Lion eating poet cantonese

In older forms of chinese, one could have been to tell apart the different characters making up the title, as they. However, changes in pronunciation over 2,500 years resulted in a large degree of in classical chinese, so. All 92 characters of the poem have the sound shi when read in modern mandarin. The lion made a sudden stop, he let the dainty morsel drop, and slunk reluctant to his cage, snarling with disappointed rage but when he bent him over jim, the honest keepers eyes were dim.

Written cantonese is the written form of cantonese, the most complete written form of chinese after that for mandarin chinese and classical chinese. Jim, who ran away from his nurse, and was eaten by a lion. The story of shi shi eating lions is a 92character modern poem written in classical chinese by yuen ren chao 18921982, in which every syllable has the sound shi in different tones when read in modern mandarin chinese. First, it shows that romanisation of chinese language is impossible as it would create lots of confusion and ambiguity. Chinese is already confusing enough with all of its tones, characters, etc etc. If you recited this in cantonese which is a bit more conservative dialect, the words would sound differently.

A 92 chinese character story by yuen ren chao in which every syllable has the sound shi with only the tones differing. With his essay, the eminent linguist tried to spoof the idea of converting chinese character text into a phonetic e. Problematic treatment of middle chinese j vs zh initials, as they were merged by late middle chinese. Simba young lo jifung speaking ng gamyuen singing wikipedia. Comments about cantonese poem by jian liying gajanan mishra 412014 9. Written chinese was originally developed for classical chinese, citation needed and was the main literary language of china until the 19th century. An incredible chinese tongue twister poem now heres a little game with chinese words believe it or not, this is a whole poem written in mandarin. What does the chinese poem, lioneating poet in the stone. Which languages are easiest for native english speakers to. Consider a poem written by chinese linguist yuen ren chao that describes the bizarre tale of a lioneating poet.

Shishi shi shi shi is a short narrative poem written in classical chinese that is composed of 92 characters in which every word is pronounced shi when read in presentday standard mandarin, with only the tones differing. Most of this body of poetry has used classical chinese grammars, but composed with cantonese phonology in mind and thus needs to be chanted using the cantonese language in order to rhyme. Although hong kong people refer to the language as cantonese, publications in mainland china describe the variant as hong kong speech, due to the differences between the pronunciation used in hong kong cantonese and that of the cantonese spoken in neighbouring guangdong province where cantonese based on the guangzhou dialect is a lingua franca. As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing with a longer, lessambiguous. The lion king jim chim may 27, 1965 lo gwokhung unknown dates paul lo february 3, 1947 cast. A poet named shi lived in a stone house and liked to eat lion flesh, and he vowed to eat ten of them. Even worse, native speakers of cantonese tend to pronounce standard mandarin sz. How to read a chinese poem with only one sound chinesepod. Chinese language is even more awesome than i thought.

Taken to the extreme, it is possible to create a tonguetwisters where all the words have the same sound but varying only in their tones. In this case the meaning of the text isnt as important as the pronunciation, so transcription should be preferred. We can reach the answer by simply comparing the finals of the two with those of middle chinese which would be the pingshuiyun for rhymes of middle chinese poetry. The story of shi shi eating lions is a 92character modern poem written in classical chinese by yuen ren chao 18921982, in which every syllable has the. Is taishanese better for reading old chinese poetry or. Lion in cantonese englishcantonese dictionary glosbe. I am a cantonese speaking chinese born in vietnam and raised in the u. While tonguetwisters in all languages take advantage of similar sounding words and syllables to generate confusion, some chinese tonguetwisters also take advantage of the fact that chinese is a tonal language.

Yuen ren chao wrote it in the 1930s in the united states, whereas pinyin was not completed until 1958, and was partially based on chaos own gwoyeu romatzyh. See more ideas about chinese quotes, chinese language and chinese words. The text, although written in classical chinese, can be easily comprehended by most educated readers. Incidentally in cantonese this is much easier to understand. As he had taken an oath to eat ten lions, he went out to the market every day at ten oclock in order to look for lions. At ten oclock, ten lions had just arrived at the market. Note that the recordings in mandarin carry marked accents e. Why dont the chinese use pinyin instead of the characters. With this post by poet red slider, however, we are expanding fine tea to include critiques of classic asian works. Yuens homophonic masterwork performs a most impressive manipulation of tonal gymnastics, revealing a story thatif reproduced phonetically with english letterswould only require the constant repetition of a single word. Mandarin chinese simple english wikipedia, the free. Sek9 sat7 si1 si6 si1 si6, si3 si1, sai6 sik9 sap9 si1. Shi killed the lions, with arrows and picked up their bodies, carrying them back to his stone house. Second, it proves that mandarin has more deficiency in identifying words as the phenomenon of one syllable representing more th.

Besides i dont see how is translated to lioneating poet in. The piece itself only makes no sense in atonal pinyin, wh. In modern spoken mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used asis. Including mandarin, cantonese and other dialects, more than a billion people speak some derivation of this timehonored tongue. Written vernacular chinese first appeared in the 17th century and a written form of mandarin.