Standard Cantonese
Encyclopedia
Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a language that originated in the vicinity of Canton (i.e. Guangzhou
) in southern China
, and is often regarded as the prestige dialect
of Yue Chinese.
In mainland China
, it is a lingua franca
in Guangdong Province and some neighbouring areas, such as the eastern part of Guangxi Province
. Outside mainland China, it is spoken by the majority population of Hong Kong
and Macau
in everyday life. It is also spoken by overseas Chinese communities
in Southeast Asia
, the United States
, Canada
, Peru
, Cuba
, Panama
, Australia
, and New Zealand
, as well as part of Europe
, and is the most widely spoken Chinese dialect in the world.
While the term "Cantonese" refers narrowly to the prestige dialect described in this article, it is often used in a broader sense for the entire Yue branch of Chinese, including related dialects such as Taishanese.
The Cantonese language is also viewed as part of the cultural identity for the native speakers across large swathes of southern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares much vocabulary with Mandarin Chinese, the two languages are not mutually intelligible
largely because of pronunciation and grammatical differences. Sentence structure, in particular the placement of the verb, sometimes differs between the two languages. The use of vocabulary in Cantonese also tends to have more historic roots. The most notable difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is how the spoken word is written; with Mandarin the spoken word is written as such, where with Cantonese there may not be a direct written word matching what was said. Because of this difference, it is often said that Cantonese is "slang" while Mandarin is "proper" Chinese.
, and later brought to Hong Kong and Macau; this narrow sense may be specified as "Canton dialect" or "Guangzhou dialect" in English.
However, "Cantonese" may also refer to the primary branch of Chinese which contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang; this broader usage may be specified as "Yue" (粤). In this article, "Cantonese" is used for Cantonese proper.
Chinese speakers use some names that do not correspond exactly with the English terms. Customarily, speakers call their language "Guangzhou Prefecture speech" (Guǎngzhōu huà, 广州话 or 廣州話). In Canton province people also call it "Provincial Capital speech". In Hong Kong and Macau, people usually call it "Guangdong speech" (廣東話). Outside of Guangzhou, people also call it "Baak Waa" (plain speech) .
Due to its status as a prestige dialect
, it is often called "Standard Cantonese" . (With simplified tone markers: biu zeon/ jyut_ jyu= / biu zên/ yud_ yu=).
for use in education, the media and official communication, though a few state television and radio
broadcasts are in Cantonese. However, due to the linguistic history of Hong Kong
and Macau
, and the use of Cantonese in many overseas Chinese
communities, international usage of Cantonese has spread far out of proportion to its relatively small number of speakers in China, even though the majority of Cantonese speakers still live in mainland China.
Cantonese is the predominant Chinese language spoken in Hong Kong and Macau. In these areas, political discourse takes place almost exclusively in Cantonese, making it the only variety of Chinese other than Mandarin to be used as the primary language for the official state functions of an area. Because of their use by non-Mandarin-speaking Yue speakers overseas, the Cantonese and Taishanese languages are the primary forms of Chinese that Westerners come into contact with.
Along with Mandarin and Hokkien
, Cantonese is one of the few varieties of Chinese with its own popular music, Cantopop
. In Hong Kong, Cantonese lyrics predominate within popular music, and many artists from Beijing and Taiwan have learned Cantonese to make Cantonese versions of their recordings. Popular native Mandarin speaking singers, including Faye Wong
, Eric Moo
, and singers from Taiwan, have been trained in Cantonese to add "Hong Kong-ness" to their performances.
article. Hong Kong Cantonese
has some minor variations in phonology.
s of Hong Kong
are English
and Chinese
, as defined in the Basic Law of Hong Kong
. The Chinese language has many different varieties
, of which Cantonese is one. In Hong Kong
, Cantonese is the predominantly spoken variety
in everyday life. It is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Government
. It is also used as the medium of instruction
in many schools, alongside English.
The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong is mutually intelligible
with the Cantonese spoken in the Chinese city of Canton (Guangzhou
), although there exists some differences in pronunciation, accent and vocabulary. The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong is known as Hong Kong Cantonese
.
.
, Yale and Jyutping
. While they do not differ greatly, Yale is the one most commonly seen in the west today. The Hong Kong linguist Sidney Lau
modified the Yale system for his popular Cantonese-as-a-second-language course and is still widely in use today.
Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary in China published a "Vocabulary of the Canton Dialect" (1828) with a rather unsystematic romanized pronunciation. Elijah Coleman Bridgman
and Samuel Wells Williams
in their "Chinese Chrestomathy in the Canton Dialect" (1841) were the progenitors of a long-lived lineage of related romanizations with minor variations embodied in the works of James Dyer Ball, Ernst Johann Eitel
, and Immanuel Gottlieb Genăhr (1910). Bridgman and Williams based their system on the phonetic alphabet and diacritics proposed by Sir William Jones
for South Asian languages. Their romanization system embodied the phonological system in a local dialect rhyme dictionary, the Fenyun cuoyao, which was widely used and easily available at the time and is still available today. Samuel Wells Willams' Tonic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialect (Yinghua fenyun cuoyao 1856), is an alphabetic rearrangement, translation and annotation of the Fenyun. In order to adapt the system to the needs of users at a time when there were only local variants and no standard—although the speech of the western suburbs, xiguan, of Guangzhou was the prestige variety at the time—Williams suggested that users learn and follow their teacher's pronunciation of his chart of Cantonese syllables. It was apparently Bridgman's innovation to mark the tones with an open circles (upper register tones) or an underlined open circle (lower register tones) at the four corners of the romanized word in analogy with the traditional Chinese system of marking the tone of a character with a circle (lower left for "even," upper left for "rising," upper right for "going," and lower right for "entering" tones). John Chalmers
, in his "English and Cantonese pocket-dictionary" (1859) simplified the marking of tones using the acute accent to mark "rising" tones and the grave to mark "going" tones and no diacritic for "even" tones and marking upper register tones by italics (or underlining in handwritten work). "Entering" tones could be distinguished by their consonantal ending. Nicholas Belfeld Dennys used Chalmers romanization in his primer. This method of marking tones was adopted in the Yale romanization (with low register tones marked with an 'h'). A new romanization was developed in the first decade of the twentieth century which eliminated the diacritics on vowels by distinguishing vowel quality by spelling differences (e.g. a/aa, o/oh). Diacritics were used only for marking tones. The name of Tipson is associated with this new romanization which still embodied the phonology of the Fenyun to some extent. It is the system used in Meyer-Wempe and Cowles' dictionaries and O'Melia's textbook and many other works in the first half of the twentieth century. It was the standard romanization until the Yale system supplanted it. The distinguished linguist, Y. R. Chao developed a Cantonese adaptation of his Gwoyeu romanization system which he used in his "Cantonese Primer." The front matter to this book contains a review and comparison of a number of the systems mentioned in this paragraph. The GR system was not widely used.
