Places’ Names and Others

I have now used many words in Chinese and it is time for me to tell you how we say these in Chaoshan Hua.

I have already mentioned Chaoshan. The chao comes from Chaozhou and shan comes from Shantou. In Chaoshan Hua, we call this Diosuan. The ‘n’ at the end of sua indicates that you say 'sua' through your nose. However, to add to the confusion, in the official Chinese language, we do not have nasal tones and therefore the ‘n’ at the end of shan as in Chaoshan does NOT mean you say sha though your nose. ^_~

The other is 'hua' which means language. We say uê’ in Diosuan’uê.

I have already mentioned Chaozhou. Please use Google to look for Chaozhou if you do not know where this is. Chaozhou is called Dioziu. However, the people in Chaozhou call it Dieziu. Shantou is called Suantao.

Of course, Chaoshan is in Guangdong and we say Gêngdang – but the ‘g’ has a hard ‘k’ sound. Do not ask me why they just did not write it as Kêngdang, which would reflect the actual pronunciation. Maybe is to catch those people who pretend to be Chaoshan ren out, when they speak Chaoshan hua! ^_~

We also call ren as people as nang.

Summary: Chaoshan Hua English
Chao2shan4 潮汕 Dio(7)suan1 Chaoshan [A new word and therefore standard Chinese is used]
Chao2zhou1 潮州 Dio(7)ziu1 Teochew or Teochiu
Shan4tou2 汕頭 Suan1tao5 Swatow
Guang3dong1 廣東 Gêng(3)dang1 Canton or Kwangtung
Guang3dong1 Sheng3 廣東省 Gêng(3)ziu1 廣州 Guangdong province
Hua 話 Uê7 Language
Ren 人 Nang5 People