form modern day China.
Tibet is now up for ‘Sinonisation’. They will soon be outlawing Tibetan language and cultural practices.
Independence for Amoy, Canton, Hainan, Taiwan, Tibet, etc.
Singapore schools propagate the creole language known as Singlish. Do not trust the schools to teach your children English. This Creole language is going to become established as a language. See Pitcairnese, Tok Pisin and other English based Creoles.
Nyonya-Babas came to Malacca, mixed with Orang Aslis and Malays. They didn’t go back to their Tng-Sua, lost their ability to speak their own language. They spoke Malay, now they speak mostly pidgin English. They find it so difficult to learn Mandarin, which is now becoming a foreign language to this group of people. Their children are at a disadvantage in our schools because they do badly compared to Chinese Singaporeans. They are always speaking out against Mandarin. They hate Mandarin, because they cannot master Mandarin. They want everybody to speak English, where they have the advantage because they speak only English at home to their children.
Orang Asli are aborigines that inhabit the interior of the Malaysian peninsular. Babas and Nonyas are mainly mixed with ethnic Malays, Bataks, and other indigenous Indonesian ethnic groups. The people and culture are mixed with influences from Malay, Chinese and European sources. Babas and Nonyas are not homogeneous and some lines include European/Eurasian ancestry. Babas and Nonyas are as much a people any any other ethnic group. They are culturally, linguistically and racially distinct from Han Chinese. For Mr Mao Tze Tung to attack us as people who have forgotten China and haters of the Mandarin language is rather condescending, ignorant and insulting. Mandarin is not the native language of the Baba people and neither is it the mother tongue of the Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hockchew, Hakka etc. Mandarin is also not the mother tongue of MM Lee. His mother was a Nonya. My father used to eat Peranakan food at her house.
The Baba culture in Singapore has already been destroyed. The is not classification for Babas. All Babas are classed as Chinese and now their ethnic and cultural identity has been stripped from them. The only thing left of the Babas is the Baba museum. Museums are for dead cultures and that is where you will find us. We are no more. Now we have the indignity of being told that our mother tongue is Mandarin.
Mandarin is the language of northern China – specifically the dialect of Peking. It replaced Manchu as the official language after the dissolution of the Manchu dynasty. There are over 50 ethnic groups in China and Mandarin is not the main language of these people. There are Russians, Tartars, Uighurs, Uzbeks, Khazaks, Yi, Li, Lisu, Manchus, Koreans, Tibetans, etc. Even in China, Mandarin is not the dominant language. It is one of the languages. It is the language of government but minorities continue to speak their own languages. Some of these people have become absorbed in to the Han ethnic group like most of the southern mongoloid peoples in southern China. The Han are not the majority race in the interior and western parts of China.
Singapore is not a Han Chinese state. We are a multi-racial, multi-cultural nation and with the increase in inter-marriage between Singaporeans and foreigners, we can not all lay claim to exclusive Chinese ancestry. We are a new people with our own culture. English is the official language of our country and we are all educated in English. However, it is learnt imperfectly and people end up speaking Singlish which is not comprehensible to outsiders because of differences in accent, syntax, idioms, lexicon, etc. All Singaporeans of Chinese ancestry or partial Chinese ancestry are forced to learn Mandarin even before they can fully grasp the English language.
Learning Mandarin does not make one Chinese but in Singapore, Mandarin is used to discriminate against non-Chinese Singaporeans. Many job advertisements specify Mandarin as a requirement. This is a divisive language. It is not a useful tool. It separates people. It is not even our language.
In a region where we trade extensively with people who speak some form of Malay dialect or Indo-Chinese language, this government seems and other supporters of Mandarin seem bent on insisting that Mandarin is our destiny. China is a protectionist state and they are trying to secure their own sources of supply of fuel, and raw materials by buying up mines, oil fields, etc. They are also developing their own gas supplies so that they do not have to depend on foreign suppliers. Why are we harping on about the importance of China to our economic future. We are in a region blessed with resources and a developing market. We do not have to look to China.
When Singaporeans go to Malaysia or Indonesia, we cannot communicate in Bahasa. These are the countries that are important to us but Singaporeans who do not understand this just dismiss them and ridicule our neighbours. Do not bite the hand that feeds you. Singapore has no resources. Singapore depends on trade in goods that originate in these countries. Show some respect for our Malay neighbours.
