Talk:Teochew Min/Archive 1

Latest comment: 1 year ago by Hĭ uông lìng in topic dialect or language?

Title edit

I'm not sure if we should be treating Teochew in the same way as Yue, Min Nan, etc... Those are called either dialects or languages depending on who you ask, but Teochew is treated as a dialect of Min Nan pretty much universally. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 18:11, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

I modeled the page after the Taiwanese page, which is also a dialect of Min Nam. In Southeast Asia, both Teochews and Hokkiens have their own communities, so I thought it was justified.--Yuje 20:13, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Go ahead if you think it's better, it's just that there are people with political and other interests trying to characterize Taiwanese as a separate language, but I'm not aware of anyone doing this for Teochew. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 21:04, Oct 24, 2004 (UTC)

I still don't see any justification for putting the box here... we don't have it at Standard Mandarin or Standard Cantonese, nor Penang Hokkien or (say) Singlish. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 04:36, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Chaozhou isn't exactly a dialect of Hokkien, though. More like a seperate variety of Minnan. There are some differences between Hokkien and Chaozhou. Chaozhou shares some grammar and vocabulary with Cantonese, for example. One example is in comparisons:
"I am bigger than you."
Cantonese: 我大过
Chaozhou: 我大过
Fujian Minnan: 我较大
Mandarin: 我
What criteria are you using as a requirement for the box? The line here seems kind of blurry. On one hand, Teochew can be mutually intelligible with Hokkien, and on the other hand, Teochew is regarded as a seperate language, and overseas Teochews in Southeast Asia have communities distinct from the Hokkien communities. I could see justification being made for either. What do you think?--Yuje 12:14, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Teochew is a distinct variety of Minnan (as linguists also acknowledge). The difference between Teochew and Taiwanese/Xiamen is greater than that between Taiwanese and Xiamen (Japanese loanwords in Taiwanese not withstanding). This should not be surprising considering Teochew's geographical distance from Minnan and interactions with non-Minnan speakers in Guangdong. (But then there are politically-minded folks who are not so much interested in linguistics as a science as in maintaining their political vision within Wikipedia. English speakers, on the other hand, are happy having articles describing varieties of English.) A-giau 08:36, 27 Mar 2005 (UTCYe)
Teochew is probably best categorized a language in its own right separate from other Minnan varieties. I am a philippine-chinese Hokkien speaker and I cannot really understand Teochew. Thus the mutual intelligibility is very low.Vlag (talk) 01:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)VlagReply
Actually, the real reason why the title of this page is "Teochew dialect " instead of "Teochew language" (ie. Chaozhou language) is because teochew does not currently have an ISO 639-3 code assigned to it, and it is currently classified as a 'dialect' of the Southern Min language (ISO 693-3 code is "nan"). But lets take a lot at the classification of the languages spoken in the Netherlands:
Languages spkoen in the Netherlands:

You would see that each of them have their own separate ISO 693-3 codes and each of them have a Wikipedia in existence. Now back to the Teochew discussion, there are no Teochew speakers currently interested in creating a Teochew Wikipedia, nor are there any Teochew speakers making applications to the SIL International (www.sil.org) to apply for an ISO 693-3 code for Teochew. Unless Teochew has its own ISO 693-3 code, it will continue to be regarded by other people as a dialect of Southern Min and any attempts to rename it to Teochew language or Chaozhou language would be met with opposition from some Wikipedia members simply because it is not officially recognized by the language classifiers as a separate language. --A-eng (talk) 23:46, 23 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

Variable Grammars, and GagiNang edit

Ty: My friend Laohia introduced me to Wikipedia, and I noticed the entry on Chaozhou dialect. I am the Education + Administrative Coordinator and Co-founder of a Diojiu internet portal called GagiNang. Firstly, I'd like to thank your efforts for giving Diojiu a life on Wiki. Here are some thoughts:

-Diojiu is a language in it's own right. The reasoning behind this is that it is a culturally distinct entity for it's speakers, aside from any political motivations someone of my position may have. If you ask any Diojiu people what language they speak they will surely identify it as Diojiu versus Hokkien or even Minnan. Sure, it is a dialect of Minnan, as is Hokkien. The whole dialect versus language debate is definitely interesting... I welcome your thoughts on this.

-Peng-im: this is our official romanization system based on Guangdong's official system. We promote using it above other spellings which are based on Mandarin, Cantonese, or other languages. It is wise to include these non-Diojiu versions, because its what is well known to the public. Teochiu, Teochew, Chiuchow are all common, however we promote DIOJIU that is the standard peng-im spelling.

gaginang.org

I find Peng-im to be confusing and imprecise. IPA transcriptions are more descriptive and aren't that much more complicated. 128.12.20.195 23:16, 19 May 2006 (UTC)Reply




I apologise for the change again to Teochiu from Chaozhou. After reading more online references to the Chinese southern dialects, I decided to go with the more popular romanization for the sake of familiarity. I believe that this change brings the article in line with the articles about Cantonese, Hakka, and Hokkien. I decided to use Teochiu over other variations of spellings because this was the prefered spelling in the "The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas, edited by Lynn Pan, 1998, published by Harvard University Press.

