Friday, October 16, 2009

Languages of Malaysia













Malay language





Bahasa Rojak



The term Bahasa Rojak (Malay for "mixed language") defines the Malaysian practice of code-switching among two or more languages on a Malay base.





History



Warning signs at Malaysian electrical substations still use six of the country's most common languages: (from top to bottom: Sign Language, Malay, English,Chinese (traditional), Tamil and Punjabi.
Rojak Language of Malaysia can be traced from the early Malacca of Parameswara at year 1402, an international port where more than 80 languages from a variety of cultures were spoken. Worldwide traders, settlers and original dwellers speaking multiple languages in a conversation was so common. According to the Encyclopedia of Malaysia (Languages and Literature), this was part of the contact languages, a pidgin, known in modern Malaysia as Rojak Language. The uniqueness of Rojak Language is in its code-switching style, a person who speaks Rojak Language may begin with Bahasa Malaysia and then continue with English, then mixed one or two words in Cantonese, garnished with Tamil and finished with Mandarin or some fashionable Japanese words. During Parameswara's time, when two groups of traders without a shared language met, they would speak any possible languages to get the best results in understanding each others, and the result may be a pidgin or Rojak. To understand the origin of Rojak Language of Malaysia, one may need to read the history of Malaysia especially the Malacca of Parameswara. In the early 1500s, Portuguese visitor Tome Pires found in Malacca "Moors from Cairo, Mecca, Aden, Abyssinians, men of Kilwa, Malindi, Ormuz, Parsis, Rumi [Turks living abroad], Turks, Turkomans, Christian Armenians, Gujaratis, men of Chaul, Dabhol, Goa, of the kingdom of Deccan, Malabars and Klings, merchants from Orissa, Ceylon, Bengal, Arakan, Pegu, Siamese, men of Kedah, Malays, men of Penang, Patani, Cambodia, Champa, Cochin China, Chinese, men from Liu Kiu [Formosa] and Brunei, Luzonese, men of Tamjompura, Laue, Bangka, Lingga (and in this area 1000 more Islands are known), from the Moluccas, Banda, Bima, Timor, Madura, Java, Sunda, Palembang, Jambi, Tongkal, Indragiri, Kappatta, Menangkabau, Siak, Arcat, Aru, Bata, from the country of the Tomjano, Pase, Pedir, from the Maldives." These peoples come to Malacca with junks, pangajavas and ships, and by 1511, Malacca had a population of 50,000 people, including a resident trade community that spoke 84 languages.



Malaysian English



Malaysian English (MyE), formally known as Malaysian Standard English (MySE), is a form of English used and spoken in Malaysia as a second language. Malaysian English should not be confused with Malaysian Colloquial English which is famously known as Manglish or Street English, a portmanteau of the word Malay and English.





Varieties of English in Malaysia

According to The Encyclopedia of Malaysia: Languages & Literature, p 61, English in Malaysia has been categorized into three levels: the acrolect, mesolect and basilect. The acrolect is near-native, and not many Malaysians fall into this category - only those educated in core English-speaking countries from early schooling up to university may be found to speak the acrolect variety, so only tiny percentage of Malaysians are proficient in it. As with other similar situations, a continuum exists between these three varieties and speakers may code-switchbetween them depending on context.
Most academics, professionals and other English-educated Malaysians, speak mesolect English. Malaysian English belongs to mesolect, and it is Malaysian English that is used in daily interaction.
However, in truth most Malaysians on the street speak Manglish on a daily basis. Therefore this means Manglish is actually short for Malaysian English. Manglish can be spoken almost using completely English words alone just that they are used differently. Imported words are actually minimal except for just a a handful of common non-English nouns and verbs in Malaysia. Manglish or Malaysian English is therefore a matter of style of usage.
There are indeed colloquial words not common outside of Malaysia but that does not render them a part of English. They are used colloquially as substitutes in other languages in Malaysia as well.
At other times, using Malay grammar on English words, speaking English using Chinese grammar, or mixing grammar and words that don't belong together can be done quite spontaneously and be quite amusing. Hence, it would not be accurate to list down all words and meanings and package them as a new form of language as is sometimes done by authors to have enough content for a coffee table book.