Its true Nyonya-Baba culture has come to the end of it life-span. It is a dying culture, now to be displayed at museums around the region. Many of their ancestors came with the Ming admiral Cheng Ho, and stayed behind. How come? Babas lost contact with their ancestors in China, lost their language (dialects), adopted some aspects Malay cultures and language, but kept some Chinese customs, eat pork, kept their Chinese religion. Why Baba culture died? It is because of growth 20th century communications, ships, air travel, motor cars, trains, have ended the Baba’s isolation with the rest of the world. This had allowed them to end their isolation in the Malay environment. When the British colonialists came, they became the servants of the British administration, adopt English as their second language.
After independence, Singapore and Malaysia adopted Malay as the national language (English is not the national language). Chinese Mandarin, Tamil and English became official languages.
China has 56 ethnic groups. The Chinese group is the largest. They speak various Chinese dialects, like Shanghainese, Pekinese, Hakka, Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese and Hainanese. From the Song or Ming Dynasty onwards, the emperors made Mandarin (which is a Pekinese dialect)the official language of China, because the capital was at Beijing.
All Chinese people go to school learning Mandarin as their language of instruction. All Chinese dialects use Mandarin as the writing script. All the other dialects like Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, etc have no written script of their own. Therefore there is no such thing as Hokkien school, Teochew school, etc. All Chinese dialect groups go to school learning the Mandarin script. That is why Mandarin is adopted as the mother tongue of the Chinese in Singapore.
Why Malay language is not popular in Singapore? After Singapore’s separation from Malaysia, They adopted a hostile attitude against us. Malaysia rejected our demands for racial equality and meritocracy for all races. They want a Malay dominated society. They refuse to cooperate with us, they want to bring down the people and government of Singapore. Similarly, Indonesia also adopted a hostile policy against Singapore. They claimed that Singapore should be part of Indonesia, during the Majapahit Empire. They launched “Confrontasi” against us in the 1960′s. They had sent terrorists groups to bomb Singapore. Even recently relations with Malaysia and Indonesia was not that good. Singapore succeeded to be a first world nation in a third-world region by being global, bypassing the hostile Malay region, to trade with the rest of the world. That is why we Singaporeans don’t need to depend on our Malay neighbours for our survival and prosperity. Now they need us more than we need them. Now they beg us to invest in their poor economy. Don’t forget who tried to do us in.
As Chinese Singaporeans, we naturally want to promote our own language, which is Mandarin, and other dialects. We don’t want to lose our mother tongue like what happened to the Babas. Singapore being a mlti-racial society, of course our Malay and Tamil citizens are also entitled to promote their own mother tongue. Singapore being an Asian society must preserve its Asian cultures and languages. It is inconceivable, and abnormal for an Asian society to lose its Asian roots, by adopting English as the only language spoken by its many different races. That is why our bilingual policy of Mother Tongue and English is here to stay.
A small number of Babas may claim that they are not Chinese. Of course they are not pure Chinese, that we all know. But they still keep their Chinese names, and their Chinese practices because of their Chinese paternal custom to do so.
Even LKY ( if I’m not wrong) said that he learn Chinese dialect and Mandarin to uphold his self respect as a Chinese. He also have a Chinese name. He learns Mandarin not because of the rise of China as a global powerhouse.
Its quite true Nyonya-Baba culture has come to the end of it life-span. It is a dying culture, now to be displayed at museums around the region. Many of their ancestors came with the Ming admiral Cheng Ho, and stayed behind. How come? Babas lost contact with their ancestors in China, lost their language (dialects), adopted some aspects Malay cultures and language, but kept some Chinese customs, eat pork, kept their Chinese religion. Why Baba culture died? It is because of growth 20th century communications, ships, air travel, motor cars, trains, have ended the Baba’s isolation with the rest of the world. This had allowed them to end their isolation in the Malay environment. When the British colonialists came, they became the servants of the British administration, adopt English as their second language.
After independence, Singapore and Malaysia adopted Malay as the national language (English is not the national language). Chinese Mandarin, Tamil and English became official languages.
China has 56 ethnic groups. The Chinese group is the largest. They speak various Chinese dialects, like Shanghainese, Pekinese, Hakka, Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese and Hainanese. From the Song or Ming Dynasty onwards, the emperors made Mandarin (which is a Pekinese dialect)the official language of China, because the capital was at Beijing.