, written by Wong Shik Ling
, was published in 1941. He derived an IPA-based transcription system, the S. L. Wong system
, used by many Chinese dictionaries later published in Hong Kong. Although Wong also derived a romanization scheme, also known as S. L. Wong system
, it is not widely used as his transcription scheme.
The romanization advocated by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong
(LSHK) is called Jyutping
, which solves many of the inconsistencies and problems of the older, favored, and more familiar system of Yale Romanization, but departs considerably from it in a number of ways unfamiliar to Yale users. The phonetic values of letters are not quite familiar to those who have studied English. Some effort has been undertaken to promote Jyutping with some official support, but it is too early to tell how successful it is.
Another popular scheme is Cantonese Pinyin Schemes, which is the only romanization system accepted by Hong Kong Education and Manpower Bureau and Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority
. Books and studies for teachers and students in primary and secondary schools usually use this scheme. But there are quite a lot teachers and students using the transcription system of S. L. Wong.
However, learners may feel frustrated that most native Cantonese speakers, no matter how educated they are, really are not familiar with any romanization system. Apparently, there is no motive for local people to learn any of these systems. The romanization systems are not included in the education system either in Hong Kong or in Guangdong province. In practice, Hong Kong people follow a loose unnamed romanisation scheme used by the Government of Hong Kong
.
and Guangdong
. This has resulted in the overseas Chinese having a far higher proportion of Fujian and Guangdong languages/dialect speakers than Chinese speakers in China as a whole.
The largest number of Cantonese speakers outside mainland China and Hong Kong are in Canada and the United States; however, speakers of Min dialects predominate among the overseas Chinese in southeast Asia. The Cantonese spoken in Malaysia is known to have borrowed substantially from Malay and other languages.
, there are 361,450 Canadian residents who reported Cantonese as their mother tongue including 166,655 in Greater Toronto Area
and 125,940 in Greater Vancouver
to lead the way. The total number of Cantonese speakers in Canada however is expected to be greater than those numbers provided by Statistics Canada considering that 456,705 people who reported a Chinese mother tongue either did not specifically specify which Chinese language they were referring to, or specified a languages outside of Cantonese, Mandarin, Chaochow, Fukien, Hakka, Shanghainese, or Taiwanese. Hence among the 456,705 residents, many of them are Cantonese speakers as well.
The majority of Cantonese speakers came from Hong Kong in bunches in the late 60s to mid 70s during and after the Hong Kong 1967 Leftist riots, and came in masses during the 80s to late 90s in response to the Transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong back to Mainland China in 1997. Immigrants from Guangdong, Vietnam and Southeast Asia also form an integral part of the Cantonese speaker demographics in Canada.
, the capital city of Malaysia, Petaling Jaya and Subang Jaya in Selangor, most districts in Perak, Sibu in Sarawak and Sandakan in Sabah. In general, Cantonese is widely spoken in all part of Malaysia, even though large part of Chinese population are non-Cantonese. Cantonese can be regarded as highly influential among Chinese Malaysians. Unlike Hokkien, with the largest population among Chinese Malaysian, the language has very minimal influence on other dialect groups. Viewers in Malaysia enjoyed the programmes in original soundtrack. Pay TV operator, Astro
, on the other hand, do offer viewers a choice - in original soundtrack (Cantonese) and Mandarin (dubbed version) in its prime-time drama series. There are four Chinese radio stations - My FM, one FM, 988 and Ai FM. Of these four, three are private-owned, which broadcast mainly in Cantonese together with Mandarin. Ai FM, however, is a government owned station that broadcast solely in Mandarin. The only Cantonese programme used in Ai FM is the news broadcast.
in the 1860s were mainly from the southern counties of Guangdong province. Through chain-migration between the 1860s to 1920s Cantonese became the dominant language spoken by New Zealand Chinese. Since the late 1980s there has been a large number of Mandarin-speaking Chinese coming to New Zealand either as permanent immigrants or temporary English-language students.
the government has a Speak Mandarin Campaign
(SMC) which seeks to actively promote the use of Mandarin over other Chinese languages, such as Min-nan (colloquially known as Hokkien) (41.1%), Teochew (21.0%), Cantonese (15.4%), Hakka (7.9%) and Hainanese (6.7%).
This was seen as a way of creating greater cohesion among the ethnic Chinese. In addition to positive promotion of Mandarin, the campaign also includes active attempts to dissuade people from using other Chinese languages.
Most notably,all non-Mandarin Chinese programmes on TV and radio were stopped after 1979. The prime minister then, also stopped giving speeches in Hokkien
to prevent giving conflicting signals to the people.