Malaysian English and British English

In the first half of the 20th century, Malaysian English was exactly similar to British English (BrE) (albeit spoken with a Malaysian accent). However in the post-colonial era (after 1957), the influx of American TV programmes has influenced the usage of Malaysian English. There is no official language board, council or organisation to ensure the correct and standard usage of Malaysian English, because after independence, Malay replaced English as the official language. The University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate continues, however, to set and mark the GCE O-Level English Language "1119" paper which is a compulsory subject for the Malaysian Certificate of Education (the English Language paper set by the Malaysian Ministry of Education is the same as the English Language "1119" paper for GCE O-Level).
Unofficially, however, NST English (named after the New Straits Times, the oldest English language daily in Malaysia) is often used as the reference point for Malaysian English.[citation needed]







Manglish



Manglish (or sometimes Malglish or Mangled English) is an English based creole spoken in Malaysia and it is a portmanteau of the word Malay and English (also possibly Mandarin and English).
The vocabulary of Manglish consists of words originating from English, Malay, Hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese, Tamil, and to a lesser extent various other European languages, while Manglish syntax resembles southern varieties of Chinese. Also, elements of American and Australian slang have come through from imported television series.
The Malaysian Manglish is sometimes known as Rojak or Bahasa Rojak, but it differs from the Rojak language by the usage of English as the base language. The East Coast versions (Kelantan and Terengganu) of Manglish may differ greatly, as their accent of Malay and the jargon are particularly alien to regular Malaysian (West Coast) speakers. Such is shown evidently in the film 'Baik Punya Cilok' where a character spoke in an authentic Terengganu Manglish.






Malaysian Mandarin


Malaysian Mandarin (Chinese: 马来西亚華語) is Mandarin (Putonghua) of China but very much different in tone. The difference can be as similar as British English and Malaysian English. Malaysian Mandarin and Singaporean Mandarin are very close, the language was widely used in films created by Singaporean movie director Jack Neo.
Malaysian Mandarin speakers seldom translate local terms or names to Mandarin when they speak. They would prefer to say, for instance, the street name "Jalan Bukit Kepong" to better communicate with local Malaysians, whereas a citizen of China would most probably pronounce it as "Re-lan Wu-ji Jia-tong" to communicate with Chinese citizens.


Tamil (தமிழ் tamiḻ; IPA: [t̪əmɨɻ]) is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It hasofficial status in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore. Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities in Malaysia, Mauritius and Réunionas well as emigrant communities around the world.[1] It is the administrative language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and the first Indian language to be declared as a classical language by the government of India in 2004.

Tamil literature has existed for over two thousand years.[7] The earliest epigraphic records found date from around the third centuryBCE.[8] The earliest period of Tamil literature, Sangam literature, is dated from the 300 BCE – 300 CE.[9][10] Inscriptions in Tamil Language from 1st century BCE and 2nd century CE have been discovered in Egypt and Thailand.[11][12] The first two ancient manuscripts from India,[13][14] to be acknowledged and registered by UNESCO Memory of the World register in 1997 & 2005 were in Tamil.[15] More than 55% of the epigraphical inscriptions – about 55,000 – found by the Archaeological Survey of India in India are in the Tamil language.[16] According to a 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies


Classification

Main article: Dravidian languages
Tamil belongs to southern branch of the Dravidian languages, a family of around twenty-six languages native to the Indian subcontinent.[18] It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family, which alongside Tamil proper, also includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups[19] such as the Irula, and Yerukula languages (see SIL Ethnologue).
The closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam. Until about the ninth century, Malayalam was a dialect of Tamil[20] Although many of the differences between Tamil and Malayalam evidence a pre-historic split of the western dialect,[21] the process of separation into distinct language, Malayalam was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century


Geographic distribution

Distribution of Tamil speakers in South India and Sri Lanka (1961).
Tamil is the first language of the majority in Tamil Nadu, India and Northern Province, Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. The language is spoken by small groups of minorities in other parts of these two countries such as Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra in case of India and Colombo,the hill country, in case of Sri Lanka.
There are currently sizable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, Réunion, South Africa,Indonesia[59], Thailand[60], Burma, and Vietnam. Many in Guyana, Fiji, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins,[61] but only a small number speak the language. Groups of more recent migrants from Sri Lanka and India exist in Canada (especially Toronto), USA, Australia, manyMiddle Eastern countries, and most of the western European countries.