All Chinese people go to school learning Mandarin as their language of instruction. All Chinese dialects use Mandarin as the writing script. All the other dialects like Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, etc have no written script of their own. Therefore there is no such thing as Hokkien school, Teochew school, etc. All Chinese dialect groups go to school learning the Mandarin script. That is why Mandarin is adopted as the mother tongue of the Chinese in Singapore.
Why Malay language is not popular in Singapore? After Singapore’s separation from Malaysia, They adopted a hostile attitude against us. Malaysia rejected our demands for racial equality and meritocracy for all races. They want a Malay dominated society. They refuse to cooperate with us, they want to bring down the people and government of Singapore. Similarly, Indonesia also adopted a hostile policy against Singapore. They claimed that Singapore should be part of Indonesia, during the Majapahit Empire. They launched “Confrontasi” against us in the 1960′s. They had sent terrorists groups to bomb Singapore. Even recently relations with Malaysia and Indonesia was not that good. Singapore succeeded to be a first world nation in a third-world region by being global, bypassing the hostile Malay region, to trade with the rest of the world. That is why we Singaporeans don’t need to depend on our Malay neighbours for our survival and prosperity. Now they need us more than we need them. Now they beg us to invest in their poor economy. Don’t forget who tried to do us in.
As Chinese Singaporeans, we naturally want to promote our own language, which is Mandarin, and other dialects. We don’t want to lose our mother tongue like what happened to the Babas. Singapore being a mlti-racial society, of course our Malay and Tamil citizens are also entitled to promote their own mother tongue. Singapore being an Asian society must preserve its Asian cultures and languages. It is inconceivable, and abnormal for an Asian society to lose its Asian roots, by adopting English as the only language spoken by its many different races. That is why our bilingual policy of Mother Tongue and English is here to stay.
Apparently, Mandarin is not the mother tongue of the Cantonese people.
Hong Kong people rally to save Cantonese language
A man holds a sign professing his love for Cantonese, the main language in Hong Kong at a rally to help stop Mandarin being promoted in China. Hundreds of protesters rallied in Hong Kong against China’s effort to champion its national language Mandarin over Cantonese, a week after a similar campaign was staged in the neighbouring mainland city of Guangzhou.
A man holds a T-shirt saying, “The more you try to silence us, the more we will speak out” at a rally in Hong Kong against what protesters say is China’s effort to champion the national language Mandarin over their local dialect Cantonese.
People attend a rally to help stop Mandarin being promoted at the expense of Cantonese, the main language used in Hong Kong. Hundreds of protesters rallied in Hong Kong against China’s effort to champion its national language Mandarin over Cantonese, a week after a similar campaign was staged in the neighbouring mainland city of Guangzhou.
AFP – More than 1,000 protesters rallied in Guangzhou and Hong Kong on Sunday against what they say is China’s bid to champion the national language Mandarin over their local dialect Cantonese.
Hundreds of mainland police officers were deployed to disperse protesters who gathered in People’s Park in Guangzhou to call on authorities to preserve the Cantonese language and culture, Hong Kong broadcasters RTHK and Cable TV reported.
“Guangzhou people speak the Guangzhou language!” some angry protesters chanted as the size of the crowd grew to about 1,000, RTHK said.
Videos from Cable TV and YouTube showed that some of the rally participants were forcefully carried away. A number of Hong Kong journalists were taken for questioning, according to Cable TV.
Chinese authorities have been anxious to suppress the growing pro-Cantonese movement, sparked after a political advisory body in Guangzhou proposed this month that local TV stations broadcast their prime-time shows in Mandarin instead of Cantonese ahead of the Asian Games there in November.
Adopting China’s official language, also known as Putonghua, would promote unity, “forge a good language environment” and cater to non-Cantonese-speaking Chinese visitors at the huge sporting event, authorities were quoted as saying.
Hundreds of Guangzhou residents defied government orders and staged their first demonstration last Sunday. But the protest was soon suppressed by the authorities, according to reports.
To echo the Guangzhou campaign, about 200 protesters marched to the government headquarters in Hong Kong Sunday.
“We want to show our support to our Guangzhou friends in their campaign to protect Cantonese against any threat of elimination,” said Choi Suk-fong, organiser of the rally.
Participants wore white T-shirts with a logo which said: “You want us to shut up! We will speak louder in Cantonese!”