The source of the Guangdong Pengim is the New Edition Diojiu Sounds Dictionary Editor: Lin Lun Lun Copyright 1995, 1997, 1999 ISBN: 7-81036-074-4

laohia


Romanization edit

Hmm... I think the Hokkien pronouncation should be used, since in the Taiwanese (linguistics) they use the Peh Oe ji, which is meant for Min-nan, not tentatively only for Hokkian. Furthermore, I recommend to use the Peh Oe Ji for Teochew as well since they are also Min-nan.

Mr Tan 12.47, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I noticed one of your changes and I'd like to note that Pengim isn't a Cantonese system. Guangdong created 3 different Romanization systems, I believe, for Cantonese, Hakka, Teochew. Pengim is Teochew, Pengyam is Cantonese. Since Teochew is generally regarded as seperate from Hokkien, I think Teochew Romanization is preferable to Hokkien. --Yuje 17:59, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yuje is correct, The Peng'im system is specific for Teochiu. It is NOT a system for Cantonese. Guangdong has separate romanization systems (for linguistic study and dictionaries) for Cantonese, Hakka, and Teochiu. It is aside from the slightly modified form used by GagiNang, as far as I am aware of, the only complete and actively used romanization of Teochiu used today. I have put a reference above as to the dictionary that I use. Shantou University also uses this system in their other publications.

Laohia

Guangdong government produces romanisation systems for four languages, namely (Standard) Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka (Moiyen dialect) and Hainanese. It was done at a time before Hainan became a province. — Instantnood 17:25, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Rename proposal edit

I suggest renaming this page to Teochew (linguistics) to end all discussions over its linguistic status, and to bring it in line with other articles related to the Chinese language?--Huaiwei 14:25, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Teochew is generally considered as a variant, though distinct, of the Min Nan group. The dispute is at the level of Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Min Nan, etc., but not the level of Teochew, Taiwanese or Taishan. — Instantnood 17:25, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
I am not too sure what is the relevance of your point to my proposal.--Huaiwei 29 June 2005 05:06 (UTC)

What he means is that since Teochew is one level down from Mandarin, Min Nan etc., it should be treated like Beijing dialect, Shanghai dialect, Tianjin dialect, Taishan dialect, etc. -- ran (talk) June 29, 2005 05:43 (UTC)

But the discussion above shows that Teochew being seen as a sub-class of Min Nan is disputable. Personally, if I were to give my opinion from a Southeast Asian context, then yes, the distinction is much more greatly felt here then perhaps in China itself. Meanwhile, why is it Taiwanese (linguistics) and not Taiwanese dialect then?--Huaiwei 29 June 2005 06:26 (UTC)

Taiwan is a rather special case... you certainly can't put it at Taiwan dialect without starting a massive edit war.

As for Teochew, there actually isn't that much dispute that it belongs to Min Nan. The problem is whether it belongs to Hokkien. Although we often say (sloppily perhaps) that Hokkien is Min Nan, the way people use it ("He speak Hokkien one lah, not Teochew") implies that Hokkien is just the Amoy dialect. As such, Teochew and Hokkien are both subcategories of Min Nan. Since the Amoy dialect is a dialect, so is Teochew. -- ran (talk) June 29, 2005 06:36 (UTC)

I see your pt regarding the Taiwan issue...but I dont quite get it about the "implication" of Hokkien being Min Nan, and therefore Teochew is Min Nanese as well? --Huaiwei 29 June 2005 06:42 (UTC)

Well... the thing is, Teochew ⊂ Min Nan. This is academic consensus. But if we say that Min Nan = Hokkien, then Teochew ⊂ Hokkien, which sounds wrong. So we have to establish that, in S.E.Asian usage at least, Hokkien = Amoy dialect ⊂ Min Nan. So Hokkien ⊂ Min Nan, Teochew ⊂ Min Nan, and Hokkien ∩ Teochew = Ø. And since Amoy dialect = Hokkien is a dialect, so is Teochew. -- ran (talk) June 29, 2005 06:56 (UTC)

