Talk:Swatow dialect

Again Swatow dialect is not a dialect of Teochew

I urge you to stop subbing Swatow Dialect under Teochew Dialect. Refer to http://www.hortensj-garden.org/index.php?tnc=1&tr=lsr&nid=79-AAA-jif If you are in this website you can see that it is not under Teochew Dialect however it is under Min Nan. Swatow dialect is a dialect of Min Nan. Teochew dialect is a dialect of Min Nan. So they are a sister language, so please stop sub it under one another.

Portugese language is not Spanish language, and Spanish language is not Portugese language. Portugese language is a dialect of Romance languages, Spanish language is a dialect of Romance languages That also means that they are a sister language. 101.100.177.230 (talk) 05:45, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Spanish (or should it be Castilian?) is indeed a Romance language, even though Rome is in Italy, not in Spain. People in Swatow speak the language most commonly called 'Teochew' in English, even though Swatow city is currently not a part of Teochew city. QuestionableAnswers (talk) 13:28, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Regarding the Glottolog classification, it gives "Chaozhou" as an alternative name for chao1239 Chaoshan, which would directly justify a statement like "Shantou (Swatow) is a dialect of Chaozhou (Teochew)". Freelance Intellectual (talk) 10:58, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

Swatow is not a dialect of Teochew, its like saying English is a dialect of German , which is wrong.

Swatow is not a dialect of Teochew, its like saying English is a dialect of German , which is wrong. ~~ 101.100.177.230 (talk) 00:51, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

It sounds like you're unhappy with the naming conventions. A more appropriate analogy is saying that "American" is a dialect of English, even though America is not part of England. The names of Swatow and Teochew follow WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CHINESE, and consensus in this particular case was established following discussion on Talk:Teochew_Min. Please do not change the names without establishing new consensus. The lead of this article could perhaps be improved to make the naming convention clear. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 11:41, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Again, Swatow dialect is not a Teochew Dialect. What if i say Teochew Dialect is a Swatow Dialect?

These two are entirely different in terms of accents and usage of words grammar, The proper WP:COMMONNAME would be Chaoshan Min, rather than Talk:Teochew_Min. As these are separate language, you may ask me, i spoke Swatow dialect, but i do not understand Teochew dialect, as their accents are so heavy for me to understand, so it is not right to classify Swatow Dialect as Teochew dialect as they dont belong to each other and are unique in different ways. ~~ 101.100.177.230 (talk) 03:22, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I understand your concern, but no one is claiming that the dialects spoken in Swatow and Teochew city are the same. In English, the term "Teochew" commonly refers to the entire branch of Min originating from the Teochew region. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary defines "Teochew" as "(A member of) a people of the Swatow district of Kwangtung in southern China; the dialect spoken by this people. Also attributive." As someone from Swatow, you might find that weird, but the meaning of "Teochew"/潮州 has become more narrow in Mainland China in the past century, while the Teochew diaspora continues to use it in a broader sense. The conflicting terminology can certainly be confusing, and we can adjust how the article explains the terms, but Wikipedia is not the place to right great wrongs. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 09:29, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Then if you agree that, the dialects spoken in Swatow and Teochew city are not the same, then please do not delete my contribution, let my explanation explains to the public rather than deleting my works, my langauge, im not sure if u even speak Swatow dialect, you can have Teochew dialect articles to yourself, just let me have Swatow dialect article as i speak this language. Nobody call us Swatow as Teochew. Come to China and you will understand and know, otherwise u would not have any idea. 101.100.177.230 (talk) 01:28, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree with you, right great wrongs, hence rather than reverting my work, perhaps you could enhance it with further information? what say you? I would be very happy if you could contribute more info on Swatow dialect which seems a little dead to me. 101.100.177.230 (talk) 01:52, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

The recently added references are badly formatted, and in any case do not support the claims. The first article even supports the fact that Teochew (潮州) can refer to Chaoshan dialects as a whole: "潮汕话源于潮州府，也就是其名称的由来" "Chaoshan (Teo-Swa) speech originates from Chaozhou (Teochew) Prefecture, which is also where its name comes from".