Hong Kong (Cantonese) and Taiwanese drama series are not available in their original languages on TV although Japanese and Korean drama series are available in their original languages. Cantonese drama series on non-cable TV channels are dubbed in Mandarin and broadcast without the original Cantonese soundtrack. Supporters of non-Mandarin Chinese languages who feel that dubbing causes the series to lose its natural flavor often buy original and VCDs from Taiwan and Hong Kong to keep in touch with their mother tongues.
An offshoot of SMC is the Pinyin
isation of certain terms which originated from southern Chinese languages. For instance, dim sum
is often known as dianxin in Singapore's English language media, though this is largely a matter of style, and most Singaporeans will refer to dim sum
when speaking English. However, Cantonese is still spoken in large proportion of Cantonese family compared to other dialect groups. The situation is very different in nearby Malaysia (especially in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh), where even most non-Cantonese speaking Chinese can understand the language to a certain extent through exposure to the language.
, as well as from Guangdong in China itself. Today an estimated 300,000 British people have Cantonese as a mother tongue
, this represents 0.5% of the total UK population and 1% of the total overseas Cantonese speakers.
Province has been the place of origin of most Chinese emigrants to Western countries; one coastal county, Taishan
(or Tóisàn, where the Sìyì or sei yap dialect of Yue is spoken), alone may have been the home to more than 60% of Chinese immigrants to the US before 1965. As a result, Yue dialects such as Siyi (the dialects of Taishan, Enping
, Kaiping
and Xinhui Districts) and Cantonese (with a heavy Hong Kong influence) have been the major Yue dialects spoken abroad, particularly in the United States.
The Zhongshan dialect of Cantonese, with origins in the Pearl River Delta
, is spoken by many Chinese immigrants in Hawaii, and some in San Francisco and in the Sacramento River Delta (see Locke, California
); it is a Yuehai dialect much like Guangzhou Cantonese, but has "flatter" tones. Yue is the third most widely spoken non-English language in the United States. Many institutes of higher education, such as Stanford, Duke, and Yale, have Cantonese programs. The currently most popular romanization for learning Cantonese in the United States is Yale Romanization
.
This situation is now changing in the United States; recent Chinese emigrants originate from many different areas including mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. Recent immigrants from mainland China and Taiwan in the U.S. all speak Standard Chinese
(putonghua/guoyu), with varying degrees of fluency, and their native local language, such as Min (Hokkien
and other Fujian
languages), Wu, Mandarin, Cantonese etc. As a result, Mandarin is increasingly becoming more common as the Chinese lingua franca
among overseas Chinese.
In some metropolitan areas with large Chinese populations, separate neighborhoods and enclaves segregated by the primary language or dialect spoken have begun to arise. For example, in New York City
, Cantonese still predominates in the older historic Chinatown
in Manhattan
, while the newer Chinatowns in Queens
and Brooklyn
have large numbers of Mandarin and Fukienese
speakers respectively. In the San Francisco Bay Area
, Cantonese historically predominated in Chinatown, San Francisco and Chinatown, Oakland and today in large areas of San Francisco, Daly City, and near East Oakland, while Mandarin is more spoken in Silicon Valley
and Fremont, California
, as well as Hercules, California
farther north.
, Cantonese is widely spoken amongst the ethnic-Chinese (Hoa) community, however many have been influenced by Vietnamese, hence speak it with a slight Vietnamese accent.
n (mainly south Chinese
) and Western influences, as well as the status of the city as a major international business centre. Influences from this territory are widespread in foreign cultures. As a results, many loanword
s are created and exported to China
, Taiwan
, and Singapore
. Some of the loanwords are even more popular than their Chinese counterparts. At the same time, some new words created are vividly borrowed by other languages as well.
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
) in southern China
Northern and southern China
Northern China and southern China are two approximate regions within China. The exact boundary between these two regions has never been precisely defined...
, and is often regarded as the prestige dialect
Prestige dialect
In sociolinguistics, prestige describes the level of respect accorded to a language or dialect as compared to that of other languages or dialects in a speech community. The concept of prestige in sociolinguistics is closely related to that of prestige or class within a society...
of Yue Chinese.
In mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, it is a lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
in Guangdong Province and some neighbouring areas, such as the eastern part of Guangxi Province
Guangxi
Guangxi, formerly romanized Kwangsi, is a province of southern China along its border with Vietnam. In 1958, it became the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, a region with special privileges created specifically for the Zhuang people.Guangxi's location, in...
. Outside mainland China, it is spoken by the majority population of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
in everyday life. It is also spoken by overseas Chinese communities
Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China Area . People of partial Chinese ancestry living outside the Greater China Area may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese....
in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, as well as part of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, and is the most widely spoken Chinese dialect in the world.
While the term "Cantonese" refers narrowly to the prestige dialect described in this article, it is often used in a broader sense for the entire Yue branch of Chinese, including related dialects such as Taishanese.
The Cantonese language is also viewed as part of the cultural identity for the native speakers across large swathes of southern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares much vocabulary with Mandarin Chinese, the two languages are not mutually intelligible
Mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...
largely because of pronunciation and grammatical differences. Sentence structure, in particular the placement of the verb, sometimes differs between the two languages. The use of vocabulary in Cantonese also tends to have more historic roots. The most notable difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is how the spoken word is written; with Mandarin the spoken word is written as such, where with Cantonese there may not be a direct written word matching what was said. Because of this difference, it is often said that Cantonese is "slang" while Mandarin is "proper" Chinese.
Names
In English, the term "Cantonese" is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the dialect native to the city of Canton, which is the traditional English name of GuangzhouGuangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
, and later brought to Hong Kong and Macau; this narrow sense may be specified as "Canton dialect" or "Guangzhou dialect" in English.
