Talk:Waitau

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A few problems:

  1. 吃:hek7 or hek8? In standard Cantonese, it is hek8. I'm not sure if there's a variation in Waitau. Deryck C. 10:17, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
  2. gwa or gwaa? (there's no vowel "a" in std. canton, just "aa" and "a-sth") Deryck C. 10:19, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Cantonese "Wai Tau" = Hakka "Vui Teu"

The article so far suggests that WaiTau dialects are all Cantonese, this is plainly incorrect, since Hakka people sometimes refer to the language they speak in their Hakka Villages as [vui11 theu11 va53]. The translation of the term as "walled city" dialects is literal, however, the majority of villages in Hong Kong are not walled. In the Hakka sense of the term 圍頭/围头 is generally of 'the village'. Thus VuiTeu dialects should be termed more appropriately as "village dialects".

Most of the walled villages in Hong Kong are found in the New Territories, and some are Cantonese, others are Hakka. See Walled villages of Hong Kong that suggest Waitauwah cannot be equated solely with Cantonese.

Dylanwhs 20:13, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

But by any means it should carry the meaning of "walled". Deryck C. - the very original one

Deryck C. - the esperanza-enriched one 04:58:34, 2005-09-03 (UTC)

[edit] "Snake Language"

"It is also known as Se Wah (Traditional Chinese: 蛇話 lit. snake language)... "

The character for 'snake' is actually a incorrect character for the language. The She people or Se-Ch'uk in Cantonese is more properly rendered as 畲族 and their language is 畲話. Traditionally, Chinese linguists have associated the She peoples and language with Hakka - not Cantonese. Dylanwhs 20:30, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hakka Expressions listed under WaiTau Words

From my own language/speech of Shataukok, the following Hakka vocabulary are cognates with those listed under WaiTau words in the article. I've provided the characters that I think best fits the pronunciations with its meanings.

Characters English Pronunciation (IPA)

extinguished

vu33
afraid

khɔŋ11

dried

kɔn33

to tie, to fasten

thau11

唔曾 not yet

m33 tshen11

求乎 as long as, provided that

khiu11 fu11

能太 clever

len11 thai53

cat

miau53

him/her

ki11

This is table also appears in my talk page Dylanwhs 23:37, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Section

In my opinion, the main paragraphs of this article should be split into 2 or 3 sections. Deryck C. - the very original one

Deryck C. - the esperanza-enriched one 09:22:46, 2005-09-04 (UTC)

u can do that, of course. ^_^ --K.C. Tang 13:08, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
Later, I'm now facing something hard. Deryck C. - the very original one

Deryck C. - the esperanza-enriched one 14:44:54, 2005-09-04 (UTC)

Done. Deryck C. - the very original one

Deryck C. - the esperanza-enriched one 11:20:20, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

[edit] Section cleanup

I suggest the table to be disassociated into a list like this:

Cantonese
  • Waitau: sth
  • Hakka: sth
  • meaning: sth

Deryck C. - the very original one

Deryck C. - the esperanza-enriched one 11:20:20, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

Have revised. :P --K.C. Tang 16:53, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hakka section

As the Cantonese has equvialents of the Waitau words together with characters, the Hakka section too requires the characters with it's corresponding pronunciations, and equivalent words. For example, huk (to cry) is not used much in everyday Hakka, since kiau53 is used, so I've put in 叫 kiau53 and so forth. Dylanwhs 08:20, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

With regard to the removal of the phonemic transcription in Hakka, that's ok. Perhaps Cantonese really ought to be transcribed phonetically in IPA too. This will make the article less subject to change, that is, certain romanisations tend to be fashionable for a while, then something else replaces them. Unicode moved from Yale to Jyutping lately for its listings of Cantonese readings, for instance. IPA should be used in a linguistic related article such as this. It will be able to tie in with other articles such as the descriptions of Cantonese, Hakka and other Chinese dialects nicely. Dylanwhs 08:36, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

No objections for IPA. By the way, the table format has been revised a bit, and a rather (for me) interesting term has been added. --K.C. Tang 17:10, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
IPA or Jyutping, as you people will like. Deryck C. - the very original one

Deryck C. - the esperanza-enriched one 07:11:05, 2005-09-12 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification

Just wondering if the lead section could be worded a little more clearly: is Waitau all three: a (a) Cantonese variant (b) synonym for Hakka, and (c) term for any non-Standard Cantonese (Guangfu) dialect...or is it only "truly" (a)? It seems that most of the page is dedicated to (a). Perhaps this could be a little clearer. Thanks --Dpr 18:22, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

yeah, i know it sounds a bit confusing, but the fact seems to be that the term is used both in a general and in a specific sense. u can try to clarify it, of course. :P --K.C. Tang 14:34, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
I can only clarify if I know what it means. So am I correct, does it mean all three things, (a), (b), and (c)? If the terms has many meanings, it should (can) be stately cleary that this is the case. Thanks --Dpr 01:56, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
as the article states, the genereal meaning is any spoken variant, other than Guangfu, used in the villages of Hong Kong, sometimes even including Hakka (as the She Wah case suggests). we can say it is the "folk" use of the term. The specific meaning is a dialect of Cantonese, which has its distinct phonology, according to some linguists. we can say it is the "linguistic" use of the term. Hope it is clear. :P --K.C. Tang 04:16, 5 October 2005 (UTC)