Saturday, March 28, 2009

I have comments about Ah gong (again)

This time about Mandarin and dialects. Things that i don't agree:

1)There is no need to choose between Mandarin and dialect

2)Weeding out dialects doesn't mean our Mandarin standard will improve

I am using myself as an example. For a start, i am not a genius with 10GB of memory nor am i a scholar with outstanding results. But i would suppose my command of English and Mandarin is good enough to make myself understood by most people. Yet my mother tongue is actually Cantonese.

I am a Cantonese and i am proud of that language. It could be Hokkien, it doesn;t matter. In short, i can speak, write English and Chinese, in addition i speak dialect.

Of course, command of these 3 languages differ as well. I am not that darn good in my English, never gotten any As in my English exams nor do i know how to appreciate those literatures. But at least i dun use 'EMO' in my daily life and people understand what i am saying whenever i speak.

As for Chinese, i am feeling a bit mixed about it. To be honest, my level of Chinese is better than the man on the street. I read Lianhe Zaobao daily without any difficult, which most people probably can't. Having said that, working usage of Chinese would be lacking and less comfortable, since we are not in the Chinese working environment.

Coming from a Cantonese speaking family, i am most comfortable in speaking Cantonese of course. Sometimes, i think in Cantonese as well.

What does it prove? I am not saying i am THAT good. I am just speaking from experience that language is not science. There is no need to extinguish one language in order to learn other languages well. Doesn't work that way. And we don't need a 10GB mind to learn 2 languages and your own dialect well. I dun have that kind of grey matter as well.

And i really feel there is a sentimental value in knowing and speaking dialect as well. Whenever i heard someone speaking my own dialect, i would feel a sense of closeness whom i cannot say the same for Chinese or English. And to a large extent, dialects connect one back to your values, thinking, culture as well. Think of the different cuisines.

I personally feel that when we start to give up our dialect, we are giving up our culture and roots. What happens when we lose out culture and roots? You merely become a working being just to stay alive without personality