"Learn Mandarin Chinese
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modern vocabulary, grammar, calligraphy, examples and exercises. All
texts and dialogs in mp3 format for download!"
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Cantonese (or Yue) is one of the five major Chinese languages. These
are often called "dialects", but in actuality their differences are
great enough to consider them separate languages.
Cantonese is spoken by about 100 million people in the southern
provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi and in neighboring areas such as Hong
Kong and Macao, as well as throughout South-East Asia in such places as
Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Due to the migration of
Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong and the Guangdong area, Cantonese is
the dominant form of Chinese spoken in the Chinatowns of many major
cities in the United States, Canada, Australia and elsewhere.
The word Cantonese comes from Canton, the former English name of
Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, which was once considered the home of
the purest form of Cantonese. However, through years of mass media and
pop culture influence, Hong Kong has now truly become the cultural
centre of Cantonese.
Although Mandarin (or putonghua) is the standard and
official language in mainland China, it has only been around for about
700 or 800 years, compared to the 2000-year history of Cantonese.
Cantonese, not Mandarin, is the dominant language in overseas Chinese
communities. This comes from the fact that, around the world, the
largest flow of Chinese immigrants originates from Hong Kong.
Cantonese is mainly an oral language. People in Hong Kong use
standard Chinese (putonghua) when they read and write. They
speak Cantonese in their daily interactions with people. As a colloquial
language, Cantonese is full of slang and non-standard usage. The
language of youth is rapidly evolving, and new slang and trendy
expressions are constantly emerging.
The standard written language in Hong Kong is essentially the same
Chinese as everywhere else in China. The only difference is that Hong
Kong and overseas communities, like Taiwan, have kept what are called
traditional characters, whereas mainland China uses simplified
characters. In an attempt to increase litteracy in China, thousands of
characters were "simplified" in a 1950 spelling reform initiated by
chairman Mao Zedong.
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