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Shayuchung: just as it took the Northern pundits half a century to recognize that the Cantonese (ex-Yao) word "I" was to be rendered "zhun" and not "ch'uan", so they will not yet be told that in Cantonese usage "東" and "北" are not, as they are in North China, the same word, but different words of which the latter is pronounced like "dung4)". Likewise, to write Blacksmiths' Street (p. 80) "Ta T'ich Chich" is, pardon me, sheer barbarism, and a mixture of two systems like "Po Kat in ... Paoan" (p. 40, for either "Po Kat in Po On" or, if we must have this wretched Northern jargon, "Buji in Baoan") is ridiculous.
And if there be any who will take up the challenge for Sha Tau Kok, & c., they cannot do better than emulate Dr. Hayes's Chapter 2 (Peng Chau) and Chapter 4 (Tai Tam Tuk — even though he does mistranslate the second word of the name). Both chapters are models of how this kind of study should be written up. And the same applies to nearly every part of the book. I wish I had written it!
The quotation with which I opened is, by the way, in one local variety of Naam T'au dialect, and means
One shagoo (small humped cattle) is worth 20 piculs of unhusked rice;
One water buffalo is worth a house,
Such mnemonic jingles used to be common in the rural areas. Can anybody be found to collect them, while they are still remembered? I read recently that the Hakka "shan-ko" had been rediscovered in N.E. Kwangtung. Is anybody collecting them? And how about itinerant story-tellers? All right, all right, I was only asking. There is so much to be done.
K.M.A. BARNETT
i
330
Shayuchung: just as it took the Northern pundits half a century to recognize that the Cantonese (ex-Yao) word I was to be rendered zhun and not ch'uan, so they will not yet be told that in Cantonese usage and are not, as they are in North China, the same word, but different words of which the latter is pronounced like 4). Likewise, to write Blacksmiths' Street (p. 80) "Ta T'ich Chich" is, pardon me, sheer barbarism, and a mixture of two systems like "Po Kat in ... Paoan" (p. 40, for either "Po Kat in Po On" or, if we must have this wretched Northern jargon, "Buji in Baoan.”) is ridiculous.
And if there be any who will take up the challenge for Sha Tau Kok, & c., they cannot do better than emulate Dr. Hayes's Chapter 2 (Peng Chau) and Chapter 4 (Tai Tam Tuk — even though he does mistranslate the second word of the name). Both chapters are models of how this kind of study should be written up. And the same applies to nearly every part of the book. I wish I had written it!
The quotation with which I opened is, by the way, in one local variety of Naam T'au dialect, and means
One shagoo (small humped cattle) is worth 20 piculs of unhusked rice;
One water buffalo is worth a house,
Such mnemonic jingles used to be common in the rural areas. Can anybody be found to collect them, while they are still remem- bered? I read recently that the Hakka shan-ko had been rediscov- ered in N.E. Kwangtung. Is anybody collecting them? And how about itinerant story-tellers? All right, all right, I was only asking. There is so much to be done.
K.M.A. BARNETT
i
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