A number of Guangzhou residents crossed the border to take part in the Hong Kong rally, saying that authorities there were trying to silence the protesters.
“I really regretted not going to the rally in Guangzhou last week. I came to Hong Kong today because I want to protect my own culture. Unlike on the mainland, here I can voice my view more directly,” said 21-year-old Wyman, who refused to give his family name for fear of retaliation by the Chinese authorities.
Instances of mainland protests spilling over into Hong Kong, which was returned to China in 1997, are rare since China’s 1989 Tiananmen crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.
Cantonese is the mother tongue for an estimated 70 million people in Hong Kong, Macau and China’s southern Guangdong province, and is widely spoken in overseas Chinese communities.
The Guangzhou city government on Thursday sought to deny rumours that they planned to ditch Cantonese in favour of Mandarin, according to the state-run Guangzhou Daily.
Its spokesman Ouyang Yongsheng was quoted as saying that the government had a responsibility to protect and promote Cantonese culture, including the language.
“The citizens and concerned people can be reassured that Guangzhou would… not go for the so-called cause of ‘abolishing Cantonese to promote Mandarin’,” he said.
China has long been a patchwork of often mutually unintelligible dialects.
Beijing made Mandarin the country’s official language in 1982, leading to bans on other dialects at many radio and television stations.
The dialect has been further promoted in recent years as migrant workers moved to China’s coastal areas to find jobs.
Mandarin language lessons became compulsory in schools in Hong Kong after its return to Chinese rule in 1997 and an increasing number of professionals began to learn the dialect after the handover as Hong Kong’s business links with the mainland intensified.
However, many Hong Kongers are fiercely proud and protective of Cantonese and see Mandarin only as a language of convenience.
Mother tongue is defined as the language that you first learn to speak when you are a child (OED online).
Babas are not Chinese. Just because you have a surname that is of Chinese origin does not make you a Chinese. Many Koreans have surnames such as Lee and Lim but they are ethnic Koreans and not Han Chinese (even some English people and people of people of English descent have Lee as a surname and they are not Chinese). Cameron is of Scottish Highland origin but there are many Camerons in England who are English and not Highland Scots (the present British Prime Minister is a Cameron but he is English and not a Scot). Knapp is German in origin but there are many Knapps in England who are not German and do not identify with Germans or Germany. Chinese men who marry Malay Muslim women and convert to Islam will produce Children who will be culturally distinct from Chinese people. They will speak Malay and behave like Malays. The ex-Premier of Malaysia, Abdullah Badawi, has Arab and Chinese ancestry but he is Malay. Mongols started as an Asiatic race but have ended up indistinguishable from the people they conquered after centuries of assimilation (only Mongols in Mongolia remained distinct from those who has been absorbed in to other races). Some of the descendants of Mongols have become absorbed in to the Chinese race while others have been absorbed in to other races such as Pashtuns, Turks, and other people groups spanning the Eurasian land mass (one Mongol legacy is the surname Khan). Many Filipinos, Indonesians, Thais, Burmese, Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians have some Chinese ancestors but they do not consider themselves Chinese. In the same way, Chinese people are not all of Han origin. when the Han people began expanding their territories, they pushed south in to the lands that now form southern China. They displaced some races that are related to the Thai and other groups found in Indo-China (some linguistic links between Thai and some ethnic minorities in southern China exist). Those that were left were either assimilated and became absorbed in to the Chinese race or remained as isolated minority groups. In the north, many people in the Liaoning, Heilongjiang and northern provinces are of Mongol, Tartar, Manchu, Korean ethnicity but have been absorbed and assimilated in to the Han race through inter-marriage and through voluntary racial and cultural assimilation. Populations do not only increase biologically. Absorption and assimilation are faster ways of increasing population size of any given race of people. When the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain, what happened to the Brigantes, icenii, Artebatres, and other indigenous tribes of Britain. Surely they were not all expelled to Wales, Cumbria and Brittany. The majority would have gradually become absorbed in to the Anglo-Saxon race. Yet another example is the Alsace region of France. The people there have at various times been German and French depending on the outcome of war between the two nations. To-day, many people in the border villages and towns of Alsace bear German surnames but they consider themselves French and they speak French. They are not Germans and the local language based on German is not spoken among the younger people of the region.