Writing system

Main article: Tamil script
See also: Vatteluttu and Grantha script
History of Tamil script.
Tamil is written using a script called the vaṭṭeḻuttu. The Tamil script consists of 12 vowels, 18 consonants and one special character, the āytam. The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters. All consonants have an inherent vowel a, as with other Indic scripts. This inherency is removed by adding an overdot called a puḷḷi, to the consonantal sign. For example, ன is ṉa (with the inherent a) and ன் is ṉ (without a vowel). Many Indic scripts have a similar sign, generically called virama, but the Tamil script is somewhat different in that it nearly always uses a visible puḷḷi to indicate a dead consonant (a consonant without a vowel). In other Indic scripts, it is generally preferred to use a ligature or a half form to write a syllable or a cluster containing a dead consonant, although writing it with a visible virama is also possible. The Tamil script does not differentiate voiced and unvoiced plosives. Instead, plosives are articulated with voice depending on their position in a word, in accordance with the rules of Tamil phonology.
An eleventh century vaṭṭeḻuttuinscription, from the Brihadisvara temple in Thanjavur
In addition to the standard characters, six characters taken from the Grantha script, which was used in the Tamil region to write Sanskrit, are sometimes used to represent sounds not native to Tamil, that is, words adopted from Sanskrit, Prakrit and other languages. The traditional system prescribed by classical grammars for writing loan-words, which involves respelling them in accordance with Tamil phonology, remains, but is not always consistently applied.[78]

















Punjabi language


Punjabi or Panjabi (ਪੰਜਾਬੀ in Gurmukhi script, پنجابی in Shahmukhi script, Pañjābī in transliteration) is an Indo-Aryan languagespoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region (in Pakistan and north western India).
According to the Ethnologue 2005 estimate[1], there are 88 million native speakers of the Punjabi language, which makes it approximately the 11th most widely spoken language in the world. According to the 2008 Census of Pakistan[4], there are 76,335,300 native speakers of (Various Dialects) Punjabi in Pakistan and according to the Census of India, there are 29,102,477 (Eastern Dialects) Punjabi speakers in India[5].
Punjabi language has many different dialects, spoken in the different sub-regions of greater Punjab. The Majhi dialect is Punjabi'sprestige dialect, and is spoken in the historical region of Majha,[6] which spans East-central districts of Pakistani Punjab and theIndian State of Punjab.
Along with Lahnda and Western Pahari languages, Punjabi is unusual among modern Indo-European languages in being a tonal language.[7][8][9][10]
The Language Punjabi today generally refers to "Eastern Punjabi" based on the Majhi ,Malwi and Doabi dialects.


History

Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language like many other modern languages of South Asia. The Punjabi language is a descendant ofSauraseni Prakrit, which was the chief language of medieval northern India[11][12][13]
Punjabi emerged as an independent language in the 11th century from the Sauraseni Apabhramsa.[14] The literary tradition in Punjabi started with Fariduddin Ganjshakar (Baba Farid)(1173-1266), many ancient Sufi mystics and later Guru Nanak Dev ji, the first Guru of the Sikhism. The early Punjabi literature was principally spiritual in nature and has had a very rich oral tradition. The poetry written by Sufi saints has been the folklore of the Punjab and is still sung with great love in any part of Punjab.
Between 1600 and 1850, Muslim Sufi, Sikh and Hindu writers composed many works in Punjabi. The most famous Punjabi Sufi poet was Baba Bulleh Shah (1680 – 1757), wrote in the Kafi style. Bulleh Shah practiced the Sufi tradition of Punjabi poetry established by poets like Shah Hussain (1538 – 1599), Sultan Bahu (1629 – 1691), and Shah Sharaf (1640 – 1724). His lifespan also overlapped with the legendary Punjabi poet Waris Shah (1722 – 1798), of Heer Ranjha fame. Waris Shah's rendition of the tragic love story of Heer Ranjha is among the most popular medieval Punjabi works. Other popular tragic love stories are Sohni Mahiwal, Mirza Sahiba and Sassi Punnun. Shah Mohammad's Jangnama is another fine piece of poetry that gives an eyewitness account of the First Anglo-Sikh War that took place after the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
The linguist George Abraham Grierson in his multivolume Linguistic Survey of India (1904-1928) used the word "Punjabi" to refer to several languages spoken in the Punjab region: the term "Western Punjabi" (ISO 639-3 pnb) covered dialects (now designated separate languages) spoken to the west of Montgomery and Gujranwala districts, while "Eastern Punjabi" referred to what is now simply called Punjabi (ISO 639-3 pan)[15] After Saraiki, Pothohari and Hindko (earlier categorized as "Western Punjabi") got the status of separate languages, the percentage of Punjabi speakers in Pakistan decreased from 59% to 44%.