If it was academic concensus, then this debate wont even have erupted. As we all know, linguists cant always agree if an entity is considered a language or a dialect, and we should probably reflect that than to hide behind "academic concensus" alone, if there was any. The term "Hokkien" is popularised in the Southeast Asian context because of migration, and actually may have its roots as a form of provincial/linguistic identity then language alone. So...the large number of migrants from Southern Fujian in Singapore, when compared with their Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka, etc compatriots, simply refer to themselves as "Fujian Ren"..."Hokkien Lang", as opposed to "Min Nan Ren", which would have been more technically accurate. Hokkien is indeed Min Nan in almost all senses of the word, and I would personally consider "Taiwanese dialect" as the exact same language as Min Nan too. Regionalal variations with regards to vocabulary are to be expected, but I dont think this constitutes to a new "language" or "dialect".
In comparison, Teochew, although sharing much similarities with Min Nan, maintains distinct differences even in pronunciations of the most fundamental words. They pronounce "Ren" as "Nang", as opposed to the Hokkien "Lang", for example. Sentence structure also has notable differences as someone pointed out earlier. Do we see this in the versions of Min Nan spoken in Southeast Asia (except Penang) and in Taiwan? Meanwhile, isnt "Amoy Dialect" just yet another name for Min Nan, and not a seperate sub-class of Min Nan? I am afraid we seem to be creating our very own language tree?--Huaiwei 29 June 2005 07:31 (UTC)

Oh... no no no, Amoy Dialect is just the dialect of Amoy, which is just one dialect of Min Nan. And I'm not "hiding behind academic consensus", because this is academic consensus. Nor are we "creating our own family tree"...

See List of Chinese dialects. Here's an excerpt:

There are many ways of subdividing Min. Some subdivide it into two (northern, southern), some subdivide it into five (northern, southern, eastern, central, Pu Xian), and some subdivide it into seven (5 + Shao Jiang, Qiong Wen). But regardless of how you do it, Teochew and Hokkien both end up in Min Nan.

-- ran (talk) June 29, 2005 15:11 (UTC)

But if we already know that Hokkien IS Min Nan (and the above even calls Amoy dialect Hokkien anyway), then wont it make a mockery of that list?--Huaiwei 30 June 2005 08:45 (UTC)
No no, The term "Hokkien" is what we define it to be. In everyday usage, it refers to the Amoy dialect (or the Quanzhou-Zhangzhou area dialect).
You're basically taking two definitions and confusing them with each other. For example, "Beijing" can refer to either the urban area of Beijing, or the municipality of Beijing. So taken in one sense, Beijing and Shunyi are separate, while in another sense, Shunyi is a part of Beijing. So you can't say, "If Shunyi is outside Beijing, how can you say Shunyi is inside Beijing?" It is even worse to say, "Whether Shunyi is inside Beijing is controversial." There is no controversy: Shunyi is outside URBAN Beijing, but inside Beijing MUNICIPALITY; it depends on definitions. Nor can you say that URBAN Beijing and Beijing MUNICIPALITY are the same simply because the same term is used for both.
Similarly, Teochew is outside Hokkien in the colloquial sense (just the Amoy dialect), but inside Hokkien in another, less common sense (the entire Min Nan group). There is no controversy whether Teochew is inside "Hokkien". And you certainly can't equate the Amoy dialect with the entire Min Nan group either, simply because the same imprecise term of "Hokkien" is used for both, though more commonly the former.
Do you see how this analogy works? -- ran (talk) July 7, 2005 03:37 (UTC)
In comparison, Teochew, although sharing much similarities with Min Nan, maintains distinct differences even in pronunciations of the most fundamental words. ------ argh..!! this is exactly what I mean by conflating different definitions of the same term! You cannot say that Teochew "shares similarities" with Min Nan any more than you can say that Shunyi is "close" to Beijing Municipality! You can say Shunyi is close to Beijing, but only in the sense of URBAN Beijing! In the same way you can say that Teochew is similar to Hokkien, but ONLY in the sense of the Amoy dialect, and not of Min Nan, which INCLUDES Amoy and Chaozhou in the same way the MUNICIPALITY of Beijing includes Urban Beijing as well as Shunyi! -- ran (talk) July 7, 2005 03:49 (UTC)

Inconsistency noted: "the Teochew people settled in significant numbers in Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore where they form the largest Chinese dialect group" vs. "Teochew people are 2nd largest group in Singapore, after the Hokkiens" under History and Geography section. - shaychana@gmail.com Nov 24 2005

How close is Teochew to Hokkien edit

Is Teochew dialect intelligible with Hokkien dialect? Let's say in a simple act of selling, buying and bargaining something between a Teochew speaker and a Hokkien speaker. Thanks.

