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台山话、广东话、普通话,唐人街方言的变迁反映着时代的变迁,人心的变迁,一切都是那么自然。
He grew up playing in the narrow, crowded streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. He has lived and worked there for all his 61 years. But as Wee Wong walks the neighborhood these days, he cannot understand half the Chinese conversations he hears.
Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.
The change can be heard in the neighborhood’s lively restaurants and solemn church services, in parks, street markets and language schools. It has been accelerated by Chinese-American parents, including many who speak Cantonese at home, as they press their children to learn Mandarin for the advantages it could bring as China’s influence grows in the world.
But the eclipse of Cantonese — in New York, China and around the world — has become a challenge for older people who speak only that dialect and face increasing isolation unless they learn Mandarin or English. Though Cantonese and Mandarin share nearly all the same written characters, the pronunciations are vastly different; when spoken, Mandarin may be incomprehensible to a Cantonese speaker, and vice versa.
Mr. Wong, a retired sign maker who speaks English, can still get by with his Cantonese, which remains the preferred language in his circle of friends and in Chinatown’s historic core. A bit defiantly, he said that if he enters a shop and finds the staff does not speak his dialect, “I go to another store.”
Like many others, however, he is resigned to the likelihood that Cantonese — and the people who speak it — will soon become just another facet of a polyglot neighborhood. “In 10 years,” Mr. Wong said, “it will be totally different.”
With Mandarin’s ascent has come a re alignment of power in Chinese-American communities, where the recent immigrants are gaining economic and political clout, said Peter Kwong, a professor of Asian-American studies at Hunter College.
“The fact of the matter is that you have a whole generation switch, with very few people speaking only Cantonese,” he said. The Cantonese-speaking populace, he added, “is not the player anymore.” The switch mirrors a sea change under way in China, where Mandarin, as the official language, is becoming the default tongue everywhere.
In North America, its rise also reflects a major shift in immigration. For much of the last century, most Chinese living in the United States and Canada traced their ancestry to a region in the Pearl River Delta that included the district of Taishan. They spoke the Taishanese dialect, which is derived from and somewhat similar to Cantonese.
Immigration reform in 1965 opened the door to a huge influx of Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong, and Cantonese became the dominant tongue. But since the 1990s, the vast majority of new Chinese immigrants have come from mainland China, especially Fujian Province, and tend to speak Mandarin along with their regional dialects.
In New York, many Mandarin speakers have flocked to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Flushing, Queens, which now rivals Chinatown as a center of Chinese-American business and political might, as well as culture and cuisine. In Chinatown, most of the newer immigrants have settled outside the historic core west of the Bowery, clustering instead around East Broadway.
“I can’t even order food on East Broadway,” said Jan Lee, 44, a furniture designer who has lived all his life in Chinatown and speaks Cantonese. “They don’t speak English; I don’t speak Mandarin. I’m just as lost as everyone else.”
Now Mandarin is pushing into Chinatown’s heart. For most of the 100 years that the New York Chinese School, on Mott Street, has offered language classes, nearly all have taught Cantonese. Last year, the numbers of Cantonese and Mandarin classes were roughly equal. And this year, Mandarin classes outnumber Cantonese three to one, even though most students are from homes where Cantonese is spoken, said the principal.
Some Cantonese-speaking parents are deciding it is more important to point their children toward the future than the past — their family’s native dialect — even if that leaves them unable to communicate well with relatives in China.
“I figure if they have to acquire a language, I wanted them to have Mandarin because it makes it easier when they go into the workplace,” said Jennifer, whose 5-year-old daughter studies Mandarin at the language school of the Church of the Transfiguration, a Roman Catholic parish on Mott Street where nearly half the classes are devoted to Mandarin. Her 8-year-old son takes Cantonese, but only because there is no English-speaking Mandarin teacher for his age group.
“Can I tell you the truth?” she said. “They hate it! But it’s important for the future.” Until recently, Sunday Masses at Transfiguration were said in Cantonese. The church now offers two in Mandarin and only one in Cantonese. And as the arrivals from mainland China become old-timers, “we are beginning to have Mandarin funerals,” said the Rev. Raymond Nobiletti, the Cantonese-speaking pastor.
At the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, which has been the unofficial government of Chinatown for generations and conducts its business in Cantonese, the president, Justin Yu, said he is the first whose mother tongue is Mandarin to lead the 126-year-old organization. Though he has been taking Cantonese lessons in order to keep up at association meetings, his pronunciation is sometimes a source of hilarity for his colleagues, he said.“No matter what,” he added, laughing,“you have to admire my courage.”
