nope, mainland. Actually some of it might've filtered in if you're around family who speak it often...I'm trying to teach myself more of it and finding that I knew more than I thought I knew. =)
I can say some words in canto. Words that are absolutely useless, like 'fat girl' and 'pork spare ribs' and chinese buns and things like that. But mandarin is a lot different, and the parents, if I must learn an oriental language, want me to learn Mandarin instead of canto because canto is dying out.
Aside: why are there so many different dialects? I know that cantonese is also called 'namsoon' or it is by the speakers of Chinese in Mauritius. I know there's a different kind of Chinese called Hakka or something like that. And then there's Mandarin which is dissimilar to both. It's rather disconcerting.
I think it's partly like Europe...it might've been interesting if Napoleon (or Charlemange) actually succeeded in uniting everybody, we'd all be speaking a form of 'French'. But in essence I think that's what happened with Chinese.
Yes I did, actually. :) Wish I understood any of what they were saying. I insisted on watching it in its original mandarin. My sister folded when she heard the language. It was beauty, really.
Hee! It's actually an interesting fairytale of chinese history. That emporer is the one that basically united all of the various kingdoms; but via a scorched-earth policy in reference to the other cultures...that's why the people that hated him the most, that wanted to kill him the most, were artisans.
Because half of them aren't really dialects, but their own separate language. Ancient China started as a small kingdom ('Hero' is surprisingly accurate in some ways) that rapidly expanded and conquered 'non-Chinese' people, then forced them to speak only the Chinese language. Eventually everybody had sex till we mostly look alike, but the diverse original ethnic groups survive in the different Chinese dialects. And then you get into the Chinese diaspora and how Chinese settlers merged their native dialects with the languages of foreign countries, and the various barbarian invasions from Russia, which added their languages...
Also, China's geography meant that a lot of regions were pretty separated from each other until modern times. It wasn't v. easy to travel from north to south--most of the rivers run east-west, and same for the mountain ranges. There wasn't really a Mississippi River either--both the Yellow and the Yangtze (two biggest rivers in China) have large sections of rapids that were impossible to cross till modern times). That's why a lot of perceived differences between intra-Chinese groups are associated with north or south.
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Aside: why are there so many different dialects? I know that cantonese is also called 'namsoon' or it is by the speakers of Chinese in Mauritius. I know there's a different kind of Chinese called Hakka or something like that. And then there's Mandarin which is dissimilar to both. It's rather disconcerting.
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wait, didja ever see Hero?
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Because half of them aren't really dialects, but their own separate language. Ancient China started as a small kingdom ('Hero' is surprisingly accurate in some ways) that rapidly expanded and conquered 'non-Chinese' people, then forced them to speak only the Chinese language. Eventually everybody had sex till we mostly look alike, but the diverse original ethnic groups survive in the different Chinese dialects. And then you get into the Chinese diaspora and how Chinese settlers merged their native dialects with the languages of foreign countries, and the various barbarian invasions from Russia, which added their languages...
Also, China's geography meant that a lot of regions were pretty separated from each other until modern times. It wasn't v. easy to travel from north to south--most of the rivers run east-west, and same for the mountain ranges. There wasn't really a Mississippi River either--both the Yellow and the Yangtze (two biggest rivers in China) have large sections of rapids that were impossible to cross till modern times). That's why a lot of perceived differences between intra-Chinese groups are associated with north or south.