Thread by @ZevHandel

Haha, I forgot to do this, didn't I?

Just as well, that other thread really was getting too long.

But I'll do it here. 1/

https://twitter.com/ZevHandel/status/1416973894125199366

Here’s the example, and the point of it is just to show that when Cantonese speakers write in MSWC (書面語), it’s not just a matter of choosing more "literary" or "formal" vocabulary words. The grammar is different too. 2/

Consider a sentence meaning ‘He eats faster than me.’

We'll start with the spoken sentences in Mandarin and Cantonese (which, remember are *different languages*).
3/

Spoken Mandarin:
“Tā chī de bǐ wǒ kuài.”
he / eat / COMP / compared_to / me / fast

Spoken Cantonese:
“Keoi5 sik6 dak1 faai3 gwo3 ngo5.”
he / eat / COMP / fast / surpass / me

[COMP = complementizer, you can think of it here as meaning 'such that']

4/

In these two sentences, we see three pairs of cognates—words in Cantonese and Mandarin that derive historically from the same single word of ancient Chinese. They are
1) dak1 : dé COMP
2) faai3 : kuài 'fast'
3) ngo5 : wǒ 'I, me'

5/

The pairs of words for ‘he’, ‘eat’, and ‘compared_to/surpass’ are unrelated. But beyond that, the whole grammatical structure is different.

6/

The word that is equivalent to English 'than' and does the grammatical work is different. And the word ordering of the three key elements is different:
Cantonese: Adjective gwo3 Noun
Mandarin: bǐ Noun Adjective

7/

Now let's look at Modern Standard Written Chinese, which both Mandarin and Cantonese speakers could use to write a sentence with this meaning:

MSWC: 他吃得比我快。
Mandarin reading: Tā chī de bǐ wǒ kuài.
Cantonese reading: Taa1 hek3 dak1 bei2 ngo5 faai3.
8/

The written MSWC sentence is easily read and understood by literate speakers of both Mandarin and Cantonese — and, indeed, speakers of any spoken Chinese language who are educated to literacy in Chinese.

9/

But note that the MSWC form of the sentence aligns with the spoken Mandarin exactly.
Mandarin reading of MSWC: Tā chī de bǐ wǒ kuài.
Ordinary spoken Mandarin sentence meaning the same thing: Tā chī de bǐ wǒ kuài.

10/

Thought of another way: if a Mandarin speaker reads the written sentence aloud, the result is an ordinary sentence of their colloquial speech. If a Cantonese speaker reads the sentence aloud, it is not something you would say in a typical speaking context.

11/end