  • I will attempt to answer that question by working on a comparison chart. I know Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech, but not Teochew. Therefore, I will have to rely on the article for comparison purposes. If someone is familiar with Teochew and IPA, please proof read the Teochew for me. Also, the talk Teochew page on Min Nan wikipedia does a fairly good job of answering the question of whether the two are mutually intelligle (not really). A-cai 13:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
Chaozhou Chinese Chaozhou IPA Xiamen Chinese Quanzhou IPA Zhangzhou IPA English
ua˥˨ gua˥˧ gua˥˧ I / me
lɤ˥˨ li˥˧ lu˥˧ you (singular)
i˧˧ i˥˥ i˥˥ he/she/it/him/her
naŋ˥˨ lan˥˧ lan˥˧ we / us (including you)
ŋ˥˨ gun˥˧ guan˥˧ we / us (excluding you)
niŋ˥˨ lɪn˥˧ lɪn˥˧ you (plural)
伊人 i˧˧naŋ˥˥ 亻因 in˥˥ in˥˥ they/them
我個/我个 ua˧˥kai˩˩ 我的 gua˥˥e˧˥ gua˥˥e˧˥ my / mine
汝個/汝个 lɤ˧˥kai˩˩ 你的 li˥˥e˧˥ lu˥˥e˧˥ your / yours
伊個/伊个 i˧˧kai˩˩ 伊的 i˧˧e˧˥ i˧˧e˧˥ his / his; her / hers; its / its
俺個/俺个 naŋ˧˥kai˩˩ lan˥˧ lan˥˧ our / ours (including you)
阮個/阮个 ŋ˧˥kai˩˩ gun˥˧ guan˥˧ our / ours (excluding you)
恁個/恁个 niŋ˧˥kai˩˩ lɪn˥˧ lɪn˥˧ your / yours
伊人個/伊人个 i˧˧naŋ˩˩kai˩˩ 亻因 in˥˥ in˥˥ their / theirs
只個/只个 tsi˧˥kai˩˩ 這個/这个 tɕɪt˥˥e˧˥ tɕɪt˥˥e˧˥ this
只撮 tsi˧˥tsʰoʔ˥˥ 者個/者个 tɕia˥˥e˧˥ tɕia˥˥e˧˥ these
只塊/只块 tsi˧˥ko˩˨ tɕia˥˧ tɕia˥˧ here
只內 tsi˧˥lai˧˥ - - - inside
只口 tsi˧˥kʰao˩˩ - - - outside
只陣/只阵 tsi˧˥tsuŋ˥˥ 這陣/这阵 tɕɪt˥˥tsun˧˧ tɕɪt˥˥tsun˧˧ now
當/当 tɤŋ˩˨ tã˥˥ tã˥˥ now
這生/这生 tse˧˥sẽ˧˧ 者呢 tɕia˥˥niʔ˩˩ tɕia˥˥niʔ˩˩ like this
醬/酱 tsĩẽ˩˨ 這/这 tse˥˥ tse˥˥ this
者個/者个 tsia˧˥kai˩˩ 這款/这款 tɕɪt˥˥kʰuan˥˧ tɕɪt˥˥kʰuan˥˧ this kind
pɑːk pak˩˩ pak˩˩ north
馬/马 bœː 馬/马 be˥˧ be˥˧ horse
tsʰœːn tɕʰĩ˥˥ tsʰẽ˥˥ green
tsʰuːi tsʰui˨˩ tsʰui˨˩ mouth
槍/枪 tsʰœːŋ 銃/铳 tɕʰiŋ˨˩ tɕʰiŋ˨˩ gun
tiːo tio˧˥ tio˧˥ tide
橋/桥 kiːo 橋/桥 kio˧˥ kio˧˥ bridge
鵝/鹅 gɔː 鵝/鹅 go˧˥ gə˧˥ goose
雲/云 hʊŋ 雲/云 hun˧˥ hun˧˥ cloud
kʰe kʰi˨˩ kʰu˨˩ to go
lɑːk lak˥˥ lak˥˥ six
mœːŋ biŋ˧˥ biŋ˧˥ bright
nɑːŋ laŋ˧˥ laŋ˧˥ person
ŋou ŋo˥˧ ŋo˥˧ five
pʰɐŋ piŋ˧˥ piŋ˧˥ peace
熱/热 riɐk or ruaʔ 熱/热 liɛt˥˥ or luaʔ˥˥ ʑiɛt˥˥ or ʣuaʔ˥˥ hot
sœːn ɕĩ˥˥ sẽ˥˥ to be born
tʰiːn tʰĩ˥˥ tʰĩ˥˥ heaven
tɕiːu tɕiu˥˥ tɕiu˥˥ state
I am not too sure of the accuracy of all the vowels, but isn't [œ] a rounded front vowel, which is not found in Teochew? Also, Teochew does not have word-final /n/. Word-final /n/ can be changed to /m/ or /ŋ/, or the preceding vowels are nasalised. Phytomagus 18:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
According to Glossika, Chaozhou has an overal 50.4% of mutual intelligibility with the Xiamen dialect, 46.1% with Mandarin and 43.5% with Cantonese.
Nevertheless, Chaozhou is mutually intelligible with some other Min-nan languages, notably the dialects of Zhangzhou 漳州 and Quanzhou 泉州 probably because of their proximity.
  • The above statement makes no sense to me. Quanzhou, Xiamen and Zhangzhou speech are probably 95% mutually intelligible. How can Teochew be only 50% mutually intelligible with Xiamen, but mutually intelligible with Quanzhou and Zhangzhou? To better illustrate the linguistic similarities and differences, I have been working on the Sino-Tibetan Swadesh lists at Wiktionary. The list currently includes words from Mandarin, Cantonese, Min Nan (Quanzhou, Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Teochew), Hakka and Burmese. If anybody knows these languages, and is also familiar with romanizations and IPA, please help out. I think such a list is a necessary first step in answering the mutual intelligibility question. -- A-cai 14:29, 21 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
The word "Hokkien" (more correctly pronounced as "Hok-kiàn-oē") is merely the Southern Min equivalent of the word "福建話" which means the "Fujian language".
This is nonsense because there is no such thing as the Fujian language.