[edit]Association with the Sikhs

Punjabi is not the predominant language of the Sikh scriptures (which are written in several dialects, though in Gurmukhi script).[16] A few portions of Guru Granth Sahib use the Punjabi dialects, but the book is interspersed with several other languages including old Hindi languages (such as Brajbhasha and Khariboli), Sanskrit and Persian.[17] Guru Gobind Singh, the last Guru of the Sikhs composed Chandi di Var in Punjabi, although most of his works are composed in other languages like Braj bhasha and Persian.
However, in the 20th century, the Punjabi-speaking Sikhs started attaching importance to the Punjabi written in the Gurmukhi script as a symbol of their distinct identity.[16] The Punjabi identity was affected by the communal sentiments in the 20th century. Bhai Vir Singh, a major figure in the movement for the revival of Punjabi literary tradition, started insisting that the Punjabi language was the exclusive preserve of the Sikhs.[18] After the partition of India, the Punjab region was divided between Pakistan and India. Although the Punjab people formed the biggest linguistic group in Pakistan, Urdu was declared the national language of Pakistan, and Punjabi did not get any official status. The Indian Punjab, which then also included what are now Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, became Hindi-majority.
In the 1960s, the Shiromani Akali Dal proposed "Punjabi Suba", a state for Punjabi speakers in India. Paul R. Brass, the Professor Emeritus of Political Science and South Asian Studies at the University of Washington, opines that the Sikh leader Fateh Singh tactically stressed the linguistic basis of the demand, while downplaying the religious basis for the demand—a state where the distinct Sikh identity could be preserved.[16] The movement for a Punjabi Suba led to trifurcation of Indian Punjab into three states: Punjab (India), Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.


The Punjabi Diaspora

Punjabi is also spoken as a minority language in several other countries where Punjabis have emigrated in large numbers, such as the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom (where it is the second most commonly used language[21]) and Canada, where in recent times Punjabi has grown fast and has now become the fourth most spoken language.[22]. Punjabi is the 2nd most common language in the UK after English and the 4th most common spoken language in Canada after English, French and Chinese.

[edit]List in order of native speakers

RankCountryFirst language
1 Pakistan76,335,300
2India Republic of India29,109,672
3 United Kingdom2,300,000
4 Canada800,000
5 United Arab Emirates720,000
6 United States640,000
7 Saudi Arabia620,000
8 Hong Kong260,000
9 Malaysia185,000
10 South Africa140,000
11 Myanmar120,000
12 France90,000
13 Italy80,000
14 Thailand75,000
15 Japan75,000
16 Mauritius70,000
17 Singapore70,000
18 Oman68,000
19 Libya65,000
20 Bahrain60,000
21 Kenya55,000
22 Australia50,000
23 Tanzania45,000
24 Kuwait40,000
25 Germany35,000


Javanese language


Javanese language (Javanese: básá Jáwá, Indonesian: bahasa Jawa) is the language of the people in the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. In addition, there are also some pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java. It is the native language of more than 75,500,000 people.
The Javanese language is part of the Austronesian family, and is therefore related to Indonesian and other Malay varieties. Many speakers of Javanese also speak Indonesian for official and commercial purposes and to communicate with non-Javanese Indonesians.
Outside Indonesia, there are large communities of Javanese-speaking people in the neighbouring countries such as East Timor, Malaysia,Singapore, Australia, and also Hong Kong and Taiwan. In addition there are also Javanese-speaking people in Suriname, the Netherlands, andNew Caledonia. The Javanese speakers in Malaysia are especially found in the states of Selangor and Johor. For distribution in other parts, as far as Suriname, see Demographic distribution of Javanese speakers below.


