even though china was conquered by manchurian, turk and mongolian dynasties, mandarin was used as lingua franca.

This post has been edited by quintessential: May 7 2010, 09:09 PM

not really....

not trying to be racist but nowadays got more indon people than malay people....

dunno why...



This post has been edited by Panda: May 7 2010, 09:12 PM

so i see here when chinese not talking bad about other race, they talk bad about each other

during my uni 1st yr, my uni fren frm KK learned hokkien.

after a few weeks, his cursing words are like typical hokkien user.

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This post has been edited by Shark1911: May 7 2010, 11:23 PM

We are not like Indon and Msian Melei. Sorry to disappoint.

to be honest... sometimes i feel very sorry and sad when indonesians and malays fight with each others....

They both share the same culture, same skin color, same language (sort of), and same religion...

arent they supposed to be brothers and sisters....??? why fight?

even though cantonese is not the majority in malaysia,
but alot ppl speak cantonese here i think is because of those hk gangster movies and cantopop la....

they wanna impersonate ekin cheng and andy lau...

Your argument could apply to Hakka speaking cantonese case. What about the case of mandarin? We don;t have actually have a sizaeble stock of mandarin dialect group yet Johor is mandarin speaking. Mandarin is as alien as english when you think about it in a sense that they are official languages

There is the pride factor but it's probably more apparent in more affluent families. To chinese educated people, dialect = low class and mandarin = superior.

I prefer Cantonese
Even the Chinese in US, UK and Canada mainly using Cantonese

That's what I said.

Poor mom and pop speaks only the vernacular, works hard, send the kids to school. They come home showing the new language they learn and the parents praise them saying they're so smart.

You learn Mandarin in school. Using it shows that you're educated. I cannot read and write, and don't speak Mandarin. When people speak to me in Mandarin and I reply in Hokkien, they know I'm illiterate. If I reply in English instead. They think, "he knows English. Maybe he's not so dumb and uneducated."

It is happening with Malay as well. No matter where you come from, on important occasions like speeches, interviews on TV, etc, you try to use the standard BM we hear on TV. There's a guy on a talk show (TV9 IINM) that speaks with a very pronounced accent (Kedah/Penang I think). One day, my sister was at my home, we had the TV on, and when she saw that, she immediately say "so low class". This was just first impression. But it is what matters.

See my earlier comment on mandarin. But i dont really understand your first statement though. Regarding the dialect=lowclass and mandarin=superior. This is happening in taiwan as well. The young taiwanese who dont understand tai yu will discriminate or look down to those who speak tai yu. This is a funny issue and should we blame our chinese education system which discouraged usage of any dialect? (The same thing happened in taiwan education system 20~30 years back when they disapprove usage of dialect in school)

Sad but true. Dialects are often regarded as lower class languages. But there is nothing much we can do about it.

About cantonese speaking group in Malaysia, beside KL and Ipoh I think u guys forgot to mention about Sandakan at Sabah. Sandakan people speaks good and standard Cantonese hence dubbed as Little Hong Kong.

I think someone mention in the earlier reply about why Hakka and Hokkien people in KL speak cantonese more over their own dialect. I think i can answer your question as a KL guy from a Hakka family. Its not that we are not proud of our own dialect, in fact alot of us speak Hakka dialect at home and outside if necessary. We speak more cantonese because its the way of life in KL, everyone speaks cantonese so it comes naturally. For example when you buy chicken rice from your nearby coffee shop, you will say "lou sai, cha siu kai tapao".

You will probably ask why Cantonese is chosen over other dialects. This is because dated back to the time when our ancestors came to the then Malaya from China, they landed on the Klang River where the development of KL starts and this group of Chinese mostly came from Guangdong Province with a small numbers from Fujian. Do you know what Hakka means? It means Guest Family because Hakka people actually migrated from the North to Guangdong and Fujian in China. The Hakka people in KL are mostly from the Guangdong Province. I guess now you know why Cantonese is widely spoken among the Hakka people. FYI, Yap Ah Loy the founder of KL is also a Hakka from Guangdong Province.

But the trend now is changing and more younger generation kids in KL speaks Mandarin due to China economic rise and people see Mandarin as a key skill in the future. I dont think there were any Mandarin speaking Chinese migrated to Malaysia in the olden day. Mandarin is a spoken language of Beijing and most Malaysian Chinese you see in Malaysia today is from Southern China.

I think this trend of dialect=lowclass and mandarin=superior is slowly dissipating in Taiwan. Taiwan had reversed its dialect policy for some time now. There are classes to learn Hokkien/Hakka in Taiwan schools? This started in the mid 80s after political reforms where the Taiwanese identity idea started popping up. While Mandarin seems to have become Taiwan people's first language, thanks to Hokkien classes I think many will be continue being able to speak Hokkien in years to come. It's common to hear of job ads requiring hokkien speaking skills....speaking mandarin is already a given. Ex president Lee teng hui almost exclusively speaks Hokkien to reporters, seldom in mandarin.




Actually my concern is whether future generations will be able to speak their dialects. It only takes 1-2 generation before it can completely disappear. I personally know Hakkas who speak cantonese but dun understand any hakka. and same for hokkiens with mandarin. same with tamils being replaced with english

Hokkien Rocks~~!!!