Cantonese or Yue (粵語) is a major Chinese dialect group or language, a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. Colloquially, it is also known as 廣東話 (Mandarin: Guǎngdōng Huà, Cantonese transcription: gwong2 dung1 waa6). The exact number of Cantonese speakers is unknown due to a lack of statistics and census data. The areas with the highest concentration of speakers are in Guangdong and some parts of Guangxi in southern mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.^[3] Cantonese is the de facto official language of Hong Kong. Other major groups include Chinese minorities in Southeast Asia. The name has been stated as being derived from Canton; a name in English for Guangdong province,^[4] and Canton; a name in English for Guangzhou city.^[5] A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... The Sino-Tibetan languages form a putative language family composed of Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia. ... Hong Kong (香港; Cantonese IPA: ; Jyutping: hoeng1 gong2; Yale: heūng góng; pinyin: Xiānggǎng; Wade-Giles: Hsiang-kang) is one of the two Special Administrative Regions of the Peoples Republic of China. ... For the Chinese civilization, see China. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... Yue can refer to: Yuè ((T: ç²µ S: 粤), an abbreviation for Guangdong province of the Peoples Republic of China, and also: Yue, a subdivision of spoken Chinese spoken in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hong Kong, and Macau. ... Spoken Chinese The Chinese spoken language(s) comprise(s) many regional variants. ... The Sino-Tibetan languages form a putative language family composed of Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia. ... Not to be confused with the former Kwantung Leased Territory in north-eastern China. ... Guangxi (Zhuang: Gvangjsih; old orthography: ; Simplified Chinese: 广西; Traditional Chinese: 廣西; Pinyin: GuÇŽngxÄ«; Wade-Giles: Kuang-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Kwangsi), full name Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (Zhuang: Gvangjsih Bouxcuengh Swcigih; old orthography: ; Simplified Chinese: 广西壮族自治区; Traditional Chinese: 廣西壯族自治區; Pinyin: GuÇŽngxÄ« Zhuàngzú ZìzhìqÅ«) is a Zhuang autonomous region of... ... Location of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. ... Not to be confused with the former Kwantung Leased Territory in north-eastern China. ... CITIC Plaza Guangzhou (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin:  ; jyutping : Gwong²zau¹) is the capital and a sub-provincial city of Guangdong Province in the southern part of the Peoples Republic of China. ...

There are numerous different dialects of Cantonese; the most widely spoken is the Guangzhou dialect, often referred to simply as "Cantonese". The Guangzhou dialect is a lingua franca of not just Guangdong province, but also the overseas Cantonese speaking diaspora. The Guangzhou dialect is also spoken in Hong Kong. Standard Cantonese refers to the most prominent dialect of Cantonese (Yue), a subdivision of spoken Chinese. ... Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ... Not to be confused with the former Kwantung Leased Territory in north-eastern China. ...

Like other major varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is often considered a dialect of a single Chinese language for cultural or nationalistic reasons, though in practice Cantonese, like many other Chinese language varieties, is mutually unintelligible with many other Chinese "dialects". See Identification of the varieties of Chinese. Chinese forms part of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ...

[edit] Dialects

There are at least four major dialect groups of Cantonese: 1) Yuehai, which includes the dialect spoken in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macau as well as the dialects of Zhongshan, and Dongguan; 2) Sìyì (四邑, sei yap), exemplified by Taishan dialect, which used to be ubiquitous in American Chinatowns before 1970; 3) Gaoyang dialect, as spoken in Yangjiang; and 4) Guinan 桂南 (Nanning dialect) spoken widely in Guangxi. However, Cantonese generally refers to the Yuehai dialect. Statue of Sun Yat-sen in Sunwen Memorial Park. ... Dongguan (Simplified Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong province, Peoples Republic of China. ... Sze Yup, Sze Yap, Seiyap or Siyi (Chinese characters: ; Cantonese Yale: Sei3 yap1; Mandarin pinyin: Sìyì) are the four counties of Sun Wui, Toi Shan, Hoi Ping and Yan Ping in the Pearl River Delta, in southern Kwangtung Province, China. ... Taishanese or Hoisanese (台山話: hoi6 saan3 waa2, Cantonese: toi4 saan1 waa2), or Siyi (四邑; after the area of the same name), is a Chinese dialect (or group of very similar dialects) spoken in and around Taishan, a coastal county of the Guangdong province, located southwest of Guangzhou. ... This article is about sections of an urban area associated with a large number of Chinese residents or commercial activities. ... Yangjiang (Simplified Chinese: 阳江; Pinyin: ) is a prefecture-level city in southwestern Guangdong province, Peoples Republic of China. ...