Therefore, if Baba people are said to be Chinese, of what race are Eurasians? What is the mother tongue of Eurasians? Some may suggest Kristang but what of the Eurasians who are of Dutch, English, Spanish Irish and danish origin? What of the people the Americans left behind after the Vietnam war? Some were half black, some half white and others half Latinos. I am curious to know what you would consider their mother tongue?
Languages, people and cultures change. Language, culture and race are not static. They change, evolve and alter. Some languages die while others rise. Some races become absorbed in to others and some seek to break away. Croats, Serbs and Bosnians were all one people and all spoke Serbo-Croatian. To-day, Croatian is a separate language and Croatians are a separate people from Serbs and Bosnians. Croats use Roman letters and Serbs use Cyrillic. Serbo-Croatian are actually closely related languages and are mutually intelligible apart from some phonological differences – eg. milekor (Croatian for milk) and miljekor (Serbian for milk), Brest (Croatian for Elm) and Brijest (Serbian for Elm). Despite the similarities, Croats do not accept that they are the same people as Serbs and view their language as distinct from Serbian. Geography also affect the racial appearance of people. People of Japanese descent who live in Hawaii have different skull shapes from Japanese people in Japan.
Turkey used to use Arabic but changed their written script to Latin letters. The Irish replaced the Irish Ogham with the Roman alphabet. The Scandinavians, English and other Germanic peoples replaced Germanic Runes with the Roman alphabet. Perhaps, the southern regions of modern day China did not develop their own script. They adopted the script of invaders from the north. Written language is not found in every language. The tribal people of Papua New Guinea do not have a script of their own. Foreign missionaries have to develop a written language for them based on the Roman alphabet. In the same way, St Cyril is credited with devising the Cyrillic alphabet for the Slavic languages. To-day, not all Slavic languages use Cyrillic. Slovak, Czech, Croatian and Polish do not use Cyrillic. Russian, Ukranian, Bulgarian, Serbia, use Cyrillic.
Hokkien, Cantonese, etc. do not have their own script. They all employ pictograms which are in common use in China. However, the sounds represented by these differ when you were to read them in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien and so on. There are also pictograms that are unique to Cantonese, Hokkien, etc. and can not be understood or translated in Mandarin. A college friend of mine from Tianjin could not fully comprehend a news paper from Hong Kong even though the script was in Chinese pictograms. Just because a language uses the script of another language does not mean that they are the same. All Western European languages use Roman letters and Arabic numerals but they are all different and descend from different language families – Celtic, Germanic and Romance. All these are descended from a common source – Indo-European but they are all different and not mutually intelligible. Just because someone uses your script does not mean they speak your language, know your language or comprehend your language. For that matter, even sign language differ from country to country and region to region. Hokkien, Cantonese, and other southern languages are languages in their own right. They may have have had influences from Mandarin but they are essentially different. The recent protest over the use of Mandarin instead of Cantonese on television is proof that Mandarin is not the mother tongue of the the southern people of China. It may be taught in school but it is not the native language of all the people who live in China who are said to be Chinese.
Malaysia and Indonesia may have wished Singapore ill at the outset but since independence, Singapore has benefitted from the natural resources of these countries. Singapore continues to have a lively timber industry despite not having any forests from which to harvest timber. Singapore refines oil and gas produced in these countries as well as from countries further afield. Singapore is a trading hub for the produce of these countries. Indonesian coal, Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil, Malaysian and Indonesian iron ore, Indonesian gold, Indonesian and Malaysian stone, sand, aggregate, and other commodities are traded in Singapore. Indonesian and Malaysian money was spent in Singapore when Singapore was considered a cheap place because of favourable currency exchange (to-day, Singaporeans spend money in Malaysia because of favourable currency exchange). Singapore benefitted from foreign money deposited in Singaporean banks (Indonesian and Burmese for example). It is arrogant to say that these countries are begging Singapore for investments. As Malaysia becomes more developed, Singapore will begin to lose its appeal.
It is not abnormal for people to lose their culture and language and replace them with another. It has been going on for centuries. It is actually quite normal. The Jewish people are an example. It is likely that the lost tribes of Israel were absorbed by the people who conquered them. Only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin were left and they are the Jews we know to-day but even these people are not of a single race. There are European Jews (Ashkenazis) who are white and tan ones from the Iberian peninsular (Sephardic Jews). There are also African Jews, Indian Jews, and others. All are descended from the Jewish diaspora. They are not racially or culturally the same. You can see this in the recent tensions between Ashkenazis and Sephardic Jews in Israel. This Semitic race has altered and evolved over the centuries. The languages spoken by this ‘people’ also vary from Yiddish to modern Hebrew (a dead language that was revived when the modern state of Israel was formed).