But even his association is being surpassed in influence by Fujianese organizations, said Professor Kwong of Hunter College. Longtime residents seem less threatened than wistful. Though he is known around Chinatown for what he calls his “legendarily bad” Cantonese, Paul Lee, 59, said it pained him that the dialect was disappearing from the place where his family has lived for more than a century.
“It may be a dying language,” he acknowledged. “I just hate to say that.” But he pointed out that the changes were a natural part of an evolving immigrant neighborhood: Just as Cantonese sidelined Taishanese, so, too, is Mandarin replacing Cantonese.
Mr. Wong, the principal of the New York Chinese School, said he had tried to adjust to the subtle shifts during his 40 years in Chinatown. When he arrived in 1969, he walked into a coffee shop and placed his order in Cantonese. Other patrons looked at him oddly.
“They said, ‘Where you from?’”he recalled. “Why you speak Cantonese?” They were from Taishan, so he switched to Taishanese and everyone was happy. “And now I speak Mandarin better than Cantonese,” he added with a chuckle. “So, Chinatown — it’s always changing.”
他在曼哈顿唐人街狭窄拥挤的街道嬉戏中长大。61年来他一直生活工作在那里。但这些天当王维穿行于邻里时,他发现他听到的中文对话中有一半他不懂。
粤语是源自中国南部地区的一种方言,几十年以来主导着北美地区的唐人街,如今却正被普通话快速取代。普通话是中国的官方语言,也是大部分中国最新移民的通用语言。
在热闹的街坊餐厅和肃穆的教堂、在公园里、在街市上、在语言学校里,都可以听到这种改变。随着中国在全世界的影响力不断增长,美籍华裔家长们要求他们的孩子去学习普通话,以享受其可能带来的好处,而这些家长中有很多在家讲粤语,这一切都加速了这一变化。
然而广东话的黯然消退——不管是在纽约,还是在中国或世界各地——对于那些只会粤语的老人来说,就成了一个问题。如果不学会普通话或者英语,他们会变得越来越孤立。广东话和普通话的文字几乎是一样的,但发音却悬殊很大;一旦开口,说粤语的听不懂普通话,说普通话的也听不懂粤语。
王先生是一个已退休了的招牌制作人,他会说英语。在他的朋友圈和唐人街的历史核心区,粤语仍然是首选语言,他还可以用。他轻蔑地说,如果他去一家商店发现店员不讲他所用的方言,“我就去另一家店。”
但同其他很多人一样,他不得不接受粤语——以及说粤语的人——很快就会变成这个多元语言社区的一个小部分的可能性。王先生说:“十年之后,就完全不一样了”。
亨特学院从事亚美研究的教授彼得·邝表示,随着普通话地位的上升,华人社区的力量进行了重新调整,新近的移民在社区中的经济和政治影响力越来越大。
他说:“事实上,一整代人都在改变,只会说粤语的人几乎没有了。”他补充道:“讲粤语的居民已不再是主导者了。”这种转变反映了中国正在经历的惊人变化,在中国,普通话作为官方语言,正在成为全国各地默认的语言。
在北美地区,普通话的崛起也反映了移民潮的重大变化。在上世纪的大部分时间里,居住在美国和加拿大的大部分中国人追踪认祖至珠江三角洲地区,台山地区包括其中。他们讲的是起源并有点类似于粤语的台山话。
1965年的移民制度改革为大量来自香港说粤语的人敞开了进入北美的大门,粤语成为占支配地位的语言。但自20世纪90年以来,绝大部分的新的中国移民来自中国大陆,尤其是福建省,他们通常讲普通话和他们的地方性方言。
在纽约,很多讲普通话的人聚居在布鲁克林的日落公园和皇后区的法拉盛,现在作为一个华裔商业、政治、文化、美食中心,法拉盛可以与唐人街媲美。在唐人街,大部分较后来的移民都住在包厘街西段的历史核心区以外,聚集在东百老汇周围。
44岁的李建说:“在东百老汇我甚至不能点餐。”他是一位家具设计者,一辈子都生活在唐人街上,只说粤语。“他们不说英语;我不会普通话。我同其他每个人一样感到迷茫。”
如今普通话正在挺进唐人街的心脏。莫特街上的纽约汉语学校在建校100年大部分时间里都开设了语言课,教的几乎都是粤语。去年广东话和普通话班级数基本持平。该校校长表示,到了今年,尽管大部分学生来自讲粤语的家庭,普通话班级是粤语班级数量的3倍。
一些操粤语的家长认为,把他们的孩子引向未来比引向过去,即他们的本地方言,更为重要—即使这会使得他们不能同在故乡的亲人进行流畅的交流。
詹尼弗5岁的女儿正在莫特街上罗马天主教教区变容教堂的语言学校学习普通话,该校近一半的班级教普通话的。她说:“我觉得,如果他们必须要掌握一门语言的话,我希望他们学习普通话,因为这对他们以后的就业有帮助。”她8岁的儿子学的是粤语,不过那只是因为他这个年龄段没有能讲英语教普通话的老师。
她说:“说实话,孩子们很讨厌学普通话。不过这对未来很重要。”直到最近,变容教堂还是用粤语做周日弥撒。现在该教堂提供两场用普通话进行的弥撒,而只有一场用粤语弥撒。随着大陆移民逐渐变成老居民,操粤语的雷蒙德·诺毕雷特牧师说:“我们开始用普通话举行葬礼。”
中华会馆是唐人街几代华人的非正式管理机构,其一直用粤语办理业务。现任主席贾斯廷·于说,他是这个有着126年历史的组织中第一个母语是普通话的领导人。虽然为了主持会馆日常会议,他学了一点广东话,但他的发音经常让同事们忍不住哈哈大笑。“不管怎样,”他笑着补充道,“你必须佩服我的勇气。”
亨特学院的邝教授表示,但在影响力上,福建人的组织甚至已经超越了中华会馆。对于老居民而言,感受更多的是一份伤感,而不是威胁。尽管59岁的保罗·李在唐人街他以一口“超烂”的粤语而闻名,他依然表示,但对于这一方言在这个他们家族生活了一个多世纪的地方消失,他觉得很痛苦。
“这种语言可能很快会消失,”他承认,“我只是不想说出来而已。”但他指出这些变化在进化中的移民区是一种自然现象:就像是广东话取代台山话一样,普通话也正在取代广东话。