There are at least three other major Chinese languages spoken in Guangdong Province— Standard Mandarin, which is used for official occasions, education, the media, and as a national lingua franca; Min-nan (Southern Min) spoken in the eastern regions bordering Fujian, such as those from Chaozhou and Shantou; and Hakka, the language of the Hakka people. Standard Mandarin is mandatory through the state education system, but in Cantonese speaking households, the popularization of Cantonese-language media (Hong Kong films, television serials, and Cantopop), isolation from the other regions of China, local identity, and the existence of the non-Mandarin speaking Cantonese diaspora (including Hong Kong) give unique characteristics to the language. Most wuxia films from Canton are filmed originally in Cantonese and then dubbed or subtitled in Standard Mandarin or English or both. Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... Map of eastern China and Taiwan, showing the historic distribution of Mandarin Chinese in light brown. ... Min Nan, Minnan, or Min-nan (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ; POJ: Bân-lâm-gú; Southern Min or Southern Fujian language) is the Chinese language/dialect spoken in southern Fujian province, China and neighboring areas, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora. ... Chaozhou (Chinese: 潮州 lit. ... Geographic coordinates: 116º14 - 117º19 E, 23º02 - 23º38 N Area: 234 km² Shantou (also known as Swatow or Suátao) is a city of 1. ... Hakka (Simplified Chinese: 客家话, Traditional Chinese: 客家話, Pronunciation in Hakka: Hak-ka-fa/-va, Pinyin: Kèjiāhuà) is a spoken variation of the Chinese language spoken predominantly in southern China by the Hakka ethnic group and descendants in diaspora throughout East and Southeast Asia and around the world. ... For other uses, see Hakka (disambiguation). ... Cantopop (Chinese: 粵語流行曲) is a colloquial portmanteau for Cantonese popular music. It is also referred to as HK-pop, short for Hong Kong popular music. It is categorized as a subgenre of Chinese popular music within C-pop. ... WÇ”xiá (traditional Chinese: ; simplified Chinese: , Mandarin IPA: , Cantonese Pinyin: mou5 hap6), literally meaning martial (arts) heroes, is a distinct quasi-fantasy sub-genre of the martial arts genre in literature, television and cinema. ... Map of eastern China and Taiwan, showing the historic distribution of Mandarin Chinese in light brown. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

[edit] Phonology

See Standard Cantonese for a discussion of the sounds of Standard Cantonese and pages on individual dialects for their phonologies

Standard Cantonese is a variant, and is generally considered the prestige dialect of Cantonese Chinese. ...

[edit] Cantonese development and usage

The area coloured in red shows the Cantonese-speaking region in the PRC.

Officially Standard Mandarin (Putonghua/guoyu) is the standard language in mainland China and Taiwan and is taught to nearly everyone with different variations as a supplement to their native local languages (which includes Cantonese in Guangdong). Cantonese along with Mandarin form two of the official languages of Hong Kong and Macau. Cantonese is also one of the main languages in many overseas Chinese communities including Australia, Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe. Many of these emigrants and/or their ancestors originated from Guangdong. In addition, these immigrant communities formed before the widespread use of Mandarin, or they are from Hong Kong where Mandarin is not commonly used. Image File history File links Map_of_sinitic_languages-en. ... Image File history File links Map_of_sinitic_languages-en. ... Map of eastern China and Taiwan, showing the historic distribution of Mandarin Chinese in light brown. ... This article is on all of the Northern and Southwestern Chinese dialects. ...

In some ways, Cantonese is a more conservative language than Mandarin, and in other ways it is not. For example, Cantonese has retained consonant endings from older varieties of Chinese that have been lost in Mandarin, but Cantonese has merged some vowels from older varieties of Chinese.