Introduction



This is a Map of where Javanese is spoken. Dark green is where it is spoken as a major language. Light green is where it is a minority language.
Javanese belongs to the Sundic sub-branch of the Western Malayo-Polynesian (also called Hesperonesian) branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subfamily of the Austronesian super family. It is a close linguistic relative of Malay, Sundanese, Madurese, Balinese, and to a lesser extent, of various Sumatranand Borneo languages, including Malagasy and Filipino.
Javanese is spoken in Central and East Java, as well as on the north coast of West Java. In Madura, Bali, Lombok and the Sunda region of West Java, Javanese is also used as a literary language. It was the court language in Palembang, South Sumatra, until their palace was sacked by the Dutch in the late 18th century.
Javanese can be regarded as one of the classical languages of the world, with a vast literature spanning more than 12 centuries. Scholars divide the development of Javanese language in four different stages:
  • Old Javanese, from the 9th century
  • Middle Javanese, from the 13th century
  • New Javanese, from the 16th century
  • Modern Javanese, from 20th century (this classification is not used universally)
Javanese is written with the Javanese script (a descendant of the Brahmi script of India), Arabo-Javanese script, Arabic script (modified for Javanese) and Latin script.[1]
Although not currently an official language anywhere, Javanese is the Austronesian language with the largest number of native speakers. It is spoken or understood by approximately 80 million people. At least 45% of the total population of Indonesia are of Javanese descent or live in an area where Javanese is the dominant language. Four out of five Indonesian presidents since 1945 are of Javanese descent. It is therefore not surprising that Javanese has a deep impact on the development of Indonesian, the national language of Indonesia, which is a modern dialect of Malay.
There are three main dialects of Modern Javanese: Central Javanese, Eastern Javanese and Western Javanese. There is a dialect continuum from Banten in the extreme west of Java toBanyuwangi, in the foremost eastern corner of the island. All Javanese dialects are more or less mutually intelligible.










Minangkabau language




The Minangkabau language (autonym: Baso Minang(kabau); Indonesian: Bahasa Minangkabau) is an Austronesian language, spoken by theMinangkabau-people of West Sumatra, in the western part of Riau and in several cities throughout Indonesia by migrated Minangkabau, who often trade or have a restaurant. It is also spoken in a part of Malaysia.
Due to great grammatical similarities between the Minangkabau language and Malay, there is some controversy regarding the relationship between the two. Some see Minangkabau as a dialect of Malay, while others think of Minangkabau as a proper (Malay) language.


Malaysia

Besides West Sumatra and western Riau, Minangkabau is also spoken in Malaysia, by some descendants of migrants from the Minang-speaking region in Sumatra (Tanah Minang, or Land of the Minang). Significant numbers of the early migrants settled in what is now the Malaysian state of Negeri Sembilan, which is kown as "Baso Nogoghi" The language is also a lingua franca along the western coastal region of the province of North Sumatra, and is even used in parts of Aceh, where the language is called Aneuk Jamee.



Dialects

The Minangkabau language has several dialects, sometimes differing between nearby villages (e.g. separated by a river). In everyday communication between Minangkabau people of different regions, the Padang-dialect (Baso Padang or Baso Urang Awak "our (people's) language") is often used and has become a kind of standard.






Southern Thai language


Southern Thai or Dambro (Thai: ภาษาไทยใต้, IPA: pʰaːsaː tʰajɗaj; Thai: ภาษาตามโปร, IPA: pʰaːsaː ɗaːmbro) is a Tai language spoken in the 14changwat of Southern Thailand as well as by small communities in the northernmost Malaysian states. It is spoken by roughly five million people, and as a second language by the 1.5 million speakers of Pattani Malay and other ethnic groups such as the local Thai Chinese communities,Negritos, and other tribal groups. Most speakers are also fluent or understand the standard Thai language.





Distribution

In Thailand, speakers of Southern Thai can be found from as far north as Prachuap Khiri Khan Province all the way down to the border withMalaysia. Small numbers of speakers can be found in the Malaysian border states, especially Kelantan, Penang, Perlis, Kedah, and Perak. It is the primary language of Thai people as well as ethnically Malay people on both sides of the Thai-Malaysian border, who often use it as a second language. Although numerous regional variations exist and there is no one standard, the language is most distinct near the Malaysian border, but all varieties remain mutually intelligible to each other. For economic reasons, many speakers of Southern Thai have moved to Bangkok and other Thai cities or to the Middle East, where many speakers share Islam as a professed religion.