I was tempted to keep the examples, but the pronunciation of 汝 is directly contradicted by the given reference (Fielde's dictionary), which gives its pronunciation as "lṳ́" not "lú". The example sentences are tourist-like phrases that go against WikiProject Languages guidance on examples. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 14:59, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

So you decided to remove all the contribution that i have done to this article for hours? oh great now it is empty. So you are happy calling us all Teochew when we do not speak Teochew? 101.100.177.230 (talk) 01:19, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Why is it contradicting? you speak your language and i speak my langauge, let me at least give an example and why did u delete the English examples? I have spent hour to work on this. 101.100.177.230 (talk) 01:21, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Please do not revert my works on the "汝" otherwise the public or people would have no idea what is the differences.

Teochew : Ler 汝

Swatow : Lu 汝

and that's a fact of how are speak it. So i am here sharing my information what i know about Swatow (Shantou), that is the objective of Wikipedia, we share information of what we know. Not just an empty article of Swatow dialect which has nothing inside, although the language survive a 3000 years of history. 101.100.177.230 (talk) 01:36, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

1. The dialects spoken in Chaozhou and Shantou definitely belong to the same language. Most statements about one of them would be true for another. I agree that the Swatow dialect is more representative for this language — and the article on Teochew Min is actually Swatow-leaning, e.g. it uses spellings like pêⁿ-iōⁿ for 平樣 (Jieyang has the same pronunciation, while Chaozhou has pêⁿ-iēⁿ), or koiⁿ for 間 (same in Chaozhou, but kaiⁿ in Jieyang).

2. The things are called the way the are for historical reasons. The language and the people are called "Teochew" in English because historically they come from the Teochew prefecture of the Qing empire. The fact that now in PRC this prefecture is split into three prefecture-level cities doesn't influence the English usage (it might have influenced, but it didn't). As it was said above, we still call the language spoken from North America till New Zealand "English", not "Earthish" or "the Global language", because that's the conventional usage.

3. Note that the linguistic borders do not follow the administrative borders. The dialect spoken in Tenghai, which belongs to the modern Shantou city, is closer to the "Chaozhou dialect"; and the dialect spoken in Jaoping of Chaozhou city is closer to the "Swatow dialect". Indeed that may sound counterintuitive, but within the Shantou prefecture-level city, only around 25% of population live in the area where "Swatow dialect" is spoken, while the majority (50~60% of people) live in the Teoyeo dialect area. And "Teoyeo dialect" (潮陽話) is also called so for historical reasons: what is now 潮陽區, 潮南區 and 濠江區 was historically 潮陽縣.

4. Nevertheless, if you're a native speaker, you certainly can make some valuable contributions! Where exactly from Swatow do you come? Judging by the spellings you use (like 汝 loo, 豬 too, 先 sain(g?) and 問 meng), the dialect you speak is not the traditional Swatow (which would have 汝 lṳ́, 豬 tṳ, 先 soiⁿ and 問 mūng), but something like 濠江 or 潮陽. It also caught my eye that you transcribe 會曉 as ei6 hiao2 (instead of oi6 hiao2), and 底塊 as di7 do7 (instead of di7 go3), which looks somewhat Hai Lok Hong-ish to me. QuestionableAnswers (talk) 08:32, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

1. Swatow is not a dialect of Teochew, refer to glottolog https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/shan1244

Shantou language code Shan1244

2. It has been called Swatow dialect since 17th century, not sure why it is being sub under Teochew now, there must be some kind of mistake which is universally not correct, because Teochew have their own accents and words that differs from Swatow dialect

3. Yes 50~60% of people who live in Swatow are from Swatow, we're talking about current issue, doesnt matter if historically it is called 潮陽縣, this page and language doesn't exist and which is why i'm contributing. Not another Teochew dialect of Tenghai , you could create a new article on this instead of editing Swatow dialect. That would fall under "Tenghai dialect" which is a dialect of Teochew and is not the common usual Swatow dialect.

4. Yes you also sub Hai Lok Hong under Teochew which is wrong. 底塊 as di7 do7 is correct,

Hai Lok Hong would be Di Deh 底帶, I did how ever make some valuable contributions on Swatow Dialect , however it is all deleted by Freelance Intellectual of which i have gave an examples of the spoken dialect itself in the table, why remove them? how would reader understand if you delete it? 101.100.177.230 (talk) 05:31, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

In Addition to number 4.

It also seems to me that you are completely aware about the presence of Hai Lok Hong,

But you do know that the Hai Lok Hong don't see themself as Teochew right?

