Cantonese and Identity

Cecília Jorge

The controversy over the use of Cantonese vs. Mandarin (aka Putonghua) in Southern China is not actually new, though it has started to enlarge and threatens to worsen.
I’ve always had a keen interest in linguistics – language (and dialects) – as language is the main and foremost component of cultural identity.
Language (written or spoken) is a means to forge and cement a community; it is a tool to enable communication within and without that specific society, to foster ties either among people that presently inhabit this planet or to create links through generations. Written or oral language (in any form) is what makes history possible, passing ‘the word’ throughout generations.
To quote a famous Portuguese writer, Fernando Pessoa: “My Motherland is my language”.
Now, what does the controversy about the Cantonese, and reports and denials surrounding the fact that it is being gradually replaced by the official Putonghua (or Mandarin), have to do with Macau and the Macanese (namely the miscegenated indigenous people of remote Portuguese origin)?
Let me put it this way to begin with: the Macanese are part of the singular cultural identity of this city. As important a part of Macau as any stone of the staircase that leads up to St. Paul’s ruins, or the A-Ma temple, or any monument and site included on the UNESCO heritage list.
Macanese cultural identity and the need to preserve it – albeit as an ethnic minority of the People’s Republic of China now – was even singled out by the Chinese authorities when negotiating and signing the agreement that preceded the handover of the Administration of Macau by the Portuguese.
Apart from the Portuguese, an official language the Macanese were taught for centuries in the local classrooms or at home, and the ‘patuá’ or ‘lingu maquista’ the older generation used as ‘creole’ that somehow helped differentiate them from the ‘outsiders’ unable to speak it, most of the Macanese were more or less fluent in Cantonese, as was anyone born and raised in Macau.
They were naturally taught Chinese (the Cantonese dialect) by members of their family (mixed or not) at home, or led into talking because their language environment was overwhelmingly Cantonese: friends, traders, shoppers, radio, TV. While it was most likely an amateurish and fragile grasp of the language, it served the purpose of enabling communication among cultures. That, precisely, was a powerful component of the true Macanese-identity: the miscegenation.
Some of the Macau-born and raised residents went farther and studied the language, to enable them to read and write and the best interpreter-translators of Portuguese-Chinese language are (and always were) to be found among them, due to the gift accorded them by their mixed culture and bilingualism.
And yet – along with Portuguese language – those who went to advance knowledge of the Chinese idiom, up to the last thirty years, mostly studied Cantonese and learned the so-called traditional characters in contrast with the simplified ones taught with the Mandarin/Putonghua. Homely language books and glossaries prove how Cantonese was taught to non-Chinese locals – as a matter of fact, still deserving of an interesting research from linguistic and sociology experts.
Globalization in the widest sense seems to be leading ultimately to a melting pot of cultures and languages. If we (nation, authorities, individuals) do not make an effort to try and preserve our language, our culture, and worthy traditions, we might reach a situation of ‘survival of the fittest’ and our next generations will end up with the predominance of a language that has little to do with our own.
I recall what happened to one of the Macanese feature that so many efforts are presently waged to recover and preserve, to list as UNESCO’s intangible heritage: the near-extinct lingu maquista.
It was doomed the day the Portuguese colonial authorities ensured a ‘standard’ and faultless Portuguese should be taught in schools – understandable, of course as students would be hoping either for a job in the Administration or to study further in Portugal.
But what happened was that in practice it was made to replace the dialect (already fragile, due to fewer users and the ‘low-key status’ attached to it). With a few honourable exceptions, nothing was done to preserve it.
So much for identity, and singularity.