Speaking in Tones

Many non-Chinese are vaguely aware that the Chinese language, and for that matter, Cantonese, is a monosyllabic language. If you sit down and think about it, you could come to convince yourself that there exists an almost infinite number of one-syllable sounds one can make.

But for reasons known only to the ancients (and maybe some linguists), Cantonese has not made use of all these possible one-syllable sounds. It frugally uses only a very small subset.

Unfortunately, instead of making it easier to learn the language (after all, the fewer sounds to remember, the sooner you can speak the language, right?), the limited set of sounds has caused grief to many stout-hearted men and women.

What is the Cantonese word for buy? Maai. What is the Cantonese word for sell? Maai. See any difference?

Do you see a problem?

Now we can understand why our friend gets forks whenever he asks for tea -- the Cantonese word for tea is cha and the Cantonese word for fork is cha.

Are the Cantonese crazy? Who in their right mind would use the same word to mean different things? Should the British colonials have forced the Cantonese in Hong Kong to cleave from their native language and cleave to English?

The answer is no, they are not crazy, and maai is not the same word as maai, and we are no longer in Kansas. We are now at the brink of the next stage of understanding Cantonese.

Hurdling this stage is critical to understanding the language. It is a daunting task requiring faith, diligence, persistence. There is no way to avoid it.

* * *

Next: Welcome to the world of tonal languages.


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Footlinks:

1. There are any number of people who will argue that Chinese should not be called a monosyllabic language. For a clear explanation of that position, see (among others) http://www.askasia.org/frclasrm/readings/r000020.htm
2. Just in case you didn't get it, the English word cleave has two opposite meanings.