The Taishan dialect, which in the U.S. nowadays is heard mostly spoken by Chinese actors in old American TV shows and movies (e.g. Hop Sing on Bonanza), is more conservative than the Guangzhou/Hong Kong variants of Cantonese. It has preserved the initial /n/ sound of words, whereas many post-World War II-born Hong Kong Cantonese speakers have changed it to an /l/ sound ("ngàuh lām" instead of "ngàuh nām" for "stewed beef" 牛腩) and more recently drop the "ng-" initial (so that it changes further to "àuh lām"); this seems to have arisen from some kind of street affectation as opposed to systematic phonological change. The common word for "who" in Taishan is "sŭe" (誰), which is the same character used in classical Chinese, whereas Cantonese has changed it to "bīn go" (邊個). Ben Cartwright and Hop Sing at the Ponderosa Hop Sing was Cartwright familys cook on the US television series Bonanza which ran on the NBC network from 1959-73. ... This article is about the television program. ...

Cantonese sounds quite different from Mandarin, mainly because it has a different set of syllables. The rules for syllable formation are different; for example, there are syllables ending in non-nasal consonants (e.g. "lak"). It also has different tones and more than Mandarin. Cantonese is generally considered to have 8 tones, the choice depending on whether a traditional distinction between a high-level and a high-falling tone is observed; the two tones in question have largely merged into a single, high-level tone, especially in Hong Kong Cantonese, which has tended to simplify traditional Chinese tones^{[citation needed]}. Many (especially older) descriptions of the Cantonese sound system record a higher number of tones, 9. However, the extra tones differ only in that they end in p, t, or k; otherwise they can be modeled identically.^[6]

Cantonese preserves many syllable-final sounds that Mandarin has lost or merged. For example, the characters 裔, 屹, 藝, 艾, 憶, 譯, 懿, 誼, 肄, 翳, 邑, and 佚 are all pronounced "yì" in Mandarin, but they are all different in Cantonese (jeoi6, ngat6, ngai6, ngaai6, yik1, yik6, yi3, yi4, si3, ai3, yap1, and yat6, respectively). Like Hakka and Min Nan, Cantonese has preserved the final consonants [-m, -n, -ŋ -p, -t, -k] from Middle Chinese, while the Mandarin final consonants have been reduced to [-n, -ŋ]. For example, lacking the syllable-final sound "m"; the final "m" and final "n" from older varieties of Chinese have merged into "n" in Mandarin, e.g. Cantonese "taam6" (譚) and "taan4" (壇) versus Mandarin tán, "yim4" (鹽) and "yin4" (言) versus Mandarin yán, "tim1" (添) and "tin1" (天) versus Mandarin tiān, "hum4" (含) and "hon4" (寒) versus Mandarin hán. The examples are too numerous to list. Furthermore, nasals can be independent syllables in Cantonese words, e.g. "ng5" (五) "five," and "m4" (唔) "not". Hakka (Simplified Chinese: 客家话, Traditional Chinese: 客家話, Pronunciation in Hakka: Hak-ka-fa/-va, Pinyin: Kèjiāhuà) is a spoken variation of the Chinese language spoken predominantly in southern China by the Hakka ethnic group and descendants in diaspora throughout East and Southeast Asia and around the world. ... Mǐn N n (Chinese: 閩南語), also spelt as Minnan or Min-nan; native name B ; literally means Southern Min or Southern Fujian and refers to the local language/dialect of southern Fujian province, China. ... Middle Chinese (traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: zhōnggÇ” HànyÇ”), or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). ...