History

Malay kingdoms ruled much of the Malay Peninsula, such as the Pattani Kingdom and Tambralinga, but most of the area fell under the rule of Srivijaya. The area was heavily influenced by the culture of Indian traders, and numerous Buddhist and Hindu shrines attest to the diffusion of culture. The collapse of Srivijaya was filled by the growth of the Kingdom of Nakhon Sri Thammaraj, which subsequently became a vassal of Sukhothai. The area has been a frontier between the northern Tai peoples and the southern Malay peoples as well as between Buddhism and Islam. The tensions fuelled by brutal Thaification policies, suppression of local culture, and general poverty has lead to the current South Thailand insurgency.


Yue (Chinese: 粵語, Cantonese: Jyut6 jyu5 / Yuht Yúh, Mandarin: Yuè Yǔ[3]) is a primary branch of the Chinese language comprising a number of dialects spoken in southern China mainly in the provinces of Guandong and Guangxi, the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, and in various overseas communities. The English name "Cantonese" is sometimes taken to refer to the dialect of Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macau, which has emerged as the prestige variety of Cantonese.
The issue of whether Yue should be regarded as a language in its own right or as a dialect of a Chinese language depends on conceptions of what a language is. Like the other primary branches of Chinese, Yue is considered to be a dialect of a single Chinese language for ethnic and cultural reasons, but is also considered a language in its own right because it is mutually unintelligible with other varieties of Chinese.
The exact number of Yue speakers is unknown due to a lack of statistics and census data. The areas with the highest concentration of speakers are Guangdong and parts of Guangxi in southern mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau; with Cantonese- and Taishanese-speaking minorities in Southeast Asia, Canada, and the United States.[4]




Use outside China

Historically, the majority of the overseas Chinese have originated from just two provinces; Fujian and Guangdong. This has resulted in the overseas Chinese having a far higher proportion of Fujian and Guangdong languages/dialect speakers than Chinese speakers in China as a whole. More recent emigration from Fujian and Hong Kong have continued this trend.
The largest number of Cantonese speakers outside mainland China and Hong Kong are in south east Asia; however, speakers of Min dialects are predominate among the overseas Chinese in south east Asia.[citation needed] The Cantonese spoken in Singapore and Malaysia is also known to have borrowed substantially from Malay and other languages.


20th century

In the Cantonese-speaking region of mainland China, Mandarin is used for official functions in recent years, while Cantonese is used in daily life.
In Hong Kong, Cantonese is the dominant language and is used everywhere, including education, the government, media and business dealings.
Nowadays, Mandarin being the medium of education on the mainland, many youngsters in the Cantonese speaking region in mainland China do not know specific historical and scientific vocabularies in Cantonese but do know social, cultural, entertainment, commercial, trading, and all other vocabularies[citation needed]. Cantonese is widely spoken and learned by overseas Chinese of Guangdong and Hong Kong origin.
The popularity of Cantonese-language media and entertainment from Hong Kong has led to a wide and frequent exposure of Cantonese to large portions of China and the rest of Asia.Cantopop and the Hong Kong film industry are prominent examples of modern Cantonese language media.




The Yue language includes several dialects, some of which are only partially mutually intelligible. In the classification of J.M. Campbell,[10] they are:
  • Cantonese proper, Guangfu (廣府粵語) or Yuehai (粵海粵語), which includes the language of Guangzhou and the surrounding areas of Zhongshan, Wuzhou, and Foshan, as well asHong Kong and Macau;
  • Sìyì (四邑粵語 Seiyap), exemplified by the Taishan dialect (台山粵語), also known as Taishanese, which was ubiquitous in American Chinatowns before ca 1970;
  • Gaoyang (高陽粵語), spoken in Yangjiang;
  • Wuhua (吳化粵語 Ngfaa), spoken mainly in western Guangdong;
  • Goulou (勾漏粵語 Ngaulau), spoken in western Guangdong and eastern Guangxi, which includes the dialect of Yulin, Guangxi;
  • Yongxun (邕潯粵語 Jungcam), spoken mainly in Guangxi and its capital Nanning;
  • Qinlian (欽廉粵語 Jamlim), spoken in southern Guangxi, which includes the Beihai dialect;
  • Danzhou (儋州話), which includes the dialect of Changjiang
  • Haihua (海話), the dialect of Lianjiang
Formerly Pinghua (廣西平話), spoken in central Guangxi, was considered Yue, but it was designated a separate primary branch of Chinese by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in the 1980s,[11] a classification generally followed in the west.
The Canton/Guangzhou dialect of Yuehai is the prestige dialect and social standard of Yue, and historically the word "Cantonese" has referred specifically to this dialect.
Standard Mandarin is the medium of instruction in the state education system in Mainland China but in Chinese schools in Hong Kong and Macau, Yue is the oral language of instruction. It is used extensively in Yue-speaking households, Yue-language media (Hong Kong films, television serials, and Cantopop), isolation from the other regions of China, local identity, and the non-Mandarin speaking Yue diaspora in Hong Kong and abroad give the language a unique identity. Most wuxia 武俠 films from Canton are filmed originally in Yue and then dubbed or subtitled in Mandarin, English, or both.