王先生是纽约汉语学校校长。他说,在唐人街生活的40年间,他一直在努力适应其中的细微转变。1969年当刚到纽约时,他走进一家咖啡店,用粤语点餐。其他的老顾客都奇怪的看着他。
“他们问道,‘你从哪儿来的?’”他回忆说。“为什么说粤语呢?”他们都是台山人,于是他也改说台山话,大家都非常高兴。“现在我的普通话说得比粤语好多了,”他轻声笑着说,“就这样,唐人街——一直都在变化着。”
He grew up playing in the narrow, crowded streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. He has lived and worked there for all his 61 years. But as Wee Wong walks the neighborhood these days, he cannot understand half the Chinese conversations he hears.
Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.
The change can be heard in the neighborhood’s lively restaurants and solemn church services, in parks, street markets and language schools. It has been accelerated by Chinese-American parents, including many who speak Cantonese at home, as they press their children to learn Mandarin for the advantages it could bring as China’s influence grows in the world.
But the eclipse of Cantonese — in New York, China and around the world — has become a challenge for older people who speak only that dialect and face increasing isolation unless they learn Mandarin or English. Though Cantonese and Mandarin share nearly all the same written characters, the pronunciations are vastly different; when spoken, Mandarin may be incomprehensible to a Cantonese speaker, and vice versa.
Mr. Wong, a retired sign maker who speaks English, can still get by with his Cantonese, which remains the preferred language in his circle of friends and in Chinatown’s historic core. A bit defiantly, he said that if he enters a shop and finds the staff does not speak his dialect, “I go to another store.”
Like many others, however, he is resigned to the likelihood that Cantonese — and the people who speak it — will soon become just another facet of a polyglot neighborhood. “In 10 years,” Mr. Wong said, “it will be totally different.”
With Mandarin’s ascent has come a re alignment of power in Chinese-American communities, where the recent immigrants are gaining economic and political clout, said Peter Kwong, a professor of Asian-American studies at Hunter College.
“The fact of the matter is that you have a whole generation switch, with very few people speaking only Cantonese,” he said. The Cantonese-speaking populace, he added, “is not the player anymore.” The switch mirrors a sea change under way in China, where Mandarin, as the official language, is becoming the default tongue everywhere.
In North America, its rise also reflects a major shift in immigration. For much of the last century, most Chinese living in the United States and Canada traced their ancestry to a region in the Pearl River Delta that included the district of Taishan. They spoke the Taishanese dialect, which is derived from and somewhat similar to Cantonese.
Immigration reform in 1965 opened the door to a huge influx of Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong, and Cantonese became the dominant tongue. But since the 1990s, the vast majority of new Chinese immigrants have come from mainland China, especially Fujian Province, and tend to speak Mandarin along with their regional dialects.