The vast majority of bilinguals do not have an equal command of their two languages: one language is more fluent than the other, interferes with the other, imposes its accent on the other, or is simply the preferred language in certain situations. (David Crystal). This is the situation that Singaporeans face. The vast majority of Singaporeans speak both English and Mandarin with interference from Hokkien. For example, ‘feng’ is pronounced as ‘fong’ from Hokkien ‘hong’. Sounds that are not expressed in Hokkien are also not expressed in Singaporean Mandarin – ‘shi’ is pronounced as ‘si’, ‘ren’ is pronounced as ‘len’. I have heard Singaporean Mandarin spoken with Hokkien and Cantonese as well as English and Malay words intermixed. In the same way, Singaporeans speak English with Malay, Mandarin and Hokkien words intermixed (this constitutes Singlish). Singaporeans of Chinese descent are under a lot of pressure. They have to master English because it is the official language of the country, the lingua franca as well as the international language of business, air traffic, etc. At the same time, they are forced to accept and learn Mandarin as a mother tongue. Thus, Singaporeans are unable to speak either language well. There is too much focus on Mandarin and it is now being forced down our collective throats whether we like it or not. Foreigners are also being drafted to shame Singaporeans in to learning Mandarin. The language policy is making Singaporeans neurotics. Is Mandarin really that important? Most Singaporeans do not travel to China. Even if they did, they do not aways understand the Mandarin speaking Chinese and vice versa. Malaysia and Thailand are popular destinations for Singaporeans who enjoy good food and shopping. Many Singaporeans travel to English speaking countries to pursue their university education. Wherefore Mandarin? What for?
By the way, Baba culture did not die out because of modernisation. Babas are not primitive people. They have always engaged with every community. They were the buffer people between Chinese, Malay, Indian and Europeans. Baba Malay is no longer widely spoken. English has replaced Baba Malay as many Babas worked for the British and many wealthy Babas were sent to England for education. To-day, the Babas are slowly being absorbed in to the majority Chinese community. They are no longer allowed to choose Malay as a second language and are told that Mandarin is their mother tongue. Somehow, the sambal blachan in our blood can not accept this. There is nothing wrong for us to speak in English. If we speak it as our native tongue it must be that it is our native tongue.
Mandarin is written script of Cantonese language. When Cantonese go to school, they write in the Mandarin script, which is common for all Han Chinese people of all dialect groups. The Chinese language is a tonal language, if you don’t speak in the right tone, then you are not understood, even when you speak in Mandarin. Therefore it is not surprising that one dialect group doesn’t understand another dialect group.Whether it is Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew or Hainanese, they speak with different tones, but they still write in the Mandarin. This tonal language is very different than European languages, which use the alphabet. Europeans understand different dialects because their language is alphabetical, unlike Chinese language. Even when a European mispronounce a word in a different tone, generally people still can understand what they say. Some people doesn’t understand the difference between Chinese and European languages. They wrongfully use the same yardstick to judge the Chinese language. That is why some ignorant people believed wrongly that all the Chinese dialects are different languages, when the fact is that they belong to the same language.
I don’t know about Babas, they have ditched their Chinese dialects for a Creo-Malay dialect. After the British came, they worked for their colonial masters, and they ditched the Creo-Malay dialect for the English language. Babs therefore doesn’t have an affinity for the Chinese language anymore. They are very outspoken against Mandarin as the new mother tongue of the Chinese Singaporean. They generally do badly in the Mandarin subject in school. This makes them very mad, because their children cannot get to go to the better schools in Singapore.
The Vernacular form of Mandarin was made official national language of China and Taiwan right after the Qing dynasty was overthrown in 1913, not in 1982 as some people wrongfully claimed above. Before that the 1910 Chinese Revolution, the Emperors use the Classical form of the Chinese language (Wen Yan Wen) as the administrative language. Even after the Communist Revolution in China in 1949, both Peoples’ Republic of China and Taiwan (still known as The Republic of China) both declared Mandarin as the official national language of both states.
The above is to clarify some common misunderstandings of some people, as the above writer shows.
