Written Cantonese

Written Cantonese ( Chinese  粵語 白話文  /  粤语 白话文 , Pinyin Yuèyǔ Báihuàwén , Jyutping Jyut ⁶ jyu ⁵ Baak ⁶ waa ^{6 * 2} man ⁴ , short: 粵 文  /  粤 文 , Yuèwén , Jyutping Jyut ⁶ man ⁴ ) is the written form of Cantonese Language . Classical Chinese was the written language of China until the 19th century . The Chinese dialects did not begin to be written until the 17th century, and it was not until the 20th century that Mandarin was chosen as the basis for the standard written language in all of China, and it was further developed and distributed uniformly to today's modern standard Chinese . The written Mandarin is understandable word for word to the dialect speakers, but differences in expression, grammar and choice of words make reading difficult, so that Cantonese speakers have developed their own script . This goes so far that they have partly created new characters.

By digitizing the Cantonese characters have standardized and widely used.

history

Before the 20th century, classical Chinese was the written language of China. It is based on the old Chinese . While the written language has hardly changed, the spoken language has changed a lot. Texts based on spoken language were rare.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese intellectuals pushed for language reform. They aimed at a written language based on the spoken language, the so-called Baihua ( 白話  /  白话 , Báihuà , Jyutping Baak ⁶ waa ^{6 * 2} ). Due to the political and social successes of the May Fourth Movement and the high number of speakers, Mandarin became the basis of this new written language. The standardization and spread of this written language based on Mandarin, i.e. today's standard Chinese or standard Chinese , hindered the development of a written language in the other Chinese dialects. Their speakers continued to speak in dialect, but they wrote in Standard Chinese (Standard Chinese). From then on, schools learned to speak and write Standard Chinese (Standard Chinese).

However, the situation of Cantonese was different. As a British colony , Hong Kong was less affected by the development and only a few Hong Kong residents spoke standard Chinese ( Pǔtōnghuà , 普通話  /  普通话 , Jyutping Pou ² tung ¹ waa ^{6 * 2} ). Written Cantonese developed as a means of informal communication.

The use of written Cantonese today is mostly concentrated in Hong Kong and Macau . But its informal use can also be found in Guangdong and other parts of the Cantonese-speaking area in southern China . It is mainly used on the Internet .

Cantonese characters

Written Cantonese has many characters that cannot be found in Standard Chinese because they are Cantonese words in their own right that are not used in Standard Chinese.

In the 1990s, the Hong Kong government tried to standardize these signs. She also brought out the Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set . The characters it contains are supported by Unicode .

Creation of characters

The new Cantonese characters were created in several ways:

• Borrow: Standard Chinese characters are given a new meaning.
• Phonetic characters: characters are borrowed and given the “mouth” radical ( 口 ); this makes it clear that the Cantonese word is pronounced the same as the corresponding character in standard Chinese, but does not have the same meaning.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Taiwanese, Mandarin, and Taiwan's language situation. Retrieved October 24, 2017 . 
2. ↑ Don Snow: Cantonese as Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular . Hong Kong University Press, 2004, ISBN 978-962-209-709-4 ( google.de [accessed October 24, 2017]).
3. ↑ OGCIO: Development of the HKSCS. Retrieved October 24, 2017 .