• As far as I know, they aren’t, in large part because use of vernacular written
  Taishanese or Zhongshanese is rare to (almost?) non existent.
• If there are such materials online, I would love to know about them!

• I’m afraid I am not aware of such a book for Cantonese.
• But, if you read the comments in Amazon.com, there are pros and
  cons in the approach that the author, ShaoLan Hsueh, had taken.
• And lastly, the approach really isn’t new. Teachers often do something like this in
  beginning Chinese courses in introducing Chinese characters as a mnemonic
  device to help students learn and as a fun way to start being introduced to writing
  Chinese characters.

• Hambaanglaang is a wonderful, colloquial Cantonese word that is used in everyday, colloquial speech. If one is writing down precisely, verbatim, what one has said, then, by all means, use hambaanglaang , 冚唪呤 (and other orthographic variants).

• Regarding the website, https://hambaanglaang.hk/ hk/, founded in December 2019, a LOT of time and effort had been put into preparing materials and making them available online at their website to help in the learning of Cantonese: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. I will leave more discussion on this to the dedicated teachers connected with Cantonese Alliance.

• There are lots of apps or modules within language learning software programs that include stroke order, and these could be fun for students to look at and play with.
• Stroke order and direction of strokes go together. Having a good foundation on that, I think, is important.
• How much to emphasize … that is something for teachers to determine, in balancing between correct stroke order and maintaining students’ enthusiasm for learning the language. A delicate balancing act …

•  Many of the attendees here who teach Cantonese — especially to elementary  school children — would be better equipped to respond to this question! …  
• At Ohio State University, our instructors teach conversational Cantonese  to university students; as a result, our textbook choice differs greatly from 

   …  

   

  張老師 is sharing some links in Chat for everyone! 

  • San Francisco Unified School District: MeiZhou Chinese 美洲華語: http://www.mzchinese.net/
  • In addition to MeiZhou, the Chinese immersion program at Alice Fong Yu Alternative School in San Francisco has added Sage Books’ Basic Chinese 500 基礎漢字 500: https://www.sagebookshk.com/product/basic-chinese-500/
  • It’s critical to cultivate a love for reading
  • Storybooks in Cantonese: 
    • Storybooks Canada with Dr. Dennis Amelunxen’s stroke order tool: https://chinvocab.com/sbca/
    • Hambaanglaang.hk has published a lot of free downloadable storybooks in written Cantonese and has recently added many new resources such as conversations, comprehension exercises, and written Chinese: https://hambaanglaang.hk/
    • Dr. Amelunxen has added the tool to some of the HBL stories https://cantonesealliance.org/r-and-w-stage-3/
    • and proverbs: https://cantonesealliance.org/r-and-w-stage-4/
  • Cantonese Reading Materials in text files compiled by Eric (Hulk): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sihq61nNqXJZFhkHCne9V_EFfFgnAU-K
  • All of the text files work with the Cantonese Popup Dictionary: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cantonese-popup-dictionar/pjnbhojkojmibobcpfgihhnohboldhip?hl=en
    • Make sure “Allow access to file URLs is checked for the dictionary. 
    • If you need support, please join our Discord server. Our volunteers can answer your questions: https://discord.gg/bXJj3SgxVb
  • Greenwood Cantonese Reading Materials: https://www.green-woodpress.com/products_list.php?iscantonese=1
  • Famous novels translated into written Cantonese (Little Prince and Animal Farm), which can be read with the Cantonese Popup Dictionary: https://www.cantonese.com.hk/?fbclid=IwAR1GAJI3jdWdUamj7krYd0_kcQtJjjZ3aZX_t7FOXqDMo-Qjp5yKkM__zyg
  • Magazine about Cantonese culture in written Cantonese: https://resonate.hk/

• Regarding the removal of the heart component, 心, from 愛 in the simplified form, 爱, this predates the 20th century script reform,  which I addressed earlier as part of my presentation today.  
• That the orthographic form without the heart component pre-dates the script reform of the 20th century can be seen in the 1716 Kangxi Dictionary (康熙字典), which is a useful source for orthographic variants that have been used over the centuries.