However, "Cantonese" may also refer to the primary branch of Chinese which contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang; this broader usage may be specified as "Yue" (粤). In this article, "Cantonese" is used for Cantonese proper.
Chinese speakers use some names that do not correspond exactly with the English terms. Customarily, speakers call their language "Guangzhou Prefecture speech" (Guǎngzhōu huà, 广州话 or 廣州話). In Canton province people also call it "Provincial Capital speech". In Hong Kong and Macau, people usually call it "Guangdong speech" (廣東話). Outside of Guangzhou, people also call it "Baak Waa" (plain speech) .
Due to its status as a prestige dialect
Prestige dialect
In sociolinguistics, prestige describes the level of respect accorded to a language or dialect as compared to that of other languages or dialects in a speech community. The concept of prestige in sociolinguistics is closely related to that of prestige or class within a society...
, it is often called "Standard Cantonese" . (With simplified tone markers: biu zeon/ jyut_ jyu= / biu zên/ yud_ yu=).
Cultural role
Spoken Chinese has numerous regional and local varieties, many of which are mutually unintelligible. Most of these are rarely heard outside their native areas, although they may be spoken in homes outside of the country. Since the early 1900s (1909 Qing Dynasty decree), China has promoted MandarinStandard Chinese
Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
for use in education, the media and official communication, though a few state television and radio
Radio Guangdong
Radio Guangdong is a public broadcasting organization in Guangdong. Radio Guagndong has 9 branch radio channels and 2 newspapers in Guangdong. Headed by Leader Bai Ling .-History:...
broadcasts are in Cantonese. However, due to the linguistic history of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
, and the use of Cantonese in many overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China Area . People of partial Chinese ancestry living outside the Greater China Area may also consider themselves Overseas Chinese....
communities, international usage of Cantonese has spread far out of proportion to its relatively small number of speakers in China, even though the majority of Cantonese speakers still live in mainland China.
Cantonese is the predominant Chinese language spoken in Hong Kong and Macau. In these areas, political discourse takes place almost exclusively in Cantonese, making it the only variety of Chinese other than Mandarin to be used as the primary language for the official state functions of an area. Because of their use by non-Mandarin-speaking Yue speakers overseas, the Cantonese and Taishanese languages are the primary forms of Chinese that Westerners come into contact with.
Along with Mandarin and Hokkien
Hokkien
Hokkien is a Hokkien word corresponding to Standard Chinese "Fujian". It may refer to:* Hokkien dialect, a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in Southern Fujian , Taiwan, South-east Asia, and elsewhere....
, Cantonese is one of the few varieties of Chinese with its own popular music, Cantopop
Cantopop
Cantopop is a colloquialism for "Cantonese popular music". It is sometimes referred to as HK-pop, short for "Hong Kong popular music". It is categorized as a subgenre of Chinese popular music within C-pop...
. In Hong Kong, Cantonese lyrics predominate within popular music, and many artists from Beijing and Taiwan have learned Cantonese to make Cantonese versions of their recordings. Popular native Mandarin speaking singers, including Faye Wong
Faye Wong
Faye Wong is a highly successful and influential Chinese singer-songwriter and actress who is usually referred to as a diva . Early in her career she briefly used the stage name Shirley Wong . Born in Beijing, she moved to Hong Kong in 1987 and rose to stardom in the early 1990s by singing...
, Eric Moo
Eric Moo
Eric Moo Kai-yin is a Malaysian Chinese award-winning singer-songwriter and record producer.-Biography:Moo's mother died when he was 8 and he was raised by his older sister. He was educated at Seh Chuan High School and The Chinese High School in Singapore. He became a permanent resident of...
, and singers from Taiwan, have been trained in Cantonese to add "Hong Kong-ness" to their performances.
Phonology
The de facto standard pronunciation of the Cantonese language is that of Canton (Guangzhou), which is described at the Cantonese phonologyCantonese phonology
The standard pronunciation of the Cantonese language is that of Guangzhou, also known as Canton, the capital of Guangdong Province. Hong Kong Cantonese is related to the Guangzhou dialect, and the two diverge only slightly...
article. Hong Kong Cantonese
Hong Kong Cantonese
Hong Kong Cantonese is a form of Yue Chinese commonly spoken in Hong Kong. Although Hongkongers largely identify this variant of Chinese with the term "Cantonese" , a variety of publications in mainland China describe the variant as Hong Kong speech...
has some minor variations in phonology.
Hong Kong
The official languageOfficial language
An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...
s of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
are English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, as defined in the Basic Law of Hong Kong
Hong Kong Basic Law
The Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, or simply Hong Kong Basic Law, serves as the constitutional document of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China...
. The Chinese language has many different varieties
Varieties of Chinese
Chinese comprises many regional language varieties sometimes grouped together as the Chinese dialects, the primary ones being Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, and Min. These are not mutually intelligible, and even many of the regional varieties are themselves composed of a number of...
, of which Cantonese is one. In Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, Cantonese is the predominantly spoken variety
Variety (linguistics)
In sociolinguistics a variety, also called a lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, accents, registers, styles or other sociolinguistic variation, as well as the standard variety itself...
in everyday life. It is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Government
Government of Hong Kong
The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, commonly the Hong Kong Government, is led by the Chief Executive as Head of the Government, who is also the head of the Hong Kong SAR...
. It is also used as the medium of instruction
Medium of instruction
Medium of instruction is a language used in teaching. It may or may not be the official language of the country or territory. Where the first language of students is different from the official language, it may be used as the medium of instruction for part or all of schooling. Bilingual or...
in many schools, alongside English.