Differences also arise from Mandarin's relatively recent sound changes. One change, for example, palatalized [kʲ] with [tsʲ] to [tɕ], and is reflected in historical Mandarin romanizations, such as Peking (Beijing), Kiangsi (Jiangxi), and Fukien (Fujian). This distinction is still preserved in Cantonese. For example, 晶, 精, 經 and 京 are all pronounced as "jīng" (jing1) in Mandarin, but in Cantonese, the first pair is pronounced "jing1", and the second pair "ging1". Sound change or phonetic change is a historical process of language change consisting in the replacement of one speech sound or, more generally, one phonetic feature by another in a given phonological environment. ... Peking redirects here. ...   (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chiang-hsi; Postal map spelling: Kiangsi) is a southern province of the Peoples Republic of China, spanning from the banks of the Yangtze River in the north into hillier areas in the south. ...   (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Fu-chien; Postal map spelling: Fukien, Foukien; local transliteration Hokkien from Min Nan Hok-kiàn) is one of the provinces on the southeast coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ...

A more drastic example, displaying both the loss of coda plosives and the palatization of onset consonants, is the character (學), pronounced *ɣæwk in Middle Chinese. Its modern pronunciations in Cantonese, Hakka, Taiwanese,Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese are "hok6", "hok8" (pinjim), "ha̍k" (Pe̍h-ōe-jī), học (although a Sino-Vietnamese word, it is used in daily vocabulary), "학" (hak) (Sino-Korean), and "gaku" (Sino-Japanese), respectively, while the pronunciation in Mandarin is xué [ɕyɛ]. Middle Chinese (traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: zhōnggÇ” HànyÇ”), or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ...

However, Mandarin's vowel system is somewhat more conservative than Cantonese's, in that many diphthongs preserved in Mandarin have merged or been lost in Cantonese. Also, Mandarin makes a three-way distinction among alveolar, alveopalatal, and retroflex fricatives, distinctions that are not made by modern Cantonese. For example, jiang (將) and zhang (張) are two distinct syllables in Mandarin or old Cantonese, but in modern Cantonese they have the same sound, "jeung1". The loss of distinction between the alveolar and the alveolopalatal sibilants in Cantonese occurred in the mid-19th centuries and was documented in many Cantonese dictionaries and pronunciation guides published prior to the 1950s. A Tonic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialect by Williams (1856), writes: The initials "ch" and "ts" are constantly confounded, and some persons are absolutely unable to detect the difference, more frequently calling the words under "ts" as "ch", than contrariwise. A Pocket Dictionary of Cantonese by Cowles (1914) adds: "s" initial may be heard for "sh" initial and vice versa. Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... Alveolars are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, the internal side of the upper gums (known as the alveoles of the upper teeth). ... In phonetics, alveolo-palatal consonants are a subtype of postalveolar fricative articulated with the blade of the tongue between the alveolar ridge and the palate. ... Retroflex consonants are articulated with the tip of the tongue curled up and back so the bottom of the tip touches the roof of the mouth. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ...

There are clear sound correspondences in, for instance, the tones. For example, a fourth-tone (low falling tone) word in Cantonese is usually second tone (rising tone) in Mandarin. The comparative method (in linguistics) is a method used to detect genetic relationships between languages and to establish a consistent relationship hypothesis by reconstructing: the common ancestor of the languages in question, a plausible sequence of regular changes by which the historically known languages can be derived from that common...

This can be partly explained by their common descent from Middle Chinese (spoken), still with its different dialects. One way of counting tones gives Cantonese 9 tones, Mandarin 4 and Middle Chinese 8. Within this system, Mandarin merged the so-called "yin" and "yang" tones except for the Ping (平, flat) category, while Cantonese not only preserved these, but split one of them into 2 over time. Also, within this system, Cantonese is the only Chinese language known to have split its tones rather than merge them since the time of Late Middle Chinese.

