What we have here is a genuine mystery!

[atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org]

What we have here is a genuine mystery!

Cantonese speakers tell me this is a hard, difficult song to understand because the lyrics switch back and forth between English and Cantonese very quickly. Sometimes in mid-sentence.

But they tell me it’s a dialogue between two people speaking Chinglish? If so, this almost seems like a new language.

Also, people are asking who sings it. I don’t know. Just found it late night on Reddit while I was half asleep and saved it because they kept mentioning local landmarks to me, and I found that interesting. All I know is that the file is called “唔好走住” which means “Don’t go yet”.

I suspect (but don’t know) that this song is about two people in love with each other but don’t have a future together and may never see each other again.

This is clearly lost media. Nobody knows where it comes from. Or who sings it.

[mayintoronto@beige.party]

@atomicpoet I wouldn't say so much that it's a new language, so much as the dialects that form with diaspora populations. It's reminiscent of conversations I'd have with my parents. My Indian Canadian friends tell me it's the same way in their families.

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@mayintoronto @atomicpoet and indeed pidgins and creoles is often how new languages get born (if we don't want to get into the whole «a language is a dialect with an army» thing)