Excellent Video - Chang Tinh Yuan Man

[holdencaufield]

youtu.be/RjPmTTCQvbM
The text that he sings (in bold):
長亭怨慢（中呂宮）
予頗喜自製曲，初率意為長短句，然後協以律，故前後闋多不同。桓大司馬雲﹕「昔年種柳，依依漢南，今看搖落，淒愴江潭，樹猶如此，人何以堪！」此語予深愛之。

漸吹盡枝頭香絮，
是處人家，
綠深門戶。
遠浦縈回，
暮帆零亂向何許？
閱人多矣，
誰得似長亭樹？
樹若有情時，
不會得青青如此！
日暮，
望高城不見，
只見亂山無數。
韋郎去也，
怎忘得玉環分付？
第一是早早歸來，
怕紅萼無人為主。
算空有并刀，
難翦离愁千縷。

[edcat7]

That was so cool... I love the poetry.

[holdencaufield]

My sole complaint is that he recites the poetry in Mandarin.

[edcat7]

I think Mandarin sounds better than cantonese, so according to my English friends. I learnt my Cantonese 20 years in the kitchen so it sounds course

[holdencaufield]

I don't have a good reason for preferring Cantonese other than the fact that it reminds me of my childhood (i.e., 90s Cantonese love songs - Andy Lau, Leon Lai, et. al). It is a bit more abrasive than Mandarin. However, in my opinion Mandarin sounds a bit wimpy and annoying, especially with all the "r" sounds at the end of their words.

I'd prefer Cantonese for poetry recitation because it is closer to the actual pronunciation of the period of classical poetry. It's fascinating to compare Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciation, especially if you know classical Korean, Japanese or Vietnamese pronunciation as well. In my case, I know Vietnamese and am learning Mandarin with some Cantonese on the side. Classical Vietnamese seems to take a bit from both Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciation, so maybe reciting poetry with classical Vietnamese pronunciation is more accurate than either Mandarin or Cantonese!

Anyways, does anyone know how "authentic" this style of playing is? It seems to have some shockingly Occidental sounding harmonies. I don't think I've ever heard minor chords quite like the ones in the video.

This video has convinced me to take up the guqin if I get the oppurtunity. I've had bad experience with wind instruments in the past, and it looks like the guqin would not be so difficult to learn since I am a fairly advanced pianist already, the horizontal hand movement is not a problem.

[sanmenxia]

My sole complaint is that he recites the poetry in Mandarin.

Perhaps that's his native variety of spoken Chinese. I guess he is from Taiwan. Why shouldn't he use a variety of Chinese that he speaks?

I'd prefer Cantonese for poetry recitation because it is closer to the actual pronunciation of the period of classical poetry. It's fascinating to compare Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciation, especially if you know classical Korean, Japanese or Vietnamese pronunciation as well. In my case, I know Vietnamese and am learning Mandarin with some Cantonese on the side. Classical Vietnamese seems to take a bit from both Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciation, so maybe reciting poetry with classical Vietnamese pronunciation is more accurate than either Mandarin or Cantonese!

I'm sorry but that is absolute nonsense.

and it looks like the guqin would not be so difficult to learn since I am a fairly advanced pianist already, the horizontal hand movement is not a problem.

I would think they are completely different instruments. One is a keyboard instrument and the other is a fretless plucked string instrument.

[holdencaufield]

The relations between guqin and piano may be few, but they are undoubtedly more related than the piano and a flute.

I believe the Taiwanese have their own language. Mandarin is obviously the vulgar tongue in China and Taiwan (Hong Kong remains unbreached) and increasingly in Chinese communities abroad.

I'm not sure if you were stating that the entire section you quoted was what you were referring to as nonsense, but Cantonese is more closely related to Middle Chinese than Mandarin.

It may just be that I misheard. But it is a fact that Cantonese uses more Classical Chinese based vocabulary than standard Mandarin. I know that doesn't mean ergo Cantonese pronunciation is more related to Classical Chinese but I've heard that as well.

If you look at hÔ½ (which is no longer subject to change) compared with ¹ÙÔ’ and »›ÕZyou'll find that Cantonese pronunciation is often times more reflected in the ancient Vietnamese than Mandarin is. There are acceptions, obviously.

One excellent example is the character: ½­

Obviously, the radical Ë® is there to clarify the water related definition. Therefore the character ¹¤ can only be there to clarify the pronunciation. Yet in Mandarin, the pronunciation of this character is "jiang1", which is not remotely related to either of the other parts (shui3 and gong1). In hÔ½ this character is read as "giang". Only in Cantonese is it likely that the ancient pronunciation has be preserved, since the Cantonese pronunciation is "gong1".