[edit] Written Cantonese

Main article: Written Cantonese

Standard Written Chinese is, in essence, written Standard Mandarin. When standard written Chinese is read aloud with Cantonese sound values, the result sounds stilted and unnatural because it is different from normal spoken Cantonese. Written Cantonese is spoken Cantonese written as it is actually spoken. Unusual for a regional (i.e. non-Mandarin) Chinese language, Cantonese has a written form, developed over the last few decades in Hong Kong, and includes many unique characters that are not found in standard written Chinese. Readers who understand standard written Chinese but do not know Cantonese often find written Cantonese hard to understand or even unintelligible as it is different from standard written Chinese in grammar and vocabulary. However, written Cantonese is commonly used informally among Cantonese speakers. Circumstances where written Cantonese is used include conversations through instant messaging services, letters, notes, entertainment magazines and entertainment sections of newspapers, and sometimes subtitles in Hong Kong movies, and advertisements. It rarely finds its way into the subtitles of Western movies or TV shows, though The Simpsons is a notable exception. Cantonese Opera scripts also use the Cantonese written vernacular. Written Cantonese refers to the written language used to write colloquial standard Cantonese using Chinese characters. ... Vernacular Chinese (pinyin: báihuà; Wade-Giles: paihua) is a style or register of the written Chinese language essentially modeled after the spoken language and associated with Standard Mandarin. ... Map of eastern China and Taiwan, showing the historic distribution of Mandarin Chinese in light brown. ... Vernacular Chinese (pinyin: báihuà; Wade-Giles: paihua) is a style or register of the written Chinese language essentially modeled after the spoken language and associated with Standard Mandarin. ... // Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. ... For other uses, see Subtitle. ... The history of Chinese-language cinema has three separate threads of development: the Hong Kong, the Mainland and Taiwan. ... Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor. ... Simpsons redirects here. ... Cantonese opera is one of the major categories in Chinese opera, originating in southern Chinas Cantonese culture. ...

Historically, written Cantonese has been used in Hong Kong for legal proceedings in order to write down the exact spoken testimony of a witness, instead of paraphrasing spoken Cantonese into standard written Chinese. Newspapers have also done likewise to capture more exact quotes. Its popularity and usage has been rising in the last two decades, the late Wong Jim being one of the pioneers of its use as an effective written language. Written colloquial Cantonese has become quite popular in certain tabloids, online chat rooms, and instant messaging. Some tabloids like Apple Daily write colloquial Cantonese; papers may contain editorials that contain Cantonese; and Cantonese-specific characters can be increasingly seen on advertisements and billboards. Written Cantonese remains limited outside of Hong Kong, even in other Cantonese-speaking areas such as Guangdong, where the use of colloquial writing is discouraged. Despite the relative popularity of written Cantonese in Hong Kong, some disdain it, believing that being too accustomed to write in such a way would affect a person's ability to use standard written Chinese in situations that demand it. Wong Jim, James Wong Jim M.Phil. ...

Forms of written Chinese in Hong Kong:

1. Standard Written Chinese (traditional characters) used in Hong Kong SAR post-WWII Vernacular Reformation.
2. pakwa 日常白話 Colloquial Written Cantonese - currently used in journals, advertisements, etc. in Hong Kong SAR, overseas Cantonese Chinese communities.
3. Classical Cantonese Chinese - a reconstructed Neo-Classical written Chinese forms widely used in 1900s-90s Hong Kong in Cantonese opera lyrics, Cantonese Chinese poetic forms and especially in 80s cantopop.
4. Classical Chinese known as wenyanwen - a written Chinese form in poems and writings from the dynastic periods.

For colloquial vernacular usage, written Cantonese incorporates an entire range of characters and particles specific to the Cantonese spoken form. This is commonly used in publicity and journalistic writing in Hong Kong and Hong Kong-influenced regions. It reads exactly as Modern Standard Spoken Cantonese. Vernacular Chinese (pinyin: báihuà; Wade-Giles: paihua) is a style or register of the written Chinese language essentially modeled after the spoken language and associated with Standard Mandarin. ... Cantopop (Chinese: 粵語流行曲) is a colloquial portmanteau for Cantonese popular music. It is also referred to as HK-pop, short for Hong Kong popular music. It is categorized as a subgenre of Chinese popular music within C-pop. ... Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of very old forms of Chinese , making it very different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. ...

For literary and artistic reasons (such as calligraphy), standard literary Chinese, the classical wenyanwan is used.

Records of legal documents in Hong Kong also use written Cantonese sometimes, in order to record exactly what a witness has said.

