In the below article Hokkien is used interchangeably with Minnan. Minnan is the scholastic term for Hokkien languages.
The "Speak Mandarin" campaign by PAP has been a good target for many wicked minorities demagogues to attack Singaporean Chinese as racist. Their writings give false impression that "Mandarin was forced upon" minorities. They felt injured. Many of these writings style, especially in the recent years appears to be the works of FT Indians.
Many Singaporean Chinese not able to defend these evil slanders. We felt that we are really "racist". In reality, the "Speak Mandarin" campaign is exactly the cultural genocide of Singaporean Chinese, and all our prostitute intellects are not informing us in exchange for PAP patrons.
Today, "Singaporean Chinese Dialects" are the only lects that are prohibited to be broadcast in TV programs. They are actively persecuted. When I was studying, all MOE schools treated our lects as something of a vulgarities, liable to incur punishments. Every other dialects are abled to be air except that of Chinese. Linguistic scholars knew that English, Dutch, are examples of Germanic dialects. French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italians are dialects of Latin. Russian, Polish, Czech, Ukranian, Yugoslavic are dialect of Slavic languages. Everyone of them are able to be aired to be relished as exotic foreign language programs.
Other than that, we have exotics Japanese, Korean, Arabic cable channels. The programs forbidden by PAP are those that speaks Hokkien and Cantonese.
In short, all minorities have access to their own language TV in Singapore, our Singaporean Chinese has no access. "Speak Mandarin" program is a noise, and ranting by PAP that does not affect an iota of our minorities, but is a cultural genocide to Singaporean Chinese. Unfortunately, many minorities seize the chance, and use it to attack Singaporean Chinese, who themselves are the greatest victims of cultural genocide.
What if?
PAP always pretended that Singaporean Chinese are speaking "Chinese Dialects". That is a lie. In scholastic terms, Hokkien and Cantonese languages are separate languages under the Sinitic languages family, same as Mandarin.
To impose Mandarin on Chinese people is similar as imposing German on English and Dutch speakers, Latin on French, Spanish or Portuguese speakers...etc.
What about imposing
Hindi on Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu speakers because all are Hindustanic languages?
Telegu on Tamil and Malayalam speakers because all are Dravidic languages?
Linguistic distance of Sinitic lects are further apart than lects of other family. They can almost be consider under a separate family of languages.
Base on my research, the mutual intelligibility of lects of certain languages group are quite high. For example, speakers of
Latin - Spanish, Portuguese and Italian could have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
Hindustanic - Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
Dravidic - Tamil and Malayalam have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
Germanic - German and Dutch have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
Slavic - Russian and Ukranian have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
The mutual intelligibility of Cantonese, Minnan and Mandarin is a big ZERO.
Geographic distance of linguistic center
The mutual unintelligibility of Sinitc languagues is not surprising. The standard German language center is located somewhere in middle Germany, around the area of Frankfurt. The Dutch based on the West Germanic lect spoken near Amsterdam, is 400 km apart.
A geographic distance of only 400 km between is able to give rise to two lects, the German and Dutch within the West Germanic family. (Not the upper node of Germanic family yet).
The distance between Guangzhou, the center of Cantonese and Beijing, the center of Mandarin is more than 1700 km apart. There is no surprise that Mandarin, Cantonese and Minnan are classified as different languages and are totally unintelligible to speakers of all these languages.
Minnan, Cantonese and Mandarin are very different even at the very basic level
Many languages within a big parent language umbrella are quite similar at basic level. This is not the case for Sinitic lects, grammatically and phonetically, and lexically, which use different sets of Chinese characters. For example, the sentence "you give me his book" as below.
Mandarin
你 給 我 他 的 書。(you-give-me-his-book)
nǐ gěi wǒ tā de shū
Cantonese
你 畀 佢 本 書 我。(you-give-his-book-me)
nei5 bei2 keoi5 bun2 syu1 ngo5
Minnan (Hokkein)
汝 予 我 伊 ea 册 (you-give-me-his-book)
lu hou wa yi ea cei
Not only there are complete different in pronunciation, but also grammar and lexicons.The same thing in Germanic languages like English, German "Du gibst mir sein Buch" and Dutch "je geeft me zijn boek" would look quite close compared to Sinitic langauges.
Poor Singaporean Chinese fooled by Kuan Yew and condemned as "racist", by minorities
In short, our fathers did not fight LKY. We have lost our culture. We believe our "mother tongue is mandarin", but in reality Mandarin is a Sinitic languages heavily influenced by northern China barbarians.
Our intellects prostitute themselves to LKY. Many people did not know how much Kuan Yew hate Chinese culture. It is not surprising that Singaporean Chinese today despise their mother tongue, and hope to kill Chinese education, in public schools.