Well it goes the same for me and my people who spoke the Swatow dialect, as a Swatow native , which unlike you a Penang, Malaysian native, which you may not understand why we don't see ourself as belonging to Teochew. 101.100.177.230 (talk) 06:03, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

As it was said above, the linguistic borders do not follow the administrative borders. You may feel that historical divisions are irrelevant now, but even locals would not agree with you (I have once seen some douyin videos about 潮南話 — I saw many locals in the comments arguing that "there is no 潮南話, people in 潮南 speak 潮陽話, and the recent administrative reforms do not change that"). The old borders are indeed important for linguistics, e.g. the 南澳 island, which now belongs entirely to the Shantou city, was historically divided between the Teochew and Chiangchew prefectures, and the dialect of its former Chiangchew part is very much influenced by Chiangchew Hokkien. The English usage does not follow the recent administrative changes as well: most early immigrants from Teochew prefecture would say they are 'Teochew people', because that was the official name at the time; now that the Teochew prefecture is split into several cities, their inhabitants would say the are '潮汕人' in Mandarin and Teoswa language, but in English we still use the older self-designation ('Teochew').

The identities and linguistic classifications is a complex topic. Most uninitiated modern Teoswa speakers would say that their language does not belong to 閩南語, because they interpret it literally (閩南語 = 'the language of Southern Fujian' = Hokkien). In linguistic usage, however, 閩南語 covers not only Hokkien, but also other languages that are similar to it (including Teoswa and Hainanese). The Hai Lok Hong people may not consider themselves to be Teoswa or Hokkien ethnically, but the language they speak can be classified as a variety of either Teoswa or Hokkien based on formal criteria (e.g. number and contours of the tones, shape of finals, basic words, etc). That is the point of classification.

Taking your SEA Hokkien examples — we have Philippine Hokkien, and we can classify it as a Quanzhou-type Hokkien dialect (since it has typically Quanzhou shibboleths, like 皮 phê, 街 koe, 厚 hiǒ instead of Zhangzhou 皮 phôe, 街 ke, 厚 hō͘), and more specifically a subtype of Jinjiang Hokkien (as Philippine Hokkien has some distinctly Jinjiang sound changes, e.g. /ɯ/ becomes /i/, /ə/ > /e/, /ek/ > /iak/, tone 4 (陽上) > tone 1 (陰平), etc). If we classify the Philippine Hokkien dialect as a sub-dialect of Jinjiang Hokkien, we are not saying that Philippine Hokkien speakers are Jinjiang or Quanzhou people. It has nothing to do with their identity, which would be determined e.g. by the ancestral home (籍貫) of one's family or some other factors, but not the language.

The "X dialect" usually means "the dialect of X's administrative center". For most prefecture-level cities in China, that would be the dialect spoken in their urban parts (街道s or 區s, except those that have been established recently) or municipal seats, even if only a small portion of the prefecture-level city's population lives there. The "Swatow dialect" is the dialect of 金平區 and 龍湖區. The dialect of Teoyeo is distinct from Swatow (and I just created an article for it, see Teoyeo dialect).

Are you sure about 會 ei6 (not ŏi) and di7 do7 (not 底塊 tī-kò or 底囝 tī-kiáⁿ)? Especially the tone of do. Can you give a character with the same sound? QuestionableAnswers (talk) 13:44, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

If you think my idea is irrelevant then this article should be delete, because if Swatow Dialect is Teochew Dialect.

then why bother keeping Swatow dialect? isn't it better just to keep things simple? just keep Teochew dialect? Teochew Min

why bother about Swatow dialect? 101.100.177.230 (talk) 06:01, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

It seems you are passionate about this topic, but Wikipedia is a collaborative project and you need to work with other editors and follow Wikipedia policies. I carefully reviewed your changes to the article and pointed out serious problems which you have not addressed. If you want, you could create a draft article for review (and it does not need to be reviewed by me, because no one owns articles). And yes, another option would be to propose a merge of Swatow dialect and Teochew Min.

Regarding your specific question about the contradiction, the source gives Swatow 汝 as "lṳ́" (which is "ler" in your ad-hoc romanisation). Freelance Intellectual (talk) 10:51, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Why not just merge Swatow Dialect and Teochew dialect into Hokkien dialect instead? isn't that much easier?

That is the mean point of a dialect right?

Your from Penang, you speak a certain Penang Hokkien dialect, not everyone speak your Penang Hokkien Dialect. 101.100.177.230 (talk) 05:32, 21 May 2025 (UTC)