The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong is mutually intelligible
Mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...
with the Cantonese spoken in the Chinese city of Canton (Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
), although there exists some differences in pronunciation, accent and vocabulary. The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong is known as Hong Kong Cantonese
Hong Kong Cantonese
Hong Kong Cantonese is a form of Yue Chinese commonly spoken in Hong Kong. Although Hongkongers largely identify this variant of Chinese with the term "Cantonese" , a variety of publications in mainland China describe the variant as Hong Kong speech...
.
Written Cantonese
Cantonese has the most developed literature of any form of Chinese after Classical Chinese and Mandarin. It is used primarily in Hong Kong and in overseas Chinese communities, so it is usually written with traditional Chinese characters. Cantonese includes extra characters and characters with different meanings from Standard Written ChineseVernacular Chinese
Written Vernacular Chinese refers to forms of written Chinese based on the vernacular language, in contrast to Classical Chinese, the written standard used from the Spring and Autumn Period to the early twentieth century...
.
Romanization
Cantonese romanization systems are based on the accent of Canton and Hong Kong, and have helped define the concept of Standard Cantonese. The major systems are Barnett–Chao, Meyer–Wempe, the Chinese government's Guangdong RomanizationGuangdong Romanization
Guangdong Romanization refers to the four romanization schemes published by the Guangdong Provincial Education Department in 1960 for transliterating the Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka, and Hainanese...
, Yale and Jyutping
Jyutping
Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
. While they do not differ greatly, Yale is the one most commonly seen in the west today. The Hong Kong linguist Sidney Lau
Sidney Lau
Sidney Lau wrote a series of textbooks in the 1970s, for teaching western people to speak Cantonese. The textbooks were initially used for teaching western expatriates working in the Hong Kong Police Force and other government bodies...
modified the Yale system for his popular Cantonese-as-a-second-language course and is still widely in use today.
Early Western effort
Systematic efforts to develop an alphabetic representation of Cantonese began with the arrival of Protestant missionaries in China early in the nineteenth century. Romanization was considered both a tool to help new missionaries learn the dialect more easily and a quick route for the unlettered to achieve gospel literacy. Earlier Catholic missionaries, mostly Portuguese, had developed romanization schemes for the pronunciation current in the court and capital city of China but made few efforts at romanizing other dialects.Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary in China published a "Vocabulary of the Canton Dialect" (1828) with a rather unsystematic romanized pronunciation. Elijah Coleman Bridgman
Elijah Coleman Bridgman
Elijah Coleman Bridgman was the first American Protestant Christian missionary appointed to China. He served with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions...
and Samuel Wells Williams
Samuel Wells Williams
Samuel Wells Williams was a linguist, missionary and Sinologist from the United States in the early 19th century.-Biography:...
in their "Chinese Chrestomathy in the Canton Dialect" (1841) were the progenitors of a long-lived lineage of related romanizations with minor variations embodied in the works of James Dyer Ball, Ernst Johann Eitel
Ernst Johann Eitel
Ernst Johann Eitel or alternatively Ernest John Eitel was a German Protestant missionary to China born in Württemberg, Germany.-Missionary career:...
, and Immanuel Gottlieb Genăhr (1910). Bridgman and Williams based their system on the phonetic alphabet and diacritics proposed by Sir William Jones
William Jones (philologist)
Sir William Jones was an English philologist and scholar of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages...
for South Asian languages. Their romanization system embodied the phonological system in a local dialect rhyme dictionary, the Fenyun cuoyao, which was widely used and easily available at the time and is still available today. Samuel Wells Willams' Tonic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialect (Yinghua fenyun cuoyao 1856), is an alphabetic rearrangement, translation and annotation of the Fenyun. In order to adapt the system to the needs of users at a time when there were only local variants and no standard—although the speech of the western suburbs, xiguan, of Guangzhou was the prestige variety at the time—Williams suggested that users learn and follow their teacher's pronunciation of his chart of Cantonese syllables. It was apparently Bridgman's innovation to mark the tones with an open circles (upper register tones) or an underlined open circle (lower register tones) at the four corners of the romanized word in analogy with the traditional Chinese system of marking the tone of a character with a circle (lower left for "even," upper left for "rising," upper right for "going," and lower right for "entering" tones). John Chalmers
John Chalmers (missionary)
John Chalmers was a Protestant Christian missionary who served with the London Missionary Society and during the late Qing Dynasty China.John Chalmers: The origin of the Chinese. -Notes:...
, in his "English and Cantonese pocket-dictionary" (1859) simplified the marking of tones using the acute accent to mark "rising" tones and the grave to mark "going" tones and no diacritic for "even" tones and marking upper register tones by italics (or underlining in handwritten work). "Entering" tones could be distinguished by their consonantal ending. Nicholas Belfeld Dennys used Chalmers romanization in his primer. This method of marking tones was adopted in the Yale romanization (with low register tones marked with an 'h'). A new romanization was developed in the first decade of the twentieth century which eliminated the diacritics on vowels by distinguishing vowel quality by spelling differences (e.g. a/aa, o/oh). Diacritics were used only for marking tones. The name of Tipson is associated with this new romanization which still embodied the phonology of the Fenyun to some extent. It is the system used in Meyer-Wempe and Cowles' dictionaries and O'Melia's textbook and many other works in the first half of the twentieth century. It was the standard romanization until the Yale system supplanted it. The distinguished linguist, Y. R. Chao developed a Cantonese adaptation of his Gwoyeu romanization system which he used in his "Cantonese Primer." The front matter to this book contains a review and comparison of a number of the systems mentioned in this paragraph. The GR system was not widely used.
Cantonese romanisation in Hong Kong
An influential work on Cantonese, A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced According to the Dialect of CantonA Chinese Syllabary Pronounced According to the Dialect of Canton
A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced According to the Dialect of Canton is a book written by Wong Shik Ling within a few years before being published in Hong Kong, 1941. It is one of the most influential books on the research of Cantonese pronunciation...