I will continue this topic in next article.
SIBEI DULAN
The "Speak Mandarin" campaign by PAP has been a good target for many wicked minorities demagogues to attack Singaporean Chinese as racist. Their writings give false impression that "Mandarin was forced upon" minorities. They felt injured. Many of these writings style, especially in the recent years appears to be the works of FT Indians.
Many Singaporean Chinese not able to defend these evil slanders. We felt that we are really "racist". In reality, the "Speak Mandarin" campaign is exactly the cultural genocide of Singaporean Chinese, and all our prostitute intellects are not informing us in exchange for PAP patrons.
Today, "Singaporean Chinese Dialects" are the only lects that are prohibited to be broadcast in TV programs. They are actively persecuted. When I was studying, all MOE schools treated our lects as something of a vulgarities, liable to incur punishments. Every other dialects are abled to be air except that of Chinese. Linguistic scholars knew that English, Dutch, are examples of Germanic dialects. French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italians are dialects of Latin. Russian, Polish, Czech, Ukranian, Yugoslavic are dialect of Slavic languages. Everyone of them are able to be aired to be relished as exotic foreign language programs.
Other than that, we have exotics Japanese, Korean, Arabic cable channels. The programs forbidden by PAP are those that speaks Hokkien and Cantonese.
In short, all minorities have access to their own language TV in Singapore, our Singaporean Chinese has no access. "Speak Mandarin" program is a noise, and ranting by PAP that does not affect an iota of our minorities, but is a cultural genocide to Singaporean Chinese. Unfortunately, many minorities seize the chance, and use it to attack Singaporean Chinese, who themselves are the greatest victims of cultural genocide.
What if?
PAP always pretended that Singaporean Chinese are speaking "Chinese Dialects". That is a lie. In scholastic terms, Hokkien and Cantonese languages are separate languages under the Sinitic languages family, same as Mandarin.
To impose Mandarin on Chinese people is similar as imposing German on English and Dutch speakers, Latin on French, Spanish or Portuguese speakers...etc.
What about imposing
Hindi on Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu speakers because all are Hindustanic languages?
Telegu on Tamil and Malayalam speakers because all are Dravidic languages?
Linguistic distance of Sinitic lects are further apart than lects of other family. They can almost be consider under a separate family of languages.
Base on my research, the mutual intelligibility of lects of certain languages group are quite high. For example, speakers of
Latin - Spanish, Portuguese and Italian could have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
Hindustanic - Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
Dravidic - Tamil and Malayalam have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
Germanic - German and Dutch have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
Slavic - Russian and Ukranian have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
The mutual intelligibility of Cantonese, Minnan and Mandarin is a big ZERO.
Geographic distance of linguistic center
The mutual unintelligibility of Sinitc languagues is not surprising. The standard German language center is located somewhere in middle Germany, around the area of Frankfurt. The Dutch based on the West Germanic lect spoken near Amsterdam, is 400 km apart.
A geographic distance of only 400 km between is able to give rise to two lects, the German and Dutch within the West Germanic family. (Not the upper node of Germanic family yet).
The distance between Guangzhou, the center of Cantonese and Beijing, the center of Mandarin is more than 1700 km apart. There is no surprise that Mandarin, Cantonese and Minnan are classified as different languages and are totally unintelligible to speakers of all these languages.
Minnan, Cantonese and Mandarin are very different even at the very basic level
Many languages within a big parent language umbrella are quite similar at basic level. This is not the case for Sinitic lects, grammatically and phonetically, and lexically, which use different sets of Chinese characters. For example, the sentence "you give me his book" as below.
Mandarin
你 給 我 他 的 書。(you-give-me-his-book)
nǐ gěi wǒ tā de shū
Cantonese
你 畀 佢 本 書 我。(you-give-his-book-me)
nei5 bei2 keoi5 bun2 syu1 ngo5
Minnan (Hokkein)
汝 予 我 伊 ea 册 (you-give-me-his-book)
lu hou wa yi ea cei
Not only there are complete different in pronunciation, but also grammar and lexicons.The same thing in Germanic languages like English, German "Du gibst mir sein Buch" and Dutch "je geeft me zijn boek" would look quite close compared to Sinitic langauges.
Poor Singaporean Chinese fooled by Kuan Yew and condemned as "racist", by minorities
In short, our fathers did not fight LKY. We have lost our culture. We believe our "mother tongue is mandarin", but in reality Mandarin is a Sinitic languages heavily influenced by northern China barbarians.
Our intellects prostitute themselves to LKY. Many people did not know how much Kuan Yew hate Chinese culture. It is not surprising that Singaporean Chinese today despise their mother tongue, and hope to kill Chinese education, in public schools.
I will continue this topic in next article.
SIBEI DULAN