[edit]Canton dialect

Main article: Canton dialect
The Canton–Hong Kong dialect is the prestige dialect of Guangdong province, and the de facto official language of Hong Kong. It is the most widely spoken dialect of Yue, spoken in Canton (Guangzhou), Hong Kong, and Macau, and is the lingua franca of not only Guangdong province, but of overseas Cantonese emigrants, though in many areas abroad it is numerically second to the Taishanese dialect of Yue. It forms the basis of Standard Cantonese.





Penang Hokkien

Penang Hokkien is a local variant of Hokkien spoken in Penang, Malaysia. It is the lingua franca in Penang as well as other northern states of Malaysia surrounding it, and is characterised by the pronunciation of words according to the Zhangzhou (漳州) dialect, together with widespread use of Malay and English borrowed words. It is predominantly a spoken dialect: it is rarely written in Chinese characters, and there is no standard romanisation. This article uses the Missionary Romanisation or Pe̍h-ōe-jī (白話字) which is common in Taiwan.
Minnan is one of the sub-languages of the Chinese language and is mainly spoken in southern Fujian, Taiwan, Hainan and parts of Guangdong, with the main standard dialects being Hokkien, Teochew and Hainanese. It is also spoken by many overseas Chinese in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Penang Hokkien is based on the dialect of Hokkien spoken in the Zhangzhou (漳州 Hokkien: Chiang1-chiu1) prefecture of Fujian. It is said that it most closely resembles the dialect spoken in the district of Haicang (海滄) in Longhai (龍海 Hokkien: Liong5-hai2) county and in the districts of Jiaomei (角美) and Xinglin (杏林) in neighbouring Xiamen prefecture. In Southeast Asia, similar dialects are spoken in the states bordering Penang, and in Medan. In contrast, in southern Malaysia and Singapore, many Hokkien speakers speak a dialect based on the Amoy standard. However, despite a few vocabulary and pronunciation differences, the dialect should be considered the same in Penang and Singapore as it is mutually intelligible.

read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penang_Hokkien


Fuzhou dialect



Fuzhou dialect (福州話, Foochow Romanized: Cdo fuzhou dialect.ogg Hók-ciŭ-uâ (help·info)), also known as Foochow dialect, Foochow, Foochowese,Fuzhounese, or Fuzhouhua, is considered the standard dialect of Min Dong, which is a branch of Min Chinese mainly spoken in the eastern part of Fujian Province. Native speakers also call it Bàng-uâ (平話), meaning the language spoken in everyday life. In Singapore and Malaysia, the language is known as Hokchiu, which is the Min Dong pronunciation of Fuzhou.
Although traditionally called a dialect, Fuzhou dialect is actually a separate language according to linguistic standards, because it is not mutually intelligible with other Min languages, let alone other Chinese languages. Therefore, whether Fuzhou dialect is a dialect or a language is highly disputable.
Centered in Fuzhou City, Fuzhou dialect mainly covers eleven cities and counties, viz.: Fuzhou (福州), Pingnan (屏南), Gutian (古田), Luoyuan(羅源), Minqing (閩清), Lianjiang (連江, Matsu included), Minhou (閩侯), Changle (長樂), Yongtai (永泰), Fuqing (福清) and Pingtan (平潭). Fuzhou dialect is also the second local language in northern and middle Fujian cities and counties, like Nanping (南平), Shaowu (邵武),Shunchang (順昌), Sanming (三明) and Youxi (尤溪).
Fuzhou dialect is also widely spoken in some regions abroad, especially in Southeastern Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. The city of Sibu in Malaysia is called "New Fuzhou" due to the influx of immigrants there in the early 1900s. Similarly, the language has spread to the USA, UK and Japan as a result of immigration in recent decades.