, written by Wong Shik Ling
Wong Shik Ling
Wong Shik Ling was a prominent scholar in Cantonese research. He is famous for his authoritative book, A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced According to the Dialect of Canton , which is influential in Cantonese research.He graduated from Lingnan University, Guangzhou and then taught and researched...
, was published in 1941. He derived an IPA-based transcription system, the S. L. Wong system
S. L. Wong (phonetic symbols)
Wong Shik Ling published a scheme of phonetic symbols for Cantonese based on the International Phonetic Alphabet in the book A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced according to the Dialect of Canton. The scheme has been widely used in Chinese dictionaries published in Hong Kong. The scheme, known as S. L...
, used by many Chinese dictionaries later published in Hong Kong. Although Wong also derived a romanization scheme, also known as S. L. Wong system
S. L. Wong (romanisation)
Wong Shik Ling published a romanisation scheme accompanying a set of phonetic symbols for Cantonese based on International Phonetic Alphabet in the book A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced according to the Dialect of Canton....
, it is not widely used as his transcription scheme.
The romanization advocated by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong
Linguistic Society of Hong Kong
The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong is a non-profit academic association, which was formally registered as a charitable organization in Hong Kong on March 8, 1986....
(LSHK) is called Jyutping
Jyutping
Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme...
, which solves many of the inconsistencies and problems of the older, favored, and more familiar system of Yale Romanization, but departs considerably from it in a number of ways unfamiliar to Yale users. The phonetic values of letters are not quite familiar to those who have studied English. Some effort has been undertaken to promote Jyutping with some official support, but it is too early to tell how successful it is.
Another popular scheme is Cantonese Pinyin Schemes, which is the only romanization system accepted by Hong Kong Education and Manpower Bureau and Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority
Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority
the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority , administers the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination and Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination .-History:The agency was established in 1977...
. Books and studies for teachers and students in primary and secondary schools usually use this scheme. But there are quite a lot teachers and students using the transcription system of S. L. Wong.
However, learners may feel frustrated that most native Cantonese speakers, no matter how educated they are, really are not familiar with any romanization system. Apparently, there is no motive for local people to learn any of these systems. The romanization systems are not included in the education system either in Hong Kong or in Guangdong province. In practice, Hong Kong people follow a loose unnamed romanisation scheme used by the Government of Hong Kong
Government of Hong Kong
The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, commonly the Hong Kong Government, is led by the Chief Executive as Head of the Government, who is also the head of the Hong Kong SAR...
.
Cantonese outside China, Hong Kong and Macau
Historically, the majority of the overseas Chinese have originated from just two provinces, FujianFujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
and Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
. This has resulted in the overseas Chinese having a far higher proportion of Fujian and Guangdong languages/dialect speakers than Chinese speakers in China as a whole.
The largest number of Cantonese speakers outside mainland China and Hong Kong are in Canada and the United States; however, speakers of Min dialects predominate among the overseas Chinese in southeast Asia. The Cantonese spoken in Malaysia is known to have borrowed substantially from Malay and other languages.
Canada
For many decades and today, Cantonese continues to be the most common Chinese language spoken among Chinese Canadians. According to Canada 2006 CensusCanada 2006 Census
The Canada 2006 Census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population. Census day was May 16, 2006. The next census following will be the 2011 Census. Canada's total population enumerated by the 2006 census was 31,612,897...
, there are 361,450 Canadian residents who reported Cantonese as their mother tongue including 166,655 in Greater Toronto Area
Greater Toronto Area
The Greater Toronto Area is the largest metropolitan area in Canada, with a 2006 census population of 5.5 million. The Greater Toronto Area is usually defined as the central city of Toronto, along with four regional municipalities surrounding it: Durham, Halton, Peel, and York...
and 125,940 in Greater Vancouver
Greater Vancouver
Greater Vancouver is the metropolitan area centred on the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, roughly coterminous with the Greater Vancouver Regional District, which is governed by a body known as Metro Vancouver...
to lead the way. The total number of Cantonese speakers in Canada however is expected to be greater than those numbers provided by Statistics Canada considering that 456,705 people who reported a Chinese mother tongue either did not specifically specify which Chinese language they were referring to, or specified a languages outside of Cantonese, Mandarin, Chaochow, Fukien, Hakka, Shanghainese, or Taiwanese. Hence among the 456,705 residents, many of them are Cantonese speakers as well.
The majority of Cantonese speakers came from Hong Kong in bunches in the late 60s to mid 70s during and after the Hong Kong 1967 Leftist riots, and came in masses during the 80s to late 90s in response to the Transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong back to Mainland China in 1997. Immigrants from Guangdong, Vietnam and Southeast Asia also form an integral part of the Cantonese speaker demographics in Canada.
Malaysia
Cantonese is widely spoken in Kuala LumpurKuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...
, the capital city of Malaysia, Petaling Jaya and Subang Jaya in Selangor, most districts in Perak, Sibu in Sarawak and Sandakan in Sabah. In general, Cantonese is widely spoken in all part of Malaysia, even though large part of Chinese population are non-Cantonese. Cantonese can be regarded as highly influential among Chinese Malaysians. Unlike Hokkien, with the largest population among Chinese Malaysian, the language has very minimal influence on other dialect groups. Viewers in Malaysia enjoyed the programmes in original soundtrack. Pay TV operator, Astro
Astro (Malaysian satellite television)
Astro is the brand name of the Malaysian direct broadcast satellite pay television service. It transmits digital satellite television and radio to households in Malaysia & Brunei...