In Fujian province, the Min languages can be further divided into the Northern Min Language, Central Min Language, Eastern Min Language, and the Southern Min language.

Each of those Min branches are mutually unintelligible and can be classified as separate languages in their own right. Besides, the Hakka language (which is totally unintellible with the Min languages) is also spoken in Fujian province.

Here is some anecdotal evidence from a Singaporean traveller to Mainland China who supposedly spoke the Hokkien language! [1] --A-eng (talk) 09:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

Cellophane noodles question edit

Hello, there's some controversy about the origin of the name saifun to refer to cellophane noodles. It was earlier thought that this was a Japanese name (i.e. harusame saifun) but it now seems it might be related to the Mandarin "fen si." Is it possible that "saifun" is a Min Nan pronunciation? It doesn't seem to be Cantonese. Thank you, Badagnani 05:13, 19 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

The Cantonese name for these noodles is also fan2 si1 粉絲.--Fitzwilliam 14:50, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I knew that, but was asking specifically about the linguistic origin of saifun. Badagnani 17:11, 19 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

"Saifun" is unlikely to be from Minnan pronunciation, since Minnan languages do not have labiodentals (i.e. /f/). Phytomagus 17:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think I have the answer to your question. "Saifun" actually comes from the Taishanese language of Guangdong Province. Taishanese Chinese made up a substantial portion of the earliest Chinese immigrants to the United States, so many words for things such as Chow Mein and Saifun were influenced by the Taishanese language. For example in Taishanese, the word for cellophane noodles is pronounced thlai2 fun1, but when transliterated, the thl- sound is changed to an s- to better suit the American tongue, resulting in "sai fun" or "saifun." Likewise, "Chow Mein" comes from the Taishanese word for stir-fried noodles, chau1 mein4. Although Chop Suey originates from Taishan as well, the word "Chop Suey" actually traces from the Cantonese pronunciation, zaap6 seoi3. Hope this helps! 138.9.8.221 (talk) 00:19, 4 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

People edit

Where are Teochew people found in North America? I want to meet fellow Teochew speakers! --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.104.234.36 (talkcontribs)

A lot in Los Angeles and some in New York City. There are associations in each place. Badagnani 00:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

In the LA area I have found many to be living in the San Gabriel valley area (between the towns of Monterey Park and Rosemead) and in Orange County in the towns of Westminster and Garden Grove. In answer to the posting asking for the location of Teochau speakers (spelled locally in southern California Trieu Chau and pronounced "chew chau") I have found very many in the San Gabriel Valley area of eastern Los Angeles county (roughly between Monterey Park and Rosemead) and also in the central Orange county towns of Westminster and Garden Grove.

Consonants edit

I would to like how different is [dz] and [z] in Chaozhou dialects. I'd like to learn Chaozhou which is my native-town dialect. Does the Raoping dialect regard [dz] as [z]?--Fitzwilliam 14:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Prenasalisation edit

I have a question about the prenasalisation of /b/ and /g/. While it is true that the voiced plosives are derived from the nasals, but are they really prenasalised? Any sources describing this? Phytomagus 18:05, 15 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

In fact, prenasalisation does not only happen in Teochew, it is present in a lot other southern Min languages as well, such as Xiamenhua, which is discussed in 胡方