• • (That may be somewhat like English dictionaries that provide two spellings, ‘plow’ and ‘plough’ for the same farm tool, but the English dictionaries also add information on the source of the spelling difference, one being American English and the other British English.)
• The terms “word” and “character”:
  • Word: 詞 (詞典) Character: 字 (字典) – strictly the written form  

• I think this might depend very much on individual  Cantonese speakers in mainland China.
• The government does not encourage the use of  characters that are non-standard. As a result, it takes special effort and interest for mainlanders to take time to be exposed to vernacular written Cantonese, and to use it himself/herself. Ditto for those in the Cantonese diaspora, be it North America, or Vietnam, or Malaysia.
• I notice, over the years, for example, the entertainment magazines distributed  in Vancouver seem to have reduced the use of vernacular written Cantonese.
• I think the Web is an important place to “introduce” written Cantonese and other
  vernacular forms for anyone browsing the internet. Take, for example, the link on the
  Web provided below, which lets Cantonese speakers see how one might write Cantonese.
  The link uses only those characters that are in standard Chinese, but the question that is posed is clearly intended to be read in Cantonese. Notice that in the video itself, the
  vernacular graph for ‘sleep’ is used: 瞓. Thus, netizens are introduced to two graphic forms for this item: 訓 and 瞓.

• This is a huge topic that involves the history of the Chinese language, changes over time  and distance, and which branch of the Chinese language was selected to serve as the  standard spoken form on which the written is based.
• My own first exposure to written Cantonese were the lyrics in the old black-and-white Cantonese opera films produced in Hong Kong, as shown here. I went with my grandparents to watch the old films in the movie theaters in Vancouver Chinatown. The lyrics allow the audience to follow the singing.

無敵楊四郎

Line sung by 林家聲

1959 HK Film

• No, and that is because Cantonese is not used as some kind of written standard in  education, government, etc. 
• And even with standardization, there will still be non-standard graphic forms,  for abbreviation, etc. The current existence of traditional and simplified characters  adds an extra wrinkle to this.  
• One thing interesting to watch over the years is to see which variant forms become  more dominant in usage than some others: our choice of input methods (e.g., if  you use Pinyin to write Cantonese, the vernacular characters would not appear so  readily). We are influenced by different sources that make their own selection of  orthographic forms – Google Voice Typing, etc.

• I think as long as people have fun expressing themselves in writing in Cantonese,  I’m all for it! 
• When one is writing very casually and colloquially on the internet, for example,  part of the fun is being creative and just enjoying oneself. There is always a time  and place for different types of activities.  
• Someone who is a teacher teaching Cantonese, for example, may want to avoid  introducing mixed scripts, and may choose to use only the forms introduced in the  textbook, especially for younger learners.  

•  In Taiwan, in recent years the government has included the learning of one’s mother tongue.  Taiwanese (S. Min), for example, is now taught in schools and, as a result, provides its set of  standard characters. There are differences of opinion on choices of characters, a topic of  interest to my advisee who wrote his thesis on it.  (張老師 has a copy that she could give to those interested: Cockrum, Paul. 2022. Taiwanese Southern Min: Identity and Written Sociolinguistic Variation.  OSU M.A. thesis.)
• With respect to vernacular writing in the mainland, the government discourages non-standard  characters. As a result, efforts would be much more sporadic. Keep in mind that prior to the  founding of the PRC, vernacular writing in various Chinese dialects have existed, such as the  use of the Suzhou dialect in 馮夢龍’s (1574-1646) 山歌, the use of Chaozhou and Quanzhou  (S. Min dialects) in the Ming dynasty opera script, 荔鏡記 (a.k.a. 陈三五娘). 
•  I think that one valuable activity for learning to read the vernacular written language is  to read folk literature and seeing the words for nursery rhymes, lullabies, etc. 

• As the adage goes, “Use it or lose it.” If no-one is interested, then the language  will eventually disappear. Language vitality is an important issue that I address in  my courses, especially in my “Chinese Dialects” course, but in my other Chinese  linguistics courses as well.
• Hong Kong Cantonese and Guangdong Cantonese differ in numerous ways, a  topic that would take time to elaborate. These include the sound system (e.g., the  loss of the high-falling tone in the 陰平 tone in Hong Kong Cantonese, tone  mergers that are taking place in Hong Kong), vocabulary (esp. in the greater code mixing in using English), etc. 

The work of Chinese language teachers is so very important!

Agree!

