Just personal observation, maybe it feels different for a professional English song lyric composer.
I don’t have a spreadsheet, but so many characters have the same ending sounds in Mandarin that I could easily find a rhyming word when writing song lyrics.
English is a struggle to find a rhyming word that fits into the context of the contents, and it feels kinda like a forced rhyme.
I haven’t really spoken Mandarin for over 15 years, somehow it’s still easier to do rhyming.
P.S. Cantonese has more variety of sounds and less characters have the same ending sounds, so its harder to rhyme in Cantonese.
Native Mandarin speaker here. On one hand it’s true that basic rhyming is easier due to the regularity of the unit of sound and the number of characters sharing the same “final vowel” 韵母.
However, there’s also the tone system. Pronouncing the tone as it’s normally pronounced may interfere with the melody. So it’s actually very hard to write good lyrics that works with both.
In modern Mandarin music, this problem is usually bypassed by relaxing the tone a bit when singing (the phenomenon is called 倒字). However, serious lyric writers do strive to achieve both goals at the same time. (Cantonese songs are especially good in this regard.)
Compare to the classical Chinese. According to tones, all characters are divided into two classes 平仄, which follows a specific pattern in a poem 格律. The poem is also the lyrics of a melody 律诗. So this system helps you to do both.
Ok, it’s a bit off topic, but can I ask a naive question?
What the reasoning behind the different terminologies for the Chinese languages? Usually I see them then referred to as Mandarin and Cantonese, but sometimes I see the terms “simplified Chinese” and “traditional Chinese”. Or have I totally misunderstood what those terms mean? (Entirely possible)
Please forgive my ignorance.
“Chinese” can refer to a variety of languges in China.
It could refer to 中文 --> Chinese Language
It could refer to 汉字 --> “Han Characters” (aka: Chinese Characters)
It could refer to 国语/普通话 --> National Language / Mandarin
If its overseas, the English term “Chinese” could also refers to the overseas lingua franca, which historically had been Taishanese, but now is Cantonese, and slowly being replaced by Mandarin as more non-Cantonese Chinese people emigrate.
Cantonese-Chinese people usually just ask “識唔識白話” (“Do you speak Cantonese?” in Cantonese), then if no response, immediately switch to Mandarin “普通话？” (“[Do you speak] Mandarin?”)
Cantonese, [could be refered to as any of the following: 廣東話/廣州話/廣府話/粵語/白話], is the “prestige dialect” of a variety of Chinese known as Yue-Chinese. In China, it’s referred to as a “dialect”. It’s only used in Hong Kong and Guangdong, but overseas it was, and still kinda is, the lingua franca due to most of the diaspora being from there.
Traditional 繁體 is the older set of characters that has been in use for… idk how long but a very long time.
Simplified 简体 is the newer set of characters, standarized by the PRC Government after they won the KMT-CCP Civil War. It’s to make writing easier and faster. ROC (aka: Taiwan) didn’t adopt these simplifications. Hong Kong also didn’t adopt the simplifications afaik.
-Am a Native Speaker of both Cantonese and Mandarin, currently residing overseas
I see, so the simplified/traditional specifically refers to the written characters. I appreciate all the extra context as well!
Other replies answered what’s what. I think the reasoning for this many names is just there are many variants. After all, the current “nation” is several ethnic groups (many with their own languages) merged together for over thousands of years, spanning a large area.