@mayintoronto @atomicpoet

Agree. And the tones are like speaking in English. It lacks the clarity and frankly harshness of canto. Its why people always wonder why canto speakers get in fights so often. Little do they know we just have to talk really loudly and harshly so the other person can hear us right.

@atomicpoet @chu I'll bet Sook-Yin Lee could find out who sang it, but she's more film maker than music/general culture person these days.

@atomicpoet @mayintoronto

I would say so. When I have more brain power in the morning, I'll give my two cents on your earlier convo about chinglish being it's own language in the context of the hk umbrella protests too. I'm too half asleep now to give it justice though.

Basically I can hear from the accent that the singer is likely Canadian born or came pre school. And I don't have enough data points but between the ones I know, the Canadian born Chinese have slightly better accents than their American counterparts too. I wonder if it's the multiculturalism we do better

@atomicpoet @mayintoronto

I am halfway through my first pot of tea so have enough brain energy now (don't worry, these are small little Chinese pots and little cups... lol)

Looping back to the discussion earlier about whether or not Chinglish is its own language... (note: I am not a linguist, and merely coming at this from a communications angle... of which they did grant me a phd recently so it's not totally based on nothing).

There's a joke you've probably heard somewhere. What's the difference between a language and a dialect? (A language has currencies and armies)

If we weren't conquered by the Ming dynasty, Cantonese and Mandarin are so incredibly different, they would legit be considered distinct languages. But alas, we lost so we get dialect status.

The linguists have a "drop in" test where if you take one person who doesn't speak the other and "drop them in", can they understand and be understood. I heard Finnish and Swedish can mutually understand for example.

So here's where that test gets interesting.

You may recall that before COVID, HK was going through quite a bit of turmoil with democracy protests in what would be known as the yellow umbrella movement.

The gov was using rioting and violence as an excuse to clamp down and arrest people. The organizers insisted the were not encouraging violence (and indeed told people not to give the gov an excuse to arrest them). There were accusations that Beijing was sending down Cantonese speakers from Guandong to act as saboteurs. They would intentionally smash windows and get the violence going kind of thing.

So, the organizers used social media to let people know where the next protest would be, but encoded it in very HK speak. There's a combination of using English sounds in Chinese and vice versa. I don't even fully get all the code. But I can give you a simple example.

的 means belonging to. 我的手 simply means "my hand". 的士 is soooo HK. It is a transliteration for "taxi" because it sounds so similar "dik see".

There's a pop song right now that is popular and there's mention of a 飛的 (flying 的 aka speeding taxi). For anyone outside of HK, that means NOTHING. The words are gibberish that makes no sense in written form. Now multiply this example by a million little things that I can't even wrap my head around. Add this to local slang that just comes about organically too (think place names or local events that will influence this).

Does it count as its own language? Certainly not yet... but there's enough encoded Chinglish that they at least believed it was enough to confuse the saboteurs.
But you can see how over time, this kind of stuff branches away from how Canto would traditionally be spoken and really becomes its own thing where nobody outside of this little island can understand.

It's different now with rapid communication so isolated growth isn't possible the way it used to be but Creole was born in a similar way I'm sure.

But I did want to share this little tidbit how despite being only a strait apart, there are enough linguistic peculiarities that they can openly post a notice and not have it understood by a population they all recognize they descended from.

@chu @atomicpoet @mayintoronto Somewhat off-topic side note: On the “whether something is a language” question, I can dust off my old linguistics degree and say how linguists think of it: It’s a language if a community speaks it, it has a regular grammar and it’s fully expressive. That last part means that you can use it to talk about anything you might want to talk about, not just specific domains.

When two cultures first collide, traders will develop a ‘pidgin’, using words from both source languages. Pidgins are not languages, but are useful to communicate for trade purposes. Over time, the next generations of these people may deepen, extend, and regularize the pidgin to become a fully expressive language. This new language-with-two-parents is called a Creole.

I have no idea if Chinglish is an actual Creole, or if it’s just like my French Canadian relatives randomly inserting English nouns into their speech because they are fluent in both languages, but maybe this description can help those of you who speak it to decide.

[Apologies if I’m being a Reply Guy — I just find this stuff really interesting]

@jvschrag @chu @atomicpoet @mayintoronto this is all pretty interesting in the Quebec context. I don't think there's enough vocab to make it a language in the linguistics sense. Also the Office Québécoise de la langue française sometimes makes up words that France just steals (the classic example being weekend vs fin de semaine). I think chiac (an Acadian French) is more different.