History

[edit]Formation



The authoritative Foochow rime book Qī Lín Bāyīn
After Han China's occupation of Minyue (閩越) in 110 BC, Han people began populating in what is Fujian Province today. Having lost their nationalities, the aboriginal Minyue people, a branch of Yue peoples (百越), were gradually assimilated into Chinese culture.[1] The Ancient Wu andAncient Chu language brought by the mass influx of Han immigrants from Northern area gradually mixed with the local Minyue language and finally developed into the Ancient Min language, from which Fuzhou dialect evolved.[2]
Fuzhou dialect came into being during the period somewhere between late Tang Dynasty and "Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms"[3], and has been considered by most as a Chinese dialectever since. However, it is also worth noting that its substratum is constituted by large quantities of well-preserved Minyue vocabulary. In this sense, Fuzhou dialect is a de facto mixed languageof Ancient Chinese and Minyue language.[citation needed]
The famous book Qī Lín Bāyīn (戚林八音, Foochow Romanized: Chék Lìng Báik-ĭng), which was compiled in the 17th century, is the first and the most full-scale rime book that provides a systematic guide to character reading for people speaking or learning Fuzhou dialect. It once served to standardize the language and is still widely quoted as an authoritative reference book in modern academic research in Chinese phonology.


Writing system

[edit]Chinese characters



Foochow Bible in Chinese Characters, published by China Bible House in 1940.
Most of the characters of Fuzhou dialect stem from Ancient Chinese and can therefore be written in Chinese characters. Many books published in Qing Dynasty have been written in this traditional way, such as the famous Mǐndū Biéjì (閩都別記, Foochow Romanized: Mìng-dŭ Biék-gé). However, Chinese characters as the writing system for Fuzhou dialect do have many shortcomings.
Firstly, a great number of characters are unique to Fuzhou dialect, so that they can only be written in informal ways. For instance, the character "mâ̤", a negative word, has no common form. Some write it as "賣" or "袂", both of which share with it an identical pronunciation but has a totally irrelevant meaning; and others prefer to use a newly-created character combining "勿" and "會", but this character is not included in most fonts.
Secondly, Fuzhou dialect has been excluded from the educational system for many decades. As a result, many if not all take for granted that Fuzhou dialect does not have a formal writing system and when they have to write it, they tend to misuse characters with a similar Mandarin Chineseenunciation. For example, "會使 (â̤ sāi)", meaning "okay", are frequently written as "阿塞" because they are uttered almost in the same way.

[edit]Foochow Romanized



Bible in Foochow Romanized, published by British and Foreign Bible Society in 1908.
Main article: Foochow Romanized
Foochow Romanized, also known as Bàng-uâ-cê (平話字, BUC for short) or Hók-ciŭ-uâ Lò̤-mā-cê (福州話羅馬字), is a romanized orthography for Fuzhou dialect adopted in the middle of 19th century by American and Englishmissionaries. It had varied at different times, and became standardized several decades later. Foochow Romanized was mainly used inside of Church circles, and was taught in some Mission Schools in Fuzhou







Coastal Kadazan language


The Coastal Kadazan[1] language is a Austronesian language primarily spoken in Sabah, Malaysia. It is the primary language spoken by theKadazan ethnic group.
The language has adopted many loanwords, particularly from other North Borneo indigenous languages and also Malay.
The use of the language has been declining due to the use of Malay by the Malaysian federal government and by the use of English by Britishmissionaries. The state of Sabah has introduced policies to prevent this decline, which is also happening to other native Sabahan languages. This included the policy of using Kadazan and other indigenous languages in public schools. Efforts have also been done to allow the language to become official in the state.



Iban language



The Iban language is spoken by the Iban, a branch of the Dayak ethnic group formerly known as "Sea Dayak" who live in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, the Indonesian province of Kalimantan Barat and in Brunei. It belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, and is related to Malay, more closely to Sarawakian Malay. The Iban language is also a subject tested in PMR and SPM, the Malaysian public examination for Form 3 and Form 5 students respectively. Students comment that questions from these exams mostly cover the classic Iban language, making them a daunting task for many who are more fluent in the contemporary tongue. The language is mostly taught to students in rural areas with a majority Iban population, including Baleh (Kapit), Betong, Saratok, Lubok Antu and Pelagus (Kapit).
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