Quest4Treasure Archives

please message me. i need to know the term that applies to how chinese people talk when speaking english.

Generally speaking Josh, native speakers of one language are going to have trouble with a second language when that language has certain phonemes that do not exist in the first. In this case, you are probably asking about lambdacism (trouble with the letter L) or rhotacism (trouble with the letter R). The term for when these two letters are confused in speech is called a lallation.

thanks!

Josh, are you referring to "pidgin" English? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin Just spent the past year of my life studying Mandarin, currently living/working in China for the foreseeable future. Always happy to help sound out any ideas along these lines, assuming my Internet access holds out.

in a sense yes, but i was specifically looking for the term lallation used by Erpobdelliforme. thanks though.

this didnt take me anywhere new really, only to places ive already been but its reinforcing info anyways.

one of those places is here though: http://www.twainquotes.com/Galaxy/187009b.html

JoshCornell wrote:: one of those places is here though: http://www.twainquotes.com/Galaxy/187009b.html "Divil a cint but four dollars a week and find meself; but it's aisy, barrin' the bloody furrin clothes that's so expinsive." That's an Irish brogue. So, in that case, he's not giving an example of lallation, common for some Asians, especially Japanese, as they don't have a sound for 'L'. Some Chinese dialects have difficulty with 'R' at the end of words. But, they (including Mandarin) have/use both of the sounds for 'L' and 'R'.

Mister EZ wrote:: "Divil a cint but four dollars a week and find meself; but it's aisy, barrin' the bloody furrin clothes that's so expinsive." That's an Irish brogue. So, in that case, he's not giving an example of lallation, common for some Asians, especially Japanese, as they don't have a sound for 'L'. Some Chinese dialects have difficulty with 'R' at the end of words. But, they (including Mandarin) have/use both of the sounds for 'L' and 'R'. In this case the humor lies in the man who was dressed in chinese garb was an irishman also being treated as an inferior. Twain was pointing out the prejudice that treats both badly and that they were basically interchangeable in terms of being looked down on, and in either case it was wrong. He was also pointing out the ignorance of some who could not tell someone who was chinese from someone who was irish.

Yup...that piece is absolutely about stereotypes...and, ignorance.

he's pointing us to fu manchu and charlie chan (and one other thats too hard to just give away lol). but youre right. its about the xenophobia directed at asian immigrants.

Kwai Chang Twaine....great character name for a Kung Fu monk on the Mississippi.

Kwai Chang Twaine???

Spiritr wrote:: Kwai Chang Twaine??? Yup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_(TV_series)

lol its caine not twaine...but there is a connection to that show lol (just not that)