English Quebecers have an accent and a few words but not so many I think. (Dépanneur is one.) Being close to US accents means that many people understand it.

@atomicpoet @mayintoronto

I am halfway through my first pot of tea so have enough brain energy now (don't worry, these are small little Chinese pots and little cups... lol)

Looping back to the discussion earlier about whether or not Chinglish is its own language... (note: I am not a linguist, and merely coming at this from a communications angle... of which they did grant me a phd recently so it's not totally based on nothing).

There's a joke you've probably heard somewhere. What's the difference between a language and a dialect? (A language has currencies and armies)

If we weren't conquered by the Ming dynasty, Cantonese and Mandarin are so incredibly different, they would legit be considered distinct languages. But alas, we lost so we get dialect status.

The linguists have a "drop in" test where if you take one person who doesn't speak the other and "drop them in", can they understand and be understood. I heard Finnish and Swedish can mutually understand for example.

So here's where that test gets interesting.

You may recall that before COVID, HK was going through quite a bit of turmoil with democracy protests in what would be known as the yellow umbrella movement.

The gov was using rioting and violence as an excuse to clamp down and arrest people. The organizers insisted the were not encouraging violence (and indeed told people not to give the gov an excuse to arrest them). There were accusations that Beijing was sending down Cantonese speakers from Guandong to act as saboteurs. They would intentionally smash windows and get the violence going kind of thing.

So, the organizers used social media to let people know where the next protest would be, but encoded it in very HK speak. There's a combination of using English sounds in Chinese and vice versa. I don't even fully get all the code. But I can give you a simple example.

的 means belonging to. 我的手 simply means "my hand". 的士 is soooo HK. It is a transliteration for "taxi" because it sounds so similar "dik see".

There's a pop song right now that is popular and there's mention of a 飛的 (flying 的 aka speeding taxi). For anyone outside of HK, that means NOTHING. The words are gibberish that makes no sense in written form. Now multiply this example by a million little things that I can't even wrap my head around. Add this to local slang that just comes about organically too (think place names or local events that will influence this).

Does it count as its own language? Certainly not yet... but there's enough encoded Chinglish that they at least believed it was enough to confuse the saboteurs.
But you can see how over time, this kind of stuff branches away from how Canto would traditionally be spoken and really becomes its own thing where nobody outside of this little island can understand.

It's different now with rapid communication so isolated growth isn't possible the way it used to be but Creole was born in a similar way I'm sure.

But I did want to share this little tidbit how despite being only a strait apart, there are enough linguistic peculiarities that they can openly post a notice and not have it understood by a population they all recognize they descended from.

@atomicpoet @mayintoronto

Another thing to add to this discussion:

Chu 朱 (@chu@climatejustice.social)

Attached: 1 image Chinese speakers, please give me your two cents on this one. (Non Chinese speakers can feel free to chime in too). Friend excitedly sent this image to one of our chat groups. I responded quite negatively to it. Here's a bit of history and background. The 她 didn't exist in history. It was an introduction by the white man who insisted that Chinese have a gendered pronoun to make their translations easier. It's only been in the language for 100 years or so. Here are the two school of thoughts so far. 1) HK LGBTQ folks - We know the 她 didn't exist historically but language evolves and the 他 doesn't represent us. We like this new radical with the x 2) Chinese diaspora (including some Queer folks. I want to add that this group contains some people who have been heavily involved in land back and pro palestine protests and are therefore more acutely aware of White supremacy and hegemony) - Look, if the 她 had evolved organically, fine. But it was an imposition of the white man. Taking on the x radical rather than throwing out the 她 is an acceptance of the hegemony of the white man and his will over a language and culture that predates their own by literally thousands of years. Don't do this. Throw out the effing 她 and go back to a culture that we in the diaspora are finally learning to take pride in. I am more than happy to hear other opinions.

Climate Justice Social (climatejustice.social)

Chu 朱 May Likes Toronto Found a similar track on r/Cantopop!

Same code switching from Cantonese and English. Mentions of Richmond and Aberdeen.

Apparently her name is Chloe Chan and she made this in 2022? Also, based on a Google search, she hosted an event called RichCity Idol back in 2017.

My wife says there’s mentions of playing badminton and late night food.

Just one problem. There’s lots of Chloe Chans in Richmond. But I did find one who’s a musician and works at a creative agency. So I emailed her to ask if she made this song, and if there are others like it.

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