Language
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Endowment
God has endowed me with a precious endowment; God has given me a precious gift
[[1]]..so it's called the gift of the tongue! ie..Hokkien, English, Malay, Chinese Mandarin Teochew, Cantonese, Haka, Fuchow, German, etc... it's call the gift of the GAP..
In the beginning God ..(create) the whole account of the creation include the languages which would unfold in the story of how mankind communicate.
- I wonder how did our first parent communicated?
- Did they used a sophisticated language?
- Was it spoken?
- How does it sound when spoken?
- Perhaps the wonder of all wonder is that God must have spoken the first word.. Let it be" and it's pronounced like "amen" with a long vowel ending like
A.............(soft>)men!
There are many languages which originated from the mindof which God is the creator.
- I suppose when Adam saw how the first animal friend, a doggie, he hears it bark.. so Adam said, ""Dog" or pronounced "D" with ga ( gurrutral) .. shortened & sharpended bark like Urgh! or Dog ...with the D as in the prefix for urgh!
- Adam bark back and said "D-urgh!" (shut-up!) and so it became "Dog" Later it evoluted into doggie an obvious corruption.
There must be so many langauges or as many as the mind can invent, some of them were bygones, or dead languages which nobody today have any clue, such as those used to speak among the real original americans (among the native red Indians!)
Well I read> they tried to ressurrect one of them as spoken by the Perchontas Indians!
==NEWS Break: Dead Language brought back to Life==
goto see [[3]]
Muh-shay-wah-NUH-toe, he began the salutation. "Great Spirit . . ." Then: Chess-kay-dah-KAY-wak. "All nations . . ."
The words came from a language that once dominated coastal Virginia, including part of what is now suburban Washington. Pocahontas spoke it. Tongue-tied colonists littered our maps with mispronunciations of it: Potomac, Anacostia, Chesapeake . Then, sometime around 1800, it died out.
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[edit] Struggling with Mother tongue
(example of how Hokkien became corrupted when mixed with Singlish) & 'how it's dying out...
Lim Peh ka li kong, like other senior mini… I mean citizens in Singapore, I also had to face struggles over mother tongue.
Namely, the mother of my chewren refused to use her tongue on me.
I shouted at the ungrateful woman, “Ta ma de! How to improve your oral standard like that? Not say I say one, ah, but even Gahmen say oral mother tongue is damn important. Their new Chinese policy focus more on oral than writing!”
But she just scolded me and said I was talking cock as usual.
I was si beh buay song, but then, decided to let the matter drop. Come to think of it, her tongue is not really suitable anyway. It’s too bleddy sharp.
I went down to my local kopi tiam to join my friends, Lau Ah Pek and Lau Ter Koh.
They were all kau peh-ing about the falling standards of oral Chinese in Singapore.
“If we allow the si gin nah to have it easy with Gahmen’s new policy, they wen be able to speak Mandarin like our ancestors!” growled Ah Pek.
“But didn’t your ancestors come from Suatow and speak mostly Teochew?” I asked him.
“Exactly!” he shook his head like damn sad like that. “Teochew is already nearly gone. If a language our ancestors used to speak regularly can disappear so easily, what more a language that they didn’t used to speak regularly?”
Ter Koh, chimed in: “It’s si beh condemn that as Chinese peepur, our standard of Chinese am not as powderful as our Engrand.”
“If you all so worrage about your Chinese,” I ask them. “How come you send all your chewren to English school, and not Chinese school?”
“Wah piang!” sneered Ah Pek. “What, you want my gin nah to come out and be like all those cheenagherk cheenapiangs, ah? They all gone case one!”
“I yam not understanding,” said Shamsuddin the prata man as he served us our kosongs. “You are not vanting your children to be cheena, but yet you are sad that they are not cheena enough? You are confousing us.”
“Simpur,” I told him. “Is pragmati… pregnancy… pragmaticismi… aiyah, reality. We acherly prefer our chewren to be totally Chinese, but the ang mors got more money, so we prefer that they be more ang mor but still not forget that they are Chinese. Because we wan’ them to have as much money as the ang mor but at the same time we do’wan to admit the ang mor win us, and also because now China making more and more money.”
“So at the wery bottom, it’s all about money?” said Shamsuddin. “Adey, that’s wery Chinese.”
“Eh!” screamed Ah Pek. “Dun make racist statement, okay, you fucking apu neh neh!”