Some people (Babas for example) who doese not know enough of Chinese culture claimed that Cantonese, Hokkien, use a pictogram unique to these dialects. They don’t know that these pictograms are in fact the Chinese pictograms, same as the Mandarin language which is also a pictogram itself. Some Cantonese and Hokkien newspapers use the their respective pictograms which represent the different sounds of their dialects. This may make reading in their own dialects more like the way they speak it. But some people ( Babas for examople) don’t know that these pictograms are in fact Mandarin words specially chosen to sound similar to the way the dialects are spoken. These pictogram words in Cantonese and Hokkien have absolutely no meaning of their own. They are just like dialect PINYIN using the Mandarin script.
The above is to clarify some common misunderstandings of some ignorant people.
Are Ethnic Han Chinese of Mixed Origin?
The Epoch Times
May 12, 2008
Ethnic Han Chinese is the largest population in the world, accounting for 19 percent. A recent study discovered that there are no pure Han ethnic Chinese and even the concept of ethnic Hans no longer exists according to DNA analysis.
According to Shanghai Evening Post, Xie Xiaodong, assistant professor of the College of Life Science of Lanzhou University, just completed the DNA analysis of minority demographic changes in northwest China.
Xie said, “Ethnic Hans comprise the population living in a specific area and this ethnic does not have a distinctive definition. The name was assigned to differentiate from those in the surrounding area.”
“We generally think that Han people belong to the middle part of China (Zhongyuan).” In Chinese history, Zhongyuan contained what is now Henan Province, south of Sanxi Province, west of Jiangshu Province and Northwest of Anhui Province.
“Yet in the Shang Dynasty (1600 B.C. – 1100 B.C.) and Zhou Dynasties (1122 B.C. – 256 B.C.), Xizhou (West Zhou) had its capital city in Xian (capital city of Sha’anxi Province) and was definitely part of the Han area. In addition, in the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States eras, Qin also originated in Sha’anxi Province, but was instead defined as Rong, a minority.” Xie Xiaodong said.
Another interesting phenomenon is that although Chinese people often regard themselves as the “descendants of Yanhuang,” research indicates that the Huang Emperor originated from the region near Qinyang and Tianshui in Gansu Province, whereas the Yan Emperor originated from Longdong in the Loess Highlands of Sha’anxi province. These areas were not parts of Zhongyuan. (They were called “Beidi” for a long time.).
As history moved on, even the residents, who once were accurately defined as Hans, also migrated. Because of factors, such as compulsory military service, war turmoil and expatriation, Han ethnic people have never stopped migrating toward the south from the Zhongyuan area.
According to the study, “The fact that no pure ethnic Hans live in China has something to do with long-term, large-scale migration. Over a long time, the surrounding minorities, even people from surrounding countries, have been mixing with Han people.”
In addition, it says that “the Kejia people have inherited a very pure culture that used to belong to the Zhongyuan people in ancient history, such as their language and customs which left a strong historical influence. They are the true Zhongyuan people, but they are now existing only as ethnic minority groups.”
Mao Tze Tung. Diu lei lau mao chao chee bye hei mong lei pokgai!
All dialects have the same written characters according to you but does that mean it can’t be my mother tongue?
And cantonese has a written scipt.
English and German are 60% lexically similar (both sharing Germanic roots) but they are not mutually intelligible. Therefore, they are different languages.
English – German
Water – Wasser
Drink – Trink
Eat – Essen
I – Ich
Hokkien and Mandarin are only 15% lexically similar but they are considered the same language even though they are not mutually intelligible.
Jwe – Shui (water)
Lim – He (drink)
Jiak – Chi (eat)
Mandarin has 4 tones while Hokkien has 7 to 9 tones.
There is no question about one language separated by tones here. The lexemes are different. These are mutually un-intelligible languages.
Hokkien:
Kia – scared
Kia – walk
Kia – child
Kia – post
Kia – glass
Mandarin:
Pa – scared
Zhou – walk
Hai – child
Ji – post
Jin – glass
The above are lexical differences and not tonal differences.
The major languages of China are of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. They may share a common ancestry but they have evolved in to separate languages but they utilise the same pictogram script devised by northerners. The pictograms do not correspond neatly with every word in the southern languages. There are words used in the south that are not used in the north and vice versa. In the same way, Germanic has branched in to North Germanic, west Germanic and east Germanic – all of which are descended from a common ancestor but they are not mutually intelligible and are thus separate languages. At any rate, all Western European languages use the Latin script. This does not mean that all Europeans speak Latin or a Latin dialect. The five main Latin based languages are French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian. However, they are not mutually intelligible. They may use the same Latin script but they are not the same language. We also use Indian and Arabic numerals but we are neither Indian nor Arabs.