In New York, many Mandarin speakers have flocked to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Flushing, Queens, which now rivals Chinatown as a center of Chinese-American business and political might, as well as culture and cuisine. In Chinatown, most of the newer immigrants have settled outside the historic core west of the Bowery, clustering instead around East Broadway.
“I can’t even order food on East Broadway,” said Jan Lee, 44, a furniture designer who has lived all his life in Chinatown and speaks Cantonese. “They don’t speak English; I don’t speak Mandarin. I’m just as lost as everyone else.”
Now Mandarin is pushing into Chinatown’s heart. For most of the 100 years that the New York Chinese School, on Mott Street, has offered language classes, nearly all have taught Cantonese. Last year, the numbers of Cantonese and Mandarin classes were roughly equal. And this year, Mandarin classes outnumber Cantonese three to one, even though most students are from homes where Cantonese is spoken, said the principal.
Some Cantonese-speaking parents are deciding it is more important to point their children toward the future than the past — their family’s native dialect — even if that leaves them unable to communicate well with relatives in China.
“I figure if they have to acquire a language, I wanted them to have Mandarin because it makes it easier when they go into the workplace,” said Jennifer, whose 5-year-old daughter studies Mandarin at the language school of the Church of the Transfiguration, a Roman Catholic parish on Mott Street where nearly half the classes are devoted to Mandarin. Her 8-year-old son takes Cantonese, but only because there is no English-speaking Mandarin teacher for his age group.
“Can I tell you the truth?” she said. “They hate it! But it’s important for the future.” Until recently, Sunday Masses at Transfiguration were said in Cantonese. The church now offers two in Mandarin and only one in Cantonese. And as the arrivals from mainland China become old-timers, “we are beginning to have Mandarin funerals,” said the Rev. Raymond Nobiletti, the Cantonese-speaking pastor.
At the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, which has been the unofficial government of Chinatown for generations and conducts its business in Cantonese, the president, Justin Yu, said he is the first whose mother tongue is Mandarin to lead the 126-year-old organization. Though he has been taking Cantonese lessons in order to keep up at association meetings, his pronunciation is sometimes a source of hilarity for his colleagues, he said.“No matter what,” he added, laughing,“you have to admire my courage.”
But even his association is being surpassed in influence by Fujianese organizations, said Professor Kwong of Hunter College. Longtime residents seem less threatened than wistful. Though he is known around Chinatown for what he calls his “legendarily bad” Cantonese, Paul Lee, 59, said it pained him that the dialect was disappearing from the place where his family has lived for more than a century.
“It may be a dying language,” he acknowledged. “I just hate to say that.” But he pointed out that the changes were a natural part of an evolving immigrant neighborhood: Just as Cantonese sidelined Taishanese, so, too, is Mandarin replacing Cantonese.
Mr. Wong, the principal of the New York Chinese School, said he had tried to adjust to the subtle shifts during his 40 years in Chinatown. When he arrived in 1969, he walked into a coffee shop and placed his order in Cantonese. Other patrons looked at him oddly.
“They said, ‘Where you from?’”he recalled. “Why you speak Cantonese?” They were from Taishan, so he switched to Taishanese and everyone was happy. “And now I speak Mandarin better than Cantonese,” he added with a chuckle. “So, Chinatown — it’s always changing.”