Colloquial Cantonese is rarely used in formal forms of writing; formal written communication is almost always in standard written Chinese, albeit still pronounced with Cantonese sound values. However, written colloquial Cantonese does exist; it is used mostly for transcription of speech in tabloids, in some broadsheets, for some subtitles, for personal diaries, and in other informal forms of communication such as Internet bulletin boards (BBS) or e-mails. It is not uncommon to see the front page of a Cantonese paper written in hanyu, while the entertainment sections are, at least partly, in Cantonese. The vernacular writing system has evolved over time from a process of modifying characters to express lexical and syntactic elements found in Cantonese but not the standard written language. In spite of their vernacular origin and informal use, these characters have become so common in Hong Kong that the Hong Kong Government has incorporated them into a special Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set (HKSCS), along with special characters used for proper nouns. Hanyu can refer to: a city in Saitama, Japan - see Hanyu, Saitama The Chinese name for the Chinese language (漢語 (traditional) / 汉语 (simplified); pinyin hànyǔ). ... The Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set (commonly abbreviated to HKSCS) is a set of Chinese characters -- 4,702 in total in the initial release -- used exclusively in Cantonese. ... A proper noun is a noun that picks out a unique entity. ...

A problem for the student of Cantonese is the lack of a widely accepted, standardized transcription system. Another problem is with Chinese characters: Cantonese uses the same system of characters as standard written Chinese, but it often uses different words, which have to be written with different or new characters. An example of Cantonese using a different word and a different character to write it: the Mandarin word for "to be" is shì and is written as 是, but in Cantonese the word for "to be" is hai6 and 係 is used in written Cantonese (係 is xì in Mandarin). In standard written Chinese 是 is normally used, though 係 can be found in classical literature and modern formal writing. In Hong Kong, 係 is often used in colloquial written Cantonese and therefore actively avoided and discouraged in formal writing; on the other hand, the use of 係 is relatively widespread in both mainland China and in Taiwan, in government publications and product descriptions, for example. Japanese name Kanji: Hiragana: Korean name Hangul: Hanja: Vietnamese name Quốc ngữ: Hán tá»±: A Chinese character or Han character (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is a logogram used in writing Chinese, Japanese, rarely Korean, and formerly Vietnamese. ... ...

Many characters used in colloquial Cantonese writings are made up by putting a mouth radical (口) on the left hand side of another more well known character to indicate that the character is read like the right hand side, but it is only used phonetically in the Cantonese context. The characters,^[7] 叻, 吓, 吔, 呃, 咁, 咗, 咩, 哂, 哋, 唔, 唥, 唧, 啱, 啲, 喐, 喥, 喺, 嗰, 嘅, 嘜, 嘞, 嘢, 嘥, 嚟, 嚡, 嚿, 囖 etc. are commonly used in Cantonese writing.

As not all Cantonese words can be found in current encoding system, or the users simply do not know how to enter such characters on the computer, in very informal speech, Cantonese tends to use extremely simple romanization (e.g. use D as 啲), symbols (add an English letter "o" in front of another Chinese character; e.g. 㗎 is defined in Unicode, but will not display in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, hence the proxy o架 is often used), homophones (e.g. use 果 as 嗰), and Chinese characters of different Mandarin meaning (e.g. 乜, 係, 俾 etc.) to compose a message.

For example, "你喺嗰喥好喇，千祈咪搞佢啲嘢。" is often written in easier form as "你o係果度好喇，千祈咪搞佢D野。" (character-by-character, approximately "you, be, there (two characters), good, (final particle), thousand, pray, don't, mess, he/she, genitive particle, thing"; translation: "You will only stay there, don't mess with his/her stuff").

Other common characters are unique to Cantonese or deviate from their Standard Chinese usage; these include: 乜, 冇, 仔, 佢, 佬, 係, 俾, 靚.

The words represented by these characters are sometimes cognates with pre-existing Chinese words. However, their colloquial Cantonese pronunciations have diverged from formal Cantonese pronunciations. For example, in formal written Chinese, 無 (mou4) is the character used for "without". In spoken Cantonese, 冇 (mou5) has the same usage, meaning, and pronunciation as 無, differing only by tone. 冇 is actually a hollowed out writing of its antonym (有). 冇 represents the spoken Cantonese form of the word "without", while 無 represents the word used in formal Chinese writing (pinyin: wú) . However, 無 is still used in some instances in spoken Chinese in both dialects, like 無論 ("no matter what"). A Cantonese-specific example is the doublet 來/嚟, which means "to come". 來 (loi4) is used in formal writing; 嚟 (lei4) is the spoken Cantonese form. Look up cognate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A doublet is one of two or more words in a language that share a common root word, but may have traveled into a language through different routes. ...