• 訓覺 is also written as 瞓覺, with 瞓 a vernacular Cantonese character, as I  showed in Question #6. The etymon (本字) is 睏, but in Cantonese, that character  is pronounced [kʰwɐn], and not [fɐn], as in the colloquial word for ‘to sleep’: [fɐn kau]. The selection of a phonetic loan, 訓, or the creation of a vernacular  character, 瞓, presumably serves to avoid the problem of needing to know when to  pronounce 睏 as [kʰwɐn] or as [fɐn]. (A comparable situation in English would be such  words as ‘bow’ and ‘read’ that have multiple pronunciations, depending on context.)
• Re the question, I am not aware of such sources, but the 汉语方言词汇 (2nd edition,  1995) may be a helpful resource. It tries inform the reader of the original character  (本字) when other graphic forms are found as well. But note that the written  Cantonese character, , is in the corresponding simplified form there.

• If there is a trend, I would think it would be convergence, given the heavy push by the  Chinese government for standard characters and the use of Putonghua. That is also true  between the use of “standard Cantonese” and some more rural subvariety of Cantonese.  For example, my paternal grandmother used 家下 while the rest of the family used 而家 ‘now.’ This can involve the gradual replacement of one form, one pattern, with another.  

• The post-verbal use of 先 ‘before,’ for example, may eventually be replaced by pre-verbal  placement. An interesting observation is that of pre- and post-verbal in some people’s  speech. Is that part of the transition: pre-verbal 先 > pre- & post-verbal 先 > pre-verbal 先?  The presence of pre- and post-verbal 先 is not a recent phenomenon. I heard it in 關德 興’s speech in the late 1950s when he played 武松 in a Cantonese opera film. I was  surprised that it occurred well over half a century ago! 

Our Cantonese language teachers in this group are the best sources for such suggestions and tips! 

張老師 and her team have been doing a great job in making more resources and teaching materials available that are shared among the teachers!  

Check out 張老師’s advice and online resources in Chat!

• Encourage reading
• Pick reading materials that are meaningful and relevant to the learners
• Start out with materials in written Cantonese so that what the learner reads is consistent with the spoken language (please see my references in #5)
• Fun games and apps, for example:
  • Maomi Stars: https://maomistars.com/
  • Turtle Learn: https://en.turtlelearn.com/
• Use Cantonese keyboards：https://jyutping.org/keyboard/
• I’m developing a program in reading and writing
  • Stage 1: https://cantonesealliance.org/r-and-w-stage-1/
  • Stage 2: https://cantonesealliance.org/r-and-w-stage-2/
  • Stage 3: https://cantonesealliance.org/r-and-w-stage-3/
  • Stage 4: https://cantonesealliance.org/r-and-w-stage-4/
• Write diary and join Cantonese group to practice writing Cantonese (e.g., the Cantonese Alliance Discord Server)
• Encourage creative writing and writing with a group of friends
• I’ve written about how to teach children to read and write. Please go to the section “How to teach children Cantonese in overseas communities,” then “What is a good age to start teaching reading and writing? What are the best practices?”: https://cantonesealliance.org/faq/

• I think it is important to keep in mind what are one’s highest priorities for  different purposes and at different levels.  
• At the right level, students interested in digging deeper into the writing system  of Chinese in general, and vernacular written language, can be encouraged to  explore some etymons (本字).  

• This is a time period of almost half a century across three different communities …  I will pass on this for this occasion where my talk focusses on written Cantonese!  
• One difference between Hong Kong and Guangzhou Cantonese that I mentioned earlier is  the loss of the high-falling tone for 陰平 tone. Another example, from segmental  phonology, might be the loss of labialization of velar stops before [ɔ], as in the loss of  contrast between 剛 and 光, 講 and 廣, 各 and 國, etc.  
• I think Guangzhou Cantonese speakers are likely to, consciously or unconsciously, adopt  more standard Chinese (Putonghua) patterns into their spoken Cantonese. For example, I  have a feeling Guangzhou Cantonese speakers may use 嗎 as a question marker, whereas  traditionally Cantonese does not do so. Mind you, that may also be changing in Hong Kong as well. Do Cantonese speakers today say, 你好嗎? Or not use that at all, or maybe  sometimes opt for: 你好呀嘛? (or 你好丫嘛?) ? 

• This is a very big topic, even if limited it to vernacular writing … 
• I touched upon this topic briefly in my presentation, with the ‘to sleep’  example from the page in the 汉语方言词汇 (2nd edition, 1995), a valuable  source, albeit several decades old now, for comparisons across the major  regional varieties (方言) of Chinese.  