It is incorrect to state that mis-pronunciations can be understood in European languages. I have heard ‘we can produce single shit and double shit’ for ‘single sheet and double sheet’, ‘would you like some piss wit your steek’ for ‘would you like some peas with your steak’. To pronounce Spanish pollo (chicken) as polo instead of poyo will not facilitate understanding. To pronounce ‘Ja’ (yes in German) as ‘jar’ instead of ‘ya’ does not facilitate understanding. If you say give me a pen when you mean a pan, you will be mis-understood. Pen and pan are not homophones. In Yorkshire, we say, ‘wheer has thi bin’ for ‘where have you been’. This is not un-intelligible to other Englishmen.
Dialects are mutually comprehensible. Languages are not.
The Han people are not homogenous. The northern mongoloids of northern China are physiologically different from the mongoloid people of southern China. Their speech is just as diverse and are not dialects of Mandarin.
We know that Mandarin was not introduced in China in 1985. However, Mandarin was imposed on us in the 1970s. Prior to that, we could still watch Cantonese programmes on television and hear Chow Yun Fatt speak Cantonese in Man in the Net, and listen to Hokkien and Teochew being spoken on Rediffusion. Mandarin was the language of the Mandarin speaking students who attended Mandarin language schools. The majority of Singaporeans spoke their native languages (most Singaporeans are descended from Hokkien people). In the army, there are ‘Hokkien pengs’. There are no ‘Mandarin pings’.
I have noticed that among Singaporeans who speak Mandarin, English, Hokkien, Cantonese and even Malay words are intermixed quite un-consciously. Apparently, this is how the language is spoken. English is also spoken in this way. Sometimes, half the sentence could be in one language and the other half in another language. Sometimes, a person can ask a question in Mandarin and receive and answer in English. This language mixing is quite strange and occurs un-consciously. This does not mean that Singaporeans are proficient in all the languages that they use. Apparently, mixing language shows that Singaporeans do not have an adequate command of both the Mandarin and English languages. I wonder if we are to be proud of this fact as outsiders can not understand such mixed languages. Coupled with accent and different grammar, the languages are not intelligible to visitors. Once entrenched, the mixed language will become the creole language of the people of Singapore just as Jamaican English, Tok Pisin, Pitcairnese and other creoles. The mixed language, be it mixed Mandarin/pidgin Mandarin or mixed/pidgin English will become the established Singapore Creole and will be learnt as the native tongue of the people of Singapore.
In the past, people spoke one language at a time. They spoke English or Mandarin in school (depending on the language medium). They spoke Hokkien or Cantonese or other southern Chinese languages at home or in informal settings. The languages were not mixed. Singlish is a relatively new development. As more people of varying degrees of competence began to speak English, they invariably substituted words from other languages because of a deficient vocabulary. Should Singapore be promoting such linguistic skills among the young? In its pursuit of excellence, Singapore has fallen short of excellence in the area of language teaching and language learning. The over emphasis on Mandarin and the associated pressure to perform in this foreign tongue has resulted in deficient language skills among the people of the land.
LengZhai. Diu lei lau mao chao chee bye hei mong lei pokgai!
All dialects have the same written characters according to you but does that mean it can’t be my mother tongue?
And cantonese has a written scipt.
While Mandarin can be taught in schools just like English for economic reasons; just like some of us learn French or Japanese, I am saddened by Mr Lee’s suggestion to abolish the use of dialects. Mandarin is also a dialect voted marginally in Dr Sun Yat Sen’s time to be the common language (Cantonese just lost by a few votes).
Our mother tongues are actually our dialects Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka etc. Why should we abandon our cultural heritage for the sake of money making?
I am not aganist learning Mandarin but it should not be at the expense of our cultural roots. It s like asking the French to abandon French and speak English for the sake of doing business.
By all means learn languages that help us to strive economically. Speak English to all our fellow Singaporeans; speak Mandarin to China Chinese and use dialect at home. This is my suggestion to preserve our roots and strive in a global village. Btw, you still stand an advantage in business if you speak Hainan in Hainan island and Cantonese in Canton