, on the other hand, do offer viewers a choice - in original soundtrack (Cantonese) and Mandarin (dubbed version) in its prime-time drama series. There are four Chinese radio stations - My FM, one FM, 988 and Ai FM. Of these four, three are private-owned, which broadcast mainly in Cantonese together with Mandarin. Ai FM, however, is a government owned station that broadcast solely in Mandarin. The only Cantonese programme used in Ai FM is the news broadcast.
New Zealand
The goldminers who came to New ZealandNew Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
in the 1860s were mainly from the southern counties of Guangdong province. Through chain-migration between the 1860s to 1920s Cantonese became the dominant language spoken by New Zealand Chinese. Since the late 1980s there has been a large number of Mandarin-speaking Chinese coming to New Zealand either as permanent immigrants or temporary English-language students.
Singapore
In SingaporeSingapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
the government has a Speak Mandarin Campaign
Speak Mandarin Campaign
The Speak Mandarin Campaign is an initiative by the government of Singapore to encourage the Singaporean Chinese population to speak Mandarin, one of the four official languages of Singapore...
(SMC) which seeks to actively promote the use of Mandarin over other Chinese languages, such as Min-nan (colloquially known as Hokkien) (41.1%), Teochew (21.0%), Cantonese (15.4%), Hakka (7.9%) and Hainanese (6.7%).
| Dialect Group | 1990 | 2000 |
|---|---|---|
| Hokkiens Hoklo people The Hoklo people are Han Chinese people whose traditional Ancestral homes are in southern Fujian of South China... |
42.1% | 41.1% |
| Teochews Teochew people The Chaozhou people are Han people, native to the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province of China who speak the Teochew dialect. Today, most Teochew people live outside China in Southeast Asia especially in Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. They can also be found almost anywhere in the... |
21.9% | 21.0% |
| Cantonese Cantonese people The Cantonese people are Han people whose ancestral homes are in Guangdong, China. The term "Cantonese people" would then be synonymous with the Bun Dei sub-ethnic group, and is sometimes known as Gwong Fu Jan for this narrower definition... |
15.2% | 15.4% |
| Hakkas Hakka people The Hakka , sometimes Hakka Han, are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language and have links to the provincial areas of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and Fujian in China.... |
7.3% | 7.9% |
| Hainanese | 7.0% | 6.7% |
| Foochows (Min Dong) | 1.7% | 1.9% |
| Henghua (Puxian/Putian) Putian people The Putian Han or Putian people are Han Chinese people from Putian, part of Fujian Province, China. They speak Puxian Min, a Min language. Min is one of the Sinitic languages.... |
0.9% | 0.9% |
| Shanghainese Shanghainese people The Shanghainese people also commonly referred to as Shanghaiers refers to the people whose families are from Shanghai, China, who can speak the Shanghainese dialect of the Wu language. With the prosperity of Shanghai, more and more migrants have been moving to Shanghai for school and work which... |
0.8% | 0.9% |
| Hockchia (Fuqing) Fuqing Fuqing is a county-level city of Fuzhou in Fujian, China.It is located in the eastern part of the province, borders the East China Sea, just southeast of Fuzhou and 45 kilometers from Changle International Airport of Fuzhou. Fuqing city has geographical advantage, for its location between... |
0.6% | 0.6% |
| Others | 2.4% | 3.7% |
This was seen as a way of creating greater cohesion among the ethnic Chinese. In addition to positive promotion of Mandarin, the campaign also includes active attempts to dissuade people from using other Chinese languages.
Most notably,all non-Mandarin Chinese programmes on TV and radio were stopped after 1979. The prime minister then, also stopped giving speeches in Hokkien
Min Nan
The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
to prevent giving conflicting signals to the people.
Hong Kong (Cantonese) and Taiwanese drama series are not available in their original languages on TV although Japanese and Korean drama series are available in their original languages. Cantonese drama series on non-cable TV channels are dubbed in Mandarin and broadcast without the original Cantonese soundtrack. Supporters of non-Mandarin Chinese languages who feel that dubbing causes the series to lose its natural flavor often buy original and VCDs from Taiwan and Hong Kong to keep in touch with their mother tongues.
An offshoot of SMC is the Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
isation of certain terms which originated from southern Chinese languages. For instance, dim sum
Dim sum
Dim sum refers to a style of Chinese food prepared as small bite-sized or individual portions of food traditionally served in small steamer baskets or on small plates...
is often known as dianxin in Singapore's English language media, though this is largely a matter of style, and most Singaporeans will refer to dim sum
Dim sum
Dim sum refers to a style of Chinese food prepared as small bite-sized or individual portions of food traditionally served in small steamer baskets or on small plates...
when speaking English. However, Cantonese is still spoken in large proportion of Cantonese family compared to other dialect groups. The situation is very different in nearby Malaysia (especially in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh), where even most non-Cantonese speaking Chinese can understand the language to a certain extent through exposure to the language.
Thailand
The Chinese (including those of mixed ancestry) of Thailand are overwhelmingly descended from Chaozhou dialect areas in southern China. Today they constitute around 50% of Bangkok's total registered population, making it the city with the largest number of people of Chinese ancestry outside China. Nationally, Chinese make up 30% of Thailand's population, most were descendants of Chaozhou dialect speakers but 20% are descendants of Cantonese speakers.United Kingdom
The majority of Cantonese speakers in the UK have origins from the former British colony of Hong Kong and speak the Canton/Hong Kong dialect, although many are in fact from Hakka-speaking families and are bilingual in Hakka. There are also Cantonese speakers from south east Asian countries such as Malaysia and SingaporeSingapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, as well as from Guangdong in China itself. Today an estimated 300,000 British people have Cantonese as a mother tongue
First language
A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
, this represents 0.5% of the total UK population and 1% of the total overseas Cantonese speakers.
