Table of Contents
- 1 What region of China speaks Cantonese?
- 2 Is Cantonese Recognised as a language?
- 3 Do you speak Cantonese in Cantonese?
- 4 Is Cantonese a language or ethnicity?
- 5 Why is Cantonese a dialect and not a language?
- 6 Where is Cantonese spoken in Guangdong?
- 7 When did Cantonese become the official language of China?
What region of China speaks Cantonese?
Guangdong
Cantonese language, Chinese (Pinyin) Yueyu, (Wade-Giles romanization) Yüeh-yü, variety of Chinese spoken by more than 55 million people in Guangdong and southern Guangxi provinces of China, including the important cities of Canton, Hong Kong, and Macau.
Is Cantonese Recognised as a language?
Translated to English, the post in traditional Chinese characters reads in part as: “The United Nations officially define Cantonese as a language, not a dialect, and it is recognised as one of the six leading languages in daily use, which are English, Chinese, Cantonese, Russian, French, Spanish and Arabic.
Do you speak Cantonese in Cantonese?
A collection of useful phrases in Cantonese, a variety of Chinese spoken in Hong Kong, Macau, southern China, and a number of other places, in traditional characters and Yale Romanization….Useful Cantonese phrases.
| English | 廣東話/粵語 (Cantonese) |
|---|---|
| Do you speak Cantonese? | 你識唔識講廣東話呀 (neih sīkm̀hsīk góng gwóngdùngwá a) |
What is the official language of China?
Mandarin
China/Official languages
Mandarin Chinese is known as 普通话 (Pǔtōnghuà), the “common speech,” and it has only been the official language of China since the 1930s, when the country established it as the standard dialect and began pushing to make this a reality nationwide.
Is Cantonese a Chinese language?
Cantonese is the predominant Chinese variety spoken in Hong Kong and Macau. In these areas, public discourse takes place almost exclusively in Cantonese, making it the only variety of Chinese other than Mandarin to be used as an official language in the world.
Is Cantonese a language or ethnicity?
Chinese
“Cantonese” has been generally used to describe all Chinese people from Guangdong since “Cantonese” is commonly treated as a synonym with “Guangdong” and the Cantonese language is treated as the sole language of the region.
Why is Cantonese a dialect and not a language?
By this definition, Cantonese and Mandarin are separate languages rather than dialects—despite sharing the same written form as mentioned above—because a Cantonese speaker would not be entirely intelligible to a Mandarin speaker.
Where is Cantonese spoken in Guangdong?
Cantonese vernacular is widely spoken in the main areas of northern Guangdong and the Pearl River Delta areas. Hakka is spoken in Meizhou area by Hakka people. The people in Chaozhou and Shantou speak their own Chao-Shan luanguage mainly in eastern Guangdong like Jieyang and Shantou.
How many people speak Cantonese?
Today, Cantonese is the third most widely spoken Chinese language, with an estimated 60 million speakers worldwide. While Mandarin (or Putonghua) is the official spoken language across Mainland China, Cantonese is the spoken language of choice in Guangdong province.
What language do they speak in Guangzhou?
Only Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou is Cantonese. Some of locals may only speak their local dialects, however, most of them can also speak Cantonese ( base on either Guangzhou or Hong Kong accent ). That has always been the primary language of Guangdong, but these days everyone learns Mandarin in school.
When did Cantonese become the official language of China?
After the Xinhai Revolution of 1912, Cantonese almost became the official language of the Republic of China but lost by a small margin. In Mainland China, Standard Mandarin has been heavily promoted as the medium of instruction in schools and as the official language, especially after the communist takeover in 1949.