I'm no expert in Chinese so I am very open to correction, provided it is not rooted in bias against Cantonese as a "slang" language unworthy of linguistic pursuit.


Edit:

The Chinese characters are not appearing. The character I am giving as an example is "jiang1", meaning river. It is composed of the radical "shui3", meaning water, and the character "gong1", meaning labor. The Mandarin pronunciation is "jiang1" and the ancient Vietnamese is "giang". Only the Cantonese provides a logical pronunciation since it incoporates the element that was intended to indicate the pronunciation of the character, i.e., the character "gong1" which has no other relation to the meaning of the character "jiang1".

My pet theory may be as yet disproved as the Cantonese pronunciation of "gong1", as in labor, is actually "gung1".

Please someone with more knowledge of classical Chinese pronunciation chip in!

[sanmenxia]

I believe the Taiwanese have their own language. Mandarin is obviously the vulgar tongue in China and Taiwan (Hong Kong remains unbreached) and increasingly in Chinese communities abroad.

This is going way off topic! "Taiwanese" is actually a Minnan dialect and is very similar to Xiamen speech, apparently; and not everyone speaks it in Taiwan. In the long term, HK will be like Guangzhou, there won't be people who only speak the local speech anymore.

I'm not sure if you were stating that the entire section you quoted was what you were referring to as nonsense, but Cantonese is more closely related to Middle Chinese than Mandarin.

It may just be that I misheard. But it is a fact that Cantonese uses more Classical Chinese based vocabulary than standard Mandarin. I know that doesn't mean ergo Cantonese pronunciation is more related to Classical Chinese but I've heard that as well.

If you look at hÔ½ (which is no longer subject to change) compared with ¹ÙÔ’ and »›ÕZyou'll find that Cantonese pronunciation is often times more reflected in the ancient Vietnamese than Mandarin is. There are acceptions, obviously.

One excellent example is the character: ½­

Obviously, the radical Ë® is there to clarify the water related definition. Therefore the character ¹¤ can only be there to clarify the pronunciation. Yet in Mandarin, the pronunciation of this character is "jiang1", which is not remotely related to either of the other parts (shui3 and gong1). In hÔ½ this character is read as "giang". Only in Cantonese is it likely that the ancient pronunciation has be preserved, since the Cantonese pronunciation is "gong1".

I'm no expert in Chinese so I am very open to correction, provided it is not rooted in bias against Cantonese as a "slang" language unworthy of linguistic pursuit.


Edit:

The Chinese characters are not appearing. The character I am giving as an example is "jiang1", meaning river. It is composed of the radical "shui3", meaning water, and the character "gong1", meaning labor. The Mandarin pronunciation is "jiang1" and the ancient Vietnamese is "giang". Only the Cantonese provides a logical pronunciation since it incoporates the element that was intended to indicate the pronunciation of the character, i.e., the character "gong1" which has no other relation to the meaning of the character "jiang1".

My pet theory may be as yet disproved as the Cantonese pronunciation of "gong1", as in labor, is actually "gung1".

I think you need to use unicode for hanzi to appear: 江 工, and anyway, as you said, 江 工 do not have the same sound in Cantonese (actually Guangzhou dialect).

The problem is people cherry pick to support what they already believe in, or they extrapolate certain linguistic features and derive unfounded or dubious assertions from them. Take the fact that Cantonese retains more consonant endings, but does that mean "Cantonese is more closely related to Middle Chinese than Mandarin"? And what does "more closely related" actually mean, does it mean more closely related in phonology, syntax, or vocabulary.

For example, initial voicing as a distinctive feature (ie to distinguish between different words) has been lost in Yue (ie Cantonese), Min, Kejia, Gan and Mandarin, whilst Wu retains them. Does that mean Wu is now "more closely related to Middle Chinese than Mandarin"?

Languages are changing all the time. OK HK people only make up a small percentage of Cantonese speakers but it is a place where it has some sort of official status and is used in schools and the media. In HK Cantonese, the "n" sound at the start of a word has changed to a "L" sound, to give one example.

By all means people are entitled to use whatever language/dialect they like when reading Chinese poetry, but I woudn't criticise someone for using the most widely understood form of Chinese instead of another language/dialect, when they probably don't even speak that language/dialect.

[edcat7]

Wow. musical theory and history of Chinese languages. I'm not worthy. I might make some dim sum now

[dragona]

wow, do you what said?