's 論廈門話 [mb ŋg nd] 聲母的聲學特性及其他. Although I do not know of a single book or paper which addresses the same issue in Teochew, various books which talk about Teochew all confirm the same piece of information such as 漢語方音字匯, 李新魁's 廣東的方言 and 林倫倫's 廣東閩方言語音研究. Shingrila 01:41, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the information! Actually, this is the first time I see this information on prenasalisation in Chaoshan (and Min Nan in general) with sources. For example, I do not recall seeing Jerry Norman (as a good example of a source written in English) indicating prenasalisation of the voiced stops as a phonetic feature. Also, this is not mentioned as well in the Wikipedia articles of Min Nan (which basically lacks information on phonetics and phonology) and Taiwanese. As a speaker of Teochew myself, I do not detect myself prenasalising my voiced stops, but perhaps the prenasalisation is weak and not very detectable. Phytomagus 18:20, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
Well, the degree of prenasalisation certainly varies across the different dialects or even different speakers of the same dialect; however, it invariably exists in the Chaoshan languages and other related southern Min languages. If you listen closely enough to the speech of children aged 3 or younger, you will occasionally hear instances of [mb] and [ŋg] being pronounced as [m] and [ŋ] as children are known to acquire nasals earlier than voiced stops. Shingrila 19:06, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Teochew Test Wikipedia edit

The Teochew Test edition of Wikipedia has been created.

Some confusion on the Chinese... edit

First, is the verb word connecting the patient 伊 to whomever killed her 乜人 actually 分, or is it 畀/俾 like in Cantonese? And such for the 杯 and its 破-ness?

In Mandarin, I'm pretty sure it's not correct to say 杯给打破了. Rather, 杯打破了 or 杯杯破了 are correct.

Is the 只 noun for "here" correct, or is it "既"?

And do Chaozhou people use "呢" and "的" as pronouns like in Canto? "個個杯", "呢個杯", "的杯"?


伊乜人Kill and 伊分人Kill are both correct to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zixingche (talkcontribs) 07:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Query about the use of 底個 [ti kai] edit

I was always of the impression that 底個 is translated as "which", and not as "what". ~ DarkS Umbreon 02:04, 7 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Second that, 底個 means which. :D , just like cantonese 边个 Zixingche (talk) 07:53, 17 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

The future of Teochew dialect in China edit

The article should discuss about the future of Teochew dialect in China. Will the Teochew dialect be supplanted by Mandarin in China? Sonic99 (talk) 01:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Most Chaozhou realized they were "overshadowed" (hate to realize it, but it's true) by the other Chinese groups, and most happen to be able to also speak Cantonese and Mandarin pretty well. Even Vietnamese or Cambodian (if they're overseas born and raised in that country). Dasani 07:30, 10 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

dialect or language? edit

If people wish to remove Teochew from Min Nan as a distinct language, then I suggest we move the article to Teochew Min. Meanwhile, all Chinese lects below major divisions such as Min Nan are called "dialects", and we should remain consistent. This should also be coordinated with Hainanese dialect/Hainan Min. —kwami (talk) 22:09, 20 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

The article has been moved to Teochew Min for the sake of fairness. The Swabian dialect of German is also titled Swabian German rather than "Swabian dialect". By the way, Hainanese is Unintelligible with the current Minnan used in Xiamen. --Amazonien (talk) 04:19, 21 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
Works for me. kwami (talk) 05:22, 21 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

Teochew and hainanese are more closely related than hainanese and xiamen but still unintelligible Hĭ uông lìng (talk) 00:24, 5 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

??? edit

It has low compatibility with other Min Nan dialects, having fewer words in common with them than German has with English.

I highly doubt this statement. My mom is pure Chaozhou and she knows how to speak it, along with Cantonese and Mandarin and English, fluently. She is able to have conversations with people who speak Hokkien, and she even understands their music and movies (even the Taiwanese dialect). I'm not sure who put this here, but I have always believed the two are mutually intelligible. Considering Wikipedia is smart and informational on everything else, the Asian articles seem to be a huge mess. Most of it, I'd even go so far to say, being original research or unreferenced. Dasani 07:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Maybe it is through prior exposure to Hokkien, otherwise the situation is similar to Taishanese and Cantonese. While they both belong to the larger language family of Yue, they diverge because they belong to different subfamilies of the Yue language family. Cantonese belongs to the Yuehai subfamily and the Guangfu sub-sub family (which is the basis for Guangzhou and Hong Kong Cantonese) while Taishanese belongs to the Siyi/Sze Yup subfamily of Yue family. A person who is not exposed to Cantonese/Taishanese and does speak the other's dialect would not be able to speak/understand others speakers of the language. — Preceding Wikipanda99 (talk) 21:02, 16 January 2021 (UTC) comment added by Wikipanda99 (talkcontribs) 06:22, 15 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Move to "Teochew" edit

Wikipedia should conform to names most commonly used by English speakers. Of those who append "dialect" to the name, they call it "Chaozhou dialect", of those who don't append "dialect", it is almost universally known in English as "Teochew" (similar to "Hokkien"). Therefore I propose the page be moved to Teochew (and that page redirects here already anyway). Colipon+(T) 14:14, 29 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

I support your suggestion at renaming the article title to either simply "Teochew" or "Teochew language" since it is its own language within the Minnan subfamily since this is an English-language Wikipedia that uses English conventions. Chaozhou is considered to be the representative dialect of Teochew and it is not a dialect of Hokkien because the mutual intelligibility is low and the grammar is different. I do not support the name Chaozhou however because Teochew is spoken in three different cities in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong plus in many overseas communities. Chaozhou is not a good name for representing the many dialects of Teochew. Teochew and Hokkien may be related because they belong to the same subfamily but they are not dialects of each other.

