《神獸漫話》--【大粵港諺語】III
February 27, 2014 @ 11:10 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Humor, Language and art, Proverbs, Topolects
From the "Cantonese
Resources" blog:
Ah To 阿塗, a graphic designer
and part-time cartoonist who is concerned about the survival of Cantonese in
Canton and Hong Kong, has just published a comic called "The Great Canton and Hong Kong Proverbs"
on Hong Kong independent media "Passion Times".
From
this Breughelian painting and the accompanying explanations, you can get a
sense of what Cantonese language, culture, and society are like. By doing so,
several things become immediately evident:
1. Cantonese is a real
language, not some disembodied "dialect" or slimy "slang" —
terms which are often applied to Cantonese by people who are ignorant of its
true nature.
2. Cantonese is a vivid,
imaginative language full of colorful expressions that cannot be found in other
Sinitic languages.
3. Cantonese phonology,
lexicon, grammar, and orthography are different from those of Mandarin;
Cantonese and Mandarin are separate languages.
We
have often written on these topics here at Language Log, e.g.,
By
way of illustration, here are just a couple of the proverbs depicted by Ah To.
The Chinese characters are transcribed In Yale romanization.
By
way of illustration, here are just a couple of the proverbs depicted by Ah To. The
Chinese characters are transcribed In Yale romanization.
.jpg)
冇鞋挽屐走 [móuh hàaih wáan kehk jáu]
(where there are no shoes, grab the clogs and run)
to withdraw hurriedly from an awkward situation
(where there are no shoes, grab the clogs and run)
to withdraw hurriedly from an awkward situation
咁大隻蛤乸隨街跳 [gam daaih jek gap lá chèuih gāai tiu]
(such a big frog hopping around the street)
too good to be true
(such a big frog hopping around the street)
too good to be true
If
you want to learn more about Cantonese in the flesh, you could do worse than
study Ah To's painting for a day or two.
[Hat
tips to Annie Chan, Norman Leung, Wicky Tse, Tim Chan, and John Rohsenow]
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