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絮言．狂想 #003

The Cantonese podcast for fans of linguistics, language lovers, and Cantonese learners. This language is a language-guessing game, like the Great Language Game, where two of our hosts guess Japanese, Korean, French, German, European Portuguese, Thai, Vietnamese, Swedish, Egyptian Arabic, and Polish. They explain their deductive process using phonological features.

Show notes and links available on the Cantonese page. Transcript below.

This podcast is also available on YouTube. Don’t forget to subscribe!

[Intro]

靳：深喉音啦，我哋啱啱講完內爆音，依家又講深喉音啦，係咪？

以：喂，咪玩嘢啊你，我笑點好低㗎

三：呢個……呢個節目係……合家歡節目嚟㗎呢個，係

[jingle]

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A brain with words inside.

Let’s just say you wanted to be fluent in a foreign language. Like, very fluent. Like, native speaker fluent. Capable of talking about any subject they can.

Obviously, that’s an ambitious goal. Native speakers, too, vary greatly in their ability to discuss various subjects. My recent conversation with Luke Truman revealed that he knows more scientific terms in Cantonese than I do. Meanwhile, I am probably capable of talking about music better than most English native speakers.

But there are things that most native speakers who’ve had an average education can talk about: mathematics, plants, common illnesses, political structures, history…cooking…

These aren’t things that language textbooks cover. Language course gets you from a complete beginner to a conversational level, where you can survive in the language. There is still a gap between that level and being able to read any newspaper with ease. You need things that native speakers learn in school.

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The Cantonese podcast for fans of linguistics, language lovers and Cantonese learners alike. With the release of the Netflix reality show Deaf U, the second episode discusses sign languages, Deaf culture, and various ways of communicating without sound.

Show notes and links available on the Cantonese page. Transcript below.

This podcast is also available on YouTube. Don’t forget to subscribe!

[Intro]

苗：有一樣嘢非常之重要嘅，就係叫做……我又唔識講喇，中文。Indexing啊。手指指噉樣……

以：我唔知咩係indexing。

苗：手指……我就叫佢手指指啦，好啦。

[jingle]

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The Cantonese podcast for fans of linguistics, language lovers and Cantonese learners alike. Our first episode discusses 7 common language-related myths, such as the status of Cantonese and Mandarin, the oldest and hardest languages, language families, etc.

Show notes and links available on the Cantonese page. Transcript below.

This podcast is also available on YouTube. Don’t forget to subscribe!

[Intro]

苗：一個好簡單嘅例子啦，我諗緊例子，其實。

以：先斬後奏啊呢啲叫。

苗：等陣先，再嚟過……唔准笑！

[jingle]

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If you watched my polyglot video, you might recall that I was planning to launch a podcast.

The idea sprang up in my mind back in late July, when I was on a plane, bidding my hometown farewell. Well, after two months of planning, brainstorming, and testing, I can finally proudly announce that the first episode is almost ready!

From the initial idea to getting two friends to host it together, it took a lot of discussion to figure out the direction we’d like to take, and the kind of show we would like to create for you. The rough idea is to delve into a language-related topic in each episode, or possibly give a brief introduction to a certain language.

But the core question is, why are we creating a podcast?

Let’s cut to the chase: I’m planning to kill two birds with one stone.

1. Shedding light on linguistic issues

I discovered the online polyglot community back in 2015/16. Polyglot means a person who speaks many languages, but the term has expanded to include people around the world who love languages and learning them. They’re very welcoming to anyone passionate about languages, even if they’re just starting out.

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Subtitles available in English and Cantonese. German transcript below.

Ich bin heute auf eine deutsche Seite gestoßen, die versucht, die Beziehung zwischen Kantonesisch und Mandarin, oder dem Begriff Chinesisch, zu erklären. Spoiler Alert: diesen Artikel finde ich total Quatsch. Er behauptet, Kantonesisch sei ein Dialekt von Chinesisch, und Mandarin sei Hochchinesisch.Diese Art Kategorisierung ist ganz politisch motiviert, und von einem rein sprachwissenschaftlichen Standpunkt ist sie sehr problematisch.

In diesem Video werde ich versuchen, als ein Sprachenliebhaber, ein Amateursprachwissenschaftler und ein Sprecher von drei sinitischen bzw. chinesischen Sprachen, zu erklären, was ein Dialekt in diesem Zusammenhang wirklich bedeutet, und abgesehen von der Politik, was Kantonesisch eigentlich ist, und wie man überhaupt diese Sprachen betrachten soll.

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