Video for discussion edit

Korean name edit

Any reason to have this in the article? Especially since it was mostly wrong?

Korean name
Hangul
조주어 (variant: 됴쥬말)
Hanja
潮州話
Revised RomanizationJoju-eo (variant: Dyojyu-mal)
McCune–ReischauerChoju-ŏ (variant: Tyojyu-mal)

Missing sandhi edit

Although we transcribe the Teochew in the grammar section as if it were phonetic, which would mean reflecting tone sandhi, it appears that every morpheme is in its citation form. Or am I missing something? — kwami (talk) 21:22, 6 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

Please change the item name edit

Whether Teochew is a language or a dialect, is still under discussion.There are some different opinions in this concern. Based on wikipedia's neutrality and as a native Teochew speaker, I strongly suggest wikipedia to change the name of this item from Teochew dialect into Teochew. Reasons: 1 The communication rate between Teochew and Mandarin is far lower than Portuguese & Spanish, even lower than Standard German and Dutch. Therefore, Teochew is clarified wrongly as a dialect from the perspective of linguist study. 2 There is almost a common idea in linguist study that Teochew, Hakka, Cantonese are on the same position as Mandarin in a sino languages family. While, the communist government ignores this fact and clarify it as dialect. Such classification is more from the political perspective. Hence, wikipedia should not support any side of them reasoning to its neutrality. 3 Such "Teochew dialect" name would seriously mislead our English readers. 4 Most of the Teochew native speakers have an antipathy to this Teochew dialect name. (Same as Cantonese, and editor can see there are already several people on this page talking about the name. 5 In some Canada/Australia's official application forms which collects the language information of applicant, Teochew is a language option in the list.

In conclusion, I propose wikipedia webpage manager to change the name of this item from Teochew dialect into Teochew. Such changing is also good for keeping the same format as that in German version, Polish version,etc. Thanks for your work!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Psctcn (talkcontribs) 23:43, 4 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

I don't agree with you even though I am a native speaker as well. Teochew is only "sub-language" of Min Nan.--Jsjsjs1111 (talk) 04:17, 7 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Open a move request, but do not unilaterally move this page as you have done before. GotR Talk 22:20, 31 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for making the move back, GotR. I saw it a few days ago, and thought it was really strange that this was the only one of the prominent dialect pages that used "language". OP certainly does not represent the majority view among Teochew speakers, or even Cantonese. This sort of language separatism is really confined to Hong Kong circles and overseas Chinese. I remember reading about social scientists who polled various representative dialect speakers in mainland China, and most of the respondents did not display language secessionism, in fact displaying deprecatory attitudes towards "their own language", and they would certainly not say that the dialects were "on the same position" as the standard language, erroneously here called "Mandarin". Shrigley (talk) 07:36, 1 February 2013 (UTC)Reply
If we use the European classification criteria based on intelligibility, then it can be regarded as a language, but the fact is, most Teochew people cannot read and write in their own native tongue. They are educated in Mandarin and native speakers such as User:Jsjsjs1111 regard Teochew as only "sub-language" of Min Nan. As long as there is no Teochew Wikipedia and as long as native speakers of Teochew continue to regard their speech as a dialect/sub-language of Southern Min, then the title "Teochew dialect " would continue to be used. (On the other hand, if someone proposes the title to be changed to Teochew language or Chaozhou language, I personally would not mind at all). --A-eng (talk) 23:59, 23 December 2015 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 14 July 2016 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No move. No such user (talk) 12:28, 27 July 2016 (UTC)Reply