United States
For the last 150 years, GuangdongGuangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
Province has been the place of origin of most Chinese emigrants to Western countries; one coastal county, Taishan
Taishan
Taishan is a coastal county-level city in Guangdong Province, China. The city is part of the Greater Taishan Region....
(or Tóisàn, where the Sìyì or sei yap dialect of Yue is spoken), alone may have been the home to more than 60% of Chinese immigrants to the US before 1965. As a result, Yue dialects such as Siyi (the dialects of Taishan, Enping
Enping
Enping is a county-level city in Guangdong Province, China and is part of the Siyi prefecture administered from Jiangmen city....
, Kaiping
Kaiping
Kaiping : Hoi3 Pen6) or Hoi Ping is a county-level city in Guangdong Province, southern China. It has a population of 680,000 as of 2003 and an area of 1,659 km². The locals speak a variation of the Taishan dialect.-Administration:...
and Xinhui Districts) and Cantonese (with a heavy Hong Kong influence) have been the major Yue dialects spoken abroad, particularly in the United States.
The Zhongshan dialect of Cantonese, with origins in the Pearl River Delta
Pearl River Delta
The Pearl River Delta , Zhujiang Delta or Zhusanjiao in Guangdong province, People's Republic of China is the low-lying area surrounding the Pearl River estuary where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea...
, is spoken by many Chinese immigrants in Hawaii, and some in San Francisco and in the Sacramento River Delta (see Locke, California
Locke, California
Locke , also known as Locke Historic District, is an unincorporated community in California's Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta built by Chinese immigrants during the early 20th century. It was originally named Lockeport after George Locke, who owned the land that the town was built upon at a...
); it is a Yuehai dialect much like Guangzhou Cantonese, but has "flatter" tones. Yue is the third most widely spoken non-English language in the United States. Many institutes of higher education, such as Stanford, Duke, and Yale, have Cantonese programs. The currently most popular romanization for learning Cantonese in the United States is Yale Romanization
Yale Romanization
The Yale romanizations are four systems created at Yale University for romanizing the four East Asian languages of Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Japanese...
.
This situation is now changing in the United States; recent Chinese emigrants originate from many different areas including mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. Recent immigrants from mainland China and Taiwan in the U.S. all speak Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
(putonghua/guoyu), with varying degrees of fluency, and their native local language, such as Min (Hokkien
Hokkien
Hokkien is a Hokkien word corresponding to Standard Chinese "Fujian". It may refer to:* Hokkien dialect, a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in Southern Fujian , Taiwan, South-east Asia, and elsewhere....
and other Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
languages), Wu, Mandarin, Cantonese etc. As a result, Mandarin is increasingly becoming more common as the Chinese lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
among overseas Chinese.
In some metropolitan areas with large Chinese populations, separate neighborhoods and enclaves segregated by the primary language or dialect spoken have begun to arise. For example, in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Cantonese still predominates in the older historic Chinatown
Chinatown, Manhattan
Manhattan's Chinatown , home to one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people in the Western hemisphere, is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, while the newer Chinatowns in Queens
Chinatown, Flushing
Chinatown, Flushing, or Flushing Chinatown , in the Flushing area of the borough of Queens in New York City, is one of the largest and fastest growing ethnic Chinese enclaves outside of Asia, as well as within New York City itself...
and Brooklyn
Chinatown, Brooklyn
Chinatown, Brooklyn, or Brooklyn Chinatown , in the Sunset Park area of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, is one of the largest and fastest growing ethnic Chinese enclaves outside of Asia, as well as within New York City itself...
have large numbers of Mandarin and Fukienese
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
speakers respectively. In the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
, Cantonese historically predominated in Chinatown, San Francisco and Chinatown, Oakland and today in large areas of San Francisco, Daly City, and near East Oakland, while Mandarin is more spoken in Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
and Fremont, California
Fremont, California
Fremont is a city in Alameda County, California. It was incorporated on January 23, 1956, from the merger of five smaller communities: Centerville, Niles, Irvington, Mission San Jose, and Warm Springs...
, as well as Hercules, California
Hercules, California
Hercules is a city in western Contra Costa County, California. Situated along the coast of San Pablo Bay, it is located in the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area, about northeast of San Francisco. The city has a 2010 population of 24,060 according to the U.S...
farther north.
Vietnam
In VietnamVietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, Cantonese is widely spoken amongst the ethnic-Chinese (Hoa) community, however many have been influenced by Vietnamese, hence speak it with a slight Vietnamese accent.
Loanwords
Life in Hong Kong is characterised by the blending of AsiaAsia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
n (mainly south Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
) and Western influences, as well as the status of the city as a major international business centre. Influences from this territory are widespread in foreign cultures. As a results, many loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s are created and exported to China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, Taiwan
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
, and Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. Some of the loanwords are even more popular than their Chinese counterparts. At the same time, some new words created are vividly borrowed by other languages as well.
See also
- Chinese languageChinese languageThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
- Yue Chinese
- Controversy over use of Cantonese by Guangzhou Television
- Cantonese peopleCantonese peopleThe Cantonese people are Han people whose ancestral homes are in Guangdong, China. The term "Cantonese people" would then be synonymous with the Bun Dei sub-ethnic group, and is sometimes known as Gwong Fu Jan for this narrower definition...
External links
- Chinese and English phrase book : with the Chinese pronunciation indicated in English by Benoni Lanctot(published in 1867)
- Vocabulary of the Canton Dialect: Chinese words and phrases by Robert Morrison (missionary), published in 1828)
- Hong Kong Government site on the HK Supplementary Character Set (HKSCS)
- Learn Cantonese (with Cantonese–English / English–Cantonese Dictionary)
- USA Foreign Service Institute (FSI) Cantonese basic course
- Online Cantonese Editor