• Let’s focus on the word ‘to sleep’ across Chinese dialects that was mentioned earlier, one choice that does not show up explicitly in the 汉语方言词汇 is 寐, whereas both 睡 and 睏 do. Zhongshan (中山) dialect’s word for it is [mi]  寐. The graphic form, 寐, is in the 珠江三角洲方言詞匯對照 (A Survey of  Dialects in the Pearl River Delta). 1988. Vol. 2. Comparative Lexicon. Zhongshan (Shiqi 石歧) is the only Yue dialect among the 25 Yue dialect  sites in the survey to use 寐 for ‘to sleep.’ Longdu (隆都, E. Min), spoken in  Zhongshan district, is the only other dialect in the survey that uses 寐.
• 寐 is potentially the etymon in 建甌 (N. Min), where it shows up in the 汉语 方言词汇 with phonetic loan characters, “密七”, pronounced [mi tsʰi].  Zhongshan (Shiqi 石歧) has likely borrowed the word from Longdu …

• I think that, if the goal is to encourage and support the use of written Cantonese,  whatever helps to increase folks’ interest and enthusiasm in writing down what  they say, I am all for it.  
• Hongkongers — and increasingly, mainland youth as well — do a lot of code mixing, so for that to show up in their writing on the internet should be very  natural. Precisely, that is how they talk. Writing down verbatim their speech is  what is the slogan, 我手寫我口, is all about!

• I think the choice of sentence-final particle (SFP) begins with what is the spoken  form used by the speaker, and then determining the written form, which may have  one or more orthographic variants. The choice is then up to the individual or, if  this is in a course, then what the teacher uses in the class.  
• In the Cantonese course that we teach at Ohio State University, the focus is on  conversational Cantonese, so we don’t worry about what precise orthographic  form might get chosen by the students. The textbook, of course, has its choices  in the character portion of the textbook.  

• These are very valid questions. The first two are actually general questions, and  are precisely what Cantonese Alliance aims to do: find ways to promote Cantonese  with help from members who can volunteer to help create and provide resources  for the study of the Cantonese language, both spoken and written, as well as  introduce various aspects of Cantonese culture, be it cuisine, learning about the  old Chinatowns set up by early Cantonese immigrants, etc., as some of the various  means to promote Cantonese. 

• Re #1: Do join the Cantonese Alliance Discord Server: https://discord.gg/bXJj3SgxVb

• Re #2: Please check out the Cantonese Alliance websites: 

  • https://cantonese-alliance.github.io/language.html
  • https://cantonesealliance.org/

• Re #3, I think this is where, if the venue is something very casual, then any method to write down what the speaker has in mind will be helpful, even if it  involves, say, using some self-designed romanization, selecting a character that  has the same sound as the target word (despite knowing that it really shouldn’t be  that word – that is, the use of phonetic loan), or inserting an English word, etc., to  help complete the sentence that is primarily written in Cantonese; that is, the sentence is intended to be read in Cantonese.

• The goal is to communicate in Cantonese, using what resources one has. In some ways it is no different from learners of Mandarin Chinese putting down Pinyin when they don’t know how to write the Chinese character(s). And their Pinyin may be spelled a bit wrong … Or they may insert an English word when they don’t know the Chinese term. That’s far better than a blank space!

•  I don’t think so. I think the most that tech companies can do would be to popularize the  use of certain graphs. Standardizing a set of graphs for writing Cantonese is a daunting  task. There may be certain graphic forms that are more commonly used than others, due  to input methods, fonts, apps, etc., etc. The more often some particular form is seen — and  if they are easily accessed using whatever devices or apps that one has — that may be  what will help to determine the most frequently chosen orthographic forms. But that is not  standardization per se. 
• Even governments setting standards don’t necessarily result in everyone abiding by those  standards, especially for casual, informal writing. Even if some orthographic variants are  chosen to be the “standard” forms, there could still be informal, “non-standard” (俗體)  variants that may be used by the populace, not to mention the additional complication of  the existence of traditional and simplified Chinese characters currently in circulation. 
• At the same time, the more rigidly one insists on standards, the less fun people will have  in writing the vernacular language, and the goal of promoting the use of  vernacular Cantonese writing might be that much more difficult to achieve.