To follow up on the previous post, let's look at a phenomenon I call pseudo-English in Cantonese. I didn't find much literature on this topic. So let me start by defining this term:
Pseudo-English in Cantonese: words that appear to be an English word that is used in an otherwise monolingual Cantonese context, and is not comprehensible to a true English speaker.
N.B. This is different than "Konglish" in which Cantonese grammar is used with English content words (e.g. "you go first la" "you eat jor mei?" "let me think think" etc.)
I came up with two examples of this phenomenon and performed an extensive corpus search (i.e. Google) to find the following attestations:
1) gamchuria
Definition: forced, in a forced manner 梗硬黎
Origin: phonetic approximate of 監粗黎呀
Part of speech: adjective; adverb
Attestations:
a. 後來我教中學生（第5X屆），再三叫班細路唔好係唔係都吊起把死人聲gamchuria 抑揚頓挫，同埋唔好扮小學雞唱遊。
b. 小店冇堂食，但你可“gamchuria“坐晌舖內一角食
1) Undingdable (or spelled undingtable)
Definition: unbearable 好難頂; annoying/ cringe-worthy
Origin: un-頂-dable
Part of speech: adjective
Attestations:
a. 你真係undingtable ，即係話其他人都唔掂，係你先頂得自己住呀!
b. 蔡xx扮天真無知個樣真係好undingdable
c. 仲要有一對痴男怨女係我前面卿卿我我, unDingtable!
d. 超級undingdable ! 點解D化粧搞到佢咁醜樣(本身已經唔係靚架啦) !
Can you think of any other examples of pseudo-English words in Cantonese?
Comments
Post a Comment