“Mind your own business, mama!” shouted Ter Koh. “This mother tongue business doesn’t concern you!”
“That’s why is called mother tongue and not ‘mama’ tongue,” I said, and we all laugh. How dare Shamsuddin be so insensitive and offensive to us!
After eating, Ter Koh took a big gulp of his ABC Extra and said, “So how? How can we improve our chewrens’ Chinese standard?”
“The best way to improve language,” said Ah Pek. “Is immersion. You must interact with native speakers.”
“I agree,” said Ter Koh. “Look at Hong Kong. Hongkies’ Engrish is so much more solid because of the Engrand colonials. Look at their movie subtitles!”
I scratched my armpit and said, “I also agree. I keep telling my grandson the same thing. Interact with more mainlanders! Acherly, interact also not enough. Intercourse is more better. Like me like that… every week I go Geylang to get Chinese oral lessons from the xiao long nu there.”
Ah Pek and Ter Koh both nodded.
Ah Pek said, “I think so you are right. But I’m not sure if the xiao long nu standard too high for my grandchewrens. Maybe I should check it out for myself first.”
“Maybe we can all go for group tuition,” said Ter Koh. “Maybe can get discount!”
And so we all went Geylang together. Si gin nah… they all dun appreciate how much we old folks care for their education, making so much effort to help keep up their standards.
Lim Peh ka li kong, if we all interact more regularly with the xiao long nu, Chinese culture would spread more widely!
- adapted from Lim Pek Ka Li kong at Talkingingcock.com[[4]]
Min-nan or Hokkien {{trying to make sense}}
Tea for Chinese~
According to Chinese tradition, the original cup of tea was not invented but discovered in the course of daily affairs by the simple inhabitants in the hills of Min-nan, who found out the secret of preserving the essence of the green tea leaves. It was rolled and dried and good for keeping until when needed.
In modern China, virtually every dwelling--down to the simplest mud huts--has a set of tea implements for brewing a hot cup of tea. These implements are symbols of welcome for visitors or neighbors.
Traditionally, a visitor to a Chinese home will be expected to sit down and drink tea while talking; the Chinese consider having such visits while standing to be uncouth
I call it the root cause of our 5000 years old culture. Actually it's only a drink, ie. I drink hot tea, cup after cups of it without any problem.
"Far deeper than the formal trends of common values in Chinese culture is found with simple plant known as tea. It is an essence discovered by the simple farmers while trying to enhance their tasteless water. Tea is found all over scattered in the many parts of China. Without tea, there will not be any real roots to the real cause of the Chinese culture."
[edit] Tea a symbol of Chinese culture
汝會曉講閩南語是無？真好！若安呢，汝敢知影全世界講閩南語啲儂攏總有偌儕,到底攏啥物所在啲儂咧講閩南語咧？著！汝有影誠內行，咱閩南語主要著是分佈佇：福建南部（廈門、漳州、泉州）、臺灣、潮州汕頭、雷州半島、海南島，佮浙江省啲南部。上重要啲，咱閩南語會使講是國際語言，佇東南亞、美國、加拿大、歐洲...一四界攏會當聽著咱厝啲聲音。根據統計，現主時，全世界會曉講閩南語啲儂超過5000萬，世界頂上儕儂講啲語言當中，閩南語排第22名。有文化則有歷史，有語言則有文化，有文字則有永遠啲語言。汝敢知影閩南語員仔有家己啲文字？無呣著！著是白話字(Pe̍h-ōe-jī)！即陣Wikipedia著是一個專題互儂寫白話字啲好所在，用咱厝啲話，寫古早，寫現在，寫未來，寫全世界大細項代誌...朋友啊，汝佫咧等啥？
你不會說/讀/寫閩南語嗎？ 閩南語是漢藏語系的一份子。福建南部、廣東一部份、台灣、東南亞等地皆有使用者。全世界數千種語言當中，閩南語人口排名第二十一名。你看不懂白話字？ 白話字是一種已經有近兩百年歷史，使用拉丁字母書寫閩南語的一種書寫系統。 {{trying to make sense}}
[edit] Learning Burmese
Link [[5]]
[edit] Conclusion on the whole matter
- Eventually all languages get corrupted, like even when everyone wanted to have a pure language like Latin or English, and the only way to preserved it is to kill it , and let it survive as a dead language. Just we consider Latin as a nomenclature of words for the snob society.
goto see languages and how did it come to be...