他在曼哈顿唐人街狭窄拥挤的街道嬉戏中长大。61年来他一直生活工作在那里。但这些天当王维穿行于邻里时,他发现他听到的中文对话中有一半他不懂。
粤语是源自中国南部地区的一种方言,几十年以来主导着北美地区的唐人街,如今却正被普通话快速取代。普通话是中国的官方语言,也是大部分中国最新移民的通用语言。
在热闹的街坊餐厅和肃穆的教堂、在公园里、在街市上、在语言学校里,都可以听到这种改变。随着中国在全世界的影响力不断增长,美籍华裔家长们要求他们的孩子去学习普通话,以享受其可能带来的好处,而这些家长中有很多在家讲粤语,这一切都加速了这一变化。
然而广东话的黯然消退——不管是在纽约,还是在中国或世界各地——对于那些只会粤语的老人来说,就成了一个问题。如果不学会普通话或者英语,他们会变得越来越孤立。广东话和普通话的文字几乎是一样的,但发音却悬殊很大;一旦开口,说粤语的听不懂普通话,说普通话的也听不懂粤语。
王先生是一个已退休了的招牌制作人,他会说英语。在他的朋友圈和唐人街的历史核心区,粤语仍然是首选语言,他还可以用。他轻蔑地说,如果他去一家商店发现店员不讲他所用的方言,“我就去另一家店。”
但同其他很多人一样,他不得不接受粤语——以及说粤语的人——很快就会变成这个多元语言社区的一个小部分的可能性。王先生说:“十年之后,就完全不一样了”。
亨特学院从事亚美研究的教授彼得·邝表示,随着普通话地位的上升,华人社区的力量进行了重新调整,新近的移民在社区中的经济和政治影响力越来越大。
他说:“事实上,一整代人都在改变,只会说粤语的人几乎没有了。”他补充道:“讲粤语的居民已不再是主导者了。”这种转变反映了中国正在经历的惊人变化,在中国,普通话作为官方语言,正在成为全国各地默认的语言。
在北美地区,普通话的崛起也反映了移民潮的重大变化。在上世纪的大部分时间里,居住在美国和加拿大的大部分中国人追踪认祖至珠江三角洲地区,台山地区包括其中。他们讲的是起源并有点类似于粤语的台山话。
1965年的移民制度改革为大量来自香港说粤语的人敞开了进入北美的大门,粤语成为占支配地位的语言。但自20世纪90年以来,绝大部分的新的中国移民来自中国大陆,尤其是福建省,他们通常讲普通话和他们的地方性方言。
在纽约,很多讲普通话的人聚居在布鲁克林的日落公园和皇后区的法拉盛,现在作为一个华裔商业、政治、文化、美食中心,法拉盛可以与唐人街媲美。在唐人街,大部分较后来的移民都住在包厘街西段的历史核心区以外,聚集在东百老汇周围。
44岁的李建说:“在东百老汇我甚至不能点餐。”他是一位家具设计者,一辈子都生活在唐人街上,只说粤语。“他们不说英语;我不会普通话。我同其他每个人一样感到迷茫。”
如今普通话正在挺进唐人街的心脏。莫特街上的纽约汉语学校在建校100年大部分时间里都开设了语言课,教的几乎都是粤语。去年广东话和普通话班级数基本持平。该校校长表示,到了今年,尽管大部分学生来自讲粤语的家庭,普通话班级是粤语班级数量的3倍。
一些操粤语的家长认为,把他们的孩子引向未来比引向过去,即他们的本地方言,更为重要—即使这会使得他们不能同在故乡的亲人进行流畅的交流。
詹尼弗5岁的女儿正在莫特街上罗马天主教教区变容教堂的语言学校学习普通话,该校近一半的班级教普通话的。她说:“我觉得,如果他们必须要掌握一门语言的话,我希望他们学习普通话,因为这对他们以后的就业有帮助。”她8岁的儿子学的是粤语,不过那只是因为他这个年龄段没有能讲英语教普通话的老师。
她说:“说实话,孩子们很讨厌学普通话。不过这对未来很重要。”直到最近,变容教堂还是用粤语做周日弥撒。现在该教堂提供两场用普通话进行的弥撒,而只有一场用粤语弥撒。随着大陆移民逐渐变成老居民,操粤语的雷蒙德·诺毕雷特牧师说:“我们开始用普通话举行葬礼。”
中华会馆是唐人街几代华人的非正式管理机构,其一直用粤语办理业务。现任主席贾斯廷·于说,他是这个有着126年历史的组织中第一个母语是普通话的领导人。虽然为了主持会馆日常会议,他学了一点广东话,但他的发音经常让同事们忍不住哈哈大笑。“不管怎样,”他笑着补充道,“你必须佩服我的勇气。”
亨特学院的邝教授表示,但在影响力上,福建人的组织甚至已经超越了中华会馆。对于老居民而言,感受更多的是一份伤感,而不是威胁。尽管59岁的保罗·李在唐人街他以一口“超烂”的粤语而闻名,他依然表示,但对于这一方言在这个他们家族生活了一个多世纪的地方消失,他觉得很痛苦。
“这种语言可能很快会消失,”他承认,“我只是不想说出来而已。”但他指出这些变化在进化中的移民区是一种自然现象:就像是广东话取代台山话一样,普通话也正在取代广东话。
王先生是纽约汉语学校校长。他说,在唐人街生活的40年间,他一直在努力适应其中的细微转变。1969年当刚到纽约时,他走进一家咖啡店,用粤语点餐。其他的老顾客都奇怪的看着他。
“他们问道,‘你从哪儿来的?’”他回忆说。“为什么说粤语呢?”他们都是台山人,于是他也改说台山话,大家都非常高兴。“现在我的普通话说得比粤语好多了,”他轻声笑着说,“就这样,唐人街——一直都在变化着。”