Teochew dialectTeochew
  1. Teochew nowadays in English world, especially in SE Asia which is a main area that Teochew people inhabits in overseas, usually refers to the Teochew dialect, just like "Hokkien". This reason comes from my everyday life in Singapore, Internet evidences are also available, for example [2], [3], [4].
  2. Since Hokkien has a greater influence than Teochew, works on Hokkien in Wikipedia is much more better and completed than that in Teochew. In case of Hokkien, the page Hokkien refers to its dialect but not a disambiguation page, but Hokkien also has a proper disambiguation page to subdivide the usage of the term.
  3. In SE Asia, people usually ask you "Can you speak Teochew?" but not "Can you speak Teochew dialect?", the use of Teochew referring dialect is conventionally adopted.
  4. Currently the page Teochew redirects to Chaozhou (disambiguation), but Teochew does not refer to the Chaozhou city nowadays since CPC made a change in administrative divisions of former Teochew prefecture which established in Qing dynasty. During the end of Qing dynasty and ROC, which is a peak age that Teochew people started moving to SE Asia from China, Teochew refers to nine prefectures in eastern Guangdong which are Shantou(Swatow) city, Chaozhou(Teochew) city and Jieyang city nowadays under new administrative divisions of PRC. (清末民初,潮州概念已基本定型,这时潮州辖县共9个:即潮安(原称海阳)县、潮阳县、揭阳县、惠来县、普宁县、澄海县、饶平县、丰顺县、大埔县。(注:南澳县时为饶平县辖地,揭西县时为揭阳县辖地),现潮州市管辖原海阳县(后改名潮安)与饶平县。现揭阳市管辖原普宁市、揭阳县、惠来县。现汕头市管辖原潮阳县、澄海县(——南澳县建制于民国 时的1914年 ,潮州府时期未建县属饶平县管辖)). This reason also can be used for further change on page Teochew (disambiguation) based on the disambiguation page Chaozhou (disambiguation) currently.
  5. Treating the term "Teochew"" just a romanisation of 潮州 which has a new Pingyin romanisation "Chaozhou" now, is not appropriate, "Chaozhou" is quite rarely used in English world when refering to Teochew which means the Chaoshan area nowadays in PRC. Chaozhou usually used to refer Chaozhou city, a part of Teochew that conventionally known.
    - Skirtick - [ Talk ] - E-mail
    14:15, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose #4 and #5 are irrelevant as Teochew does not redirect to Chaozhou but rather to Chaozhou (disambiguation) which also includes 2 other important topics, Teochew people and Teochew cuisine. I performed a Gbooks search of "Teochew", and it seems that the people and cuisine are more common than the language (after all almost all Teochew dialect speakers are also Teochew people). #1 and #3 are anecdotal, as Singaporean will also say "Do you speak English?" and "Learn Tamil" but English are Tamil are both dab pages. There's no reason a language can trump a people as the primary topic; Hokkien people are commonly known as Hoklo which is a different word. Timmyshin (talk) 20:12, 14 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
But as the existing page Hokkien in Wikipedia, that page is about Hokkien dialect, since the usage of Teochew is almost same as Hokkien, I still think this page should be moved to Teochew.
- Skirtick - [ Talk ] - E-mail
07:12, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
I thinked deeper and, you are right. I will created a dab page for Teochew but not moving this page, thank you for giving your opinion.
- Skirtick - [ Talk ] - E-mail
17:12, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment How about Teochew (dialect)? This name sounds better to me as Teochew could sometimes refer to the place rather than the dialect.Tart (talk) 15:44, 16 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 9 February 2017 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. No support for this move, except for the nom of course. (non-admin closure) SkyWarrior 00:59, 17 February 2017 (UTC)Reply


– was considering a WP:RFD for Teochew but decided this instead. In historical documents, the city known mostly now as Chaozhou is usually called Chiuchow, the Cantonese name, or Chaochow postal romanization. Teochew, despite being the same characters, mostly refers to the speech. The other meanings like Teochew people or Teochew cuisine almost always have to be appended with "people" or "cuisine"; you can "speak Teochew" more often than you can "be Teochew" or "eat Teochew". Consider titles like "Shanghainese" or "Cantonese". Prisencolin (talk) 19:17, 9 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

  • Oppose. While unappended Teochew rarely refers to the city, it does refer the people. What's the problem with the current title anyway? I say, "I speak English," but have no problem with an article at English language. However, I agree that having Teochew redirect to Chaozhou is counterproductive for readers who are unlikely to be looking for the city. I have redirected it to Teochew (disambiguation) as it did until last year. —  AjaxSmack  20:56, 11 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Comment. I only now just noticed this RM after moving Teochew (disambiguation) to Teochew, per WP:MALPLACED, as Teochew was redirecting to the disambiguation. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:26, 13 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
I also history-merged Chaozhou (disambiguation) into Teochew (disambiguation) (revisions up to 20:35, 14 July 2016), fixing a defacto cut-paste move. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:31, 13 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
I just converted this to a multi-move request, as this implies reverting the MALPLACED-fixing move I just performed. wbm1058 (talk) 16:41, 13 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
As original nom, I'm opposed to this for now so I just removed the second nomination. For the record it must've been another editor who moved those pages.- -Prisencolin (talk) 16:44, 14 February 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. Why should the dialect be primary over Teochew people? With Teochew also having redirected to the city Chaozhou, there doesn't seem to be a clear primary topic for this. wbm1058 (talk) 16:58, 13 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Recognised minority language of Cambodia and Vietnam edit

Can someone please tell me the source of this because I don't think that teochew is a recognised Language anywhere? Hĭ uông lìng (talk) 00:21, 5 January 2023 (UTC)Reply