[edit] Relation to Classical Chinese

Since the pronunciation of all modern varieties of Chinese are different from Old Chinese or other forms of historical Chinese (such as Middle Chinese), characters that once rhymed in poetry may no longer (e.g. rhyming occurring sometimes in Min, Cantonese, and rarely in Mandarin, or vice versa). Poetry and other rhyme-based writing thus becomes less coherent than the original reading must have been. However, some modern Chinese dialects have certain phonological characteristics that are closer to the older pronunciations than others, as shown by the preservation of certain rhyme structures. Some believe wenyan literature, especially poetry, sounds better when read in certain dialects believed to be closer to older pronunciations, such as Cantonese or Southern Min.

[edit] Cantonese outside China

Historically, the majority of the overseas Chinese have originated from just two provinces; Fujian 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. More recent emigration from Fujian and Hong Kong have continued this trend.   (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Fu-chien; Postal map spelling: Fukien, Foukien; local transliteration Hokkien from Min Nan Hok-kiàn) is one of the provinces on the southeast coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Not to be confused with the former Kwantung Leased Territory in north-eastern China. ...

The largest number of Cantonese speakers outside mainland China and Hong Kong are in south east Asia, however speakers of Min dialects are predominate among the overseas Chinese in south east Asia. Min can be: // Abbreviation for minimum function in mathematics. ...

[edit] Europe

[edit] U.K.

The majority of Cantonese speakers in the UK have origins from the former British colony of Hong Kong and speak the Guangzhou/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 Singapore, as well as from Guangdong in China itself. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a country in western Europe, and member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the G8, the European Union, and NATO. Usually known simply as the United Kingdom, the UK, or (inaccurately) as Great Britain or Britain, the UK has four constituent... For other uses, see Hakka (disambiguation). ...

[edit] U.S.A.

For the last 150 years, Guangdong 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 Cantonese is spoken), alone may have been the home to more than 60% of Chinese immigrants to the US before 1965. As a result, Guangdong dialects such as sei yap (the dialects of Taishan, Enping, Kaiping and Xinhui counties) and what is now called mainstream Cantonese (with a heavy Hong Kong influence) have been the major Cantonese dialects spoken abroad, particularly in the USA. Not to be confused with the former Kwantung Leased Territory in north-eastern China. ... Taishan (台山; Mandarin: Táishān; Cantonese: Toisan; Taishanese: Hoisan, Other: Toishan, Toisaan) is a coastal county-level city in Guangdong Province, China. ... Enping City (red) within Guangdong Enping (恩平; Cantonese: Yun Ping) is a city in Guangdong Province, China. ... Kaiping (开平) is a county-level city in the Guangdong province of southern China. ... Image:Location of Xinhui within Guangdong (China). ...

The Taishan dialect, one of the sei yap or siyi (四邑) dialects that come from Guangdong counties that were the origin of the majority of Exclusion-era Guangdong Chinese emigrants to the USA, continues to be spoken both by recent immigrants from Taishan and even by third-generation Chinese Americans of Taishan ancestry alike. Taishanese or Hoisanese (台山話: hoi6 saan3 waa2, Cantonese: toi4 saan1 waa2), or Siyi (四邑; after the area of the same name), is a Chinese dialect (or group of very similar dialects) spoken in and around Taishan, a coastal county of the Guangdong province, located southwest of Guangzhou. ... This article is about the former U.S. law. ...

The dialect of Zhongshan in 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 much closer to Cantonese than the Taishan dialect, but has "flatter" tones in pronunciation than Cantonese. Cantonese is the third most widely spoken non-English language in the United States.^[8] The currently most popular romanization for learning Cantonese in the United States is Yale Romanization. Locke, California is a community built in California, USA by Chinese immigrants during the early 20th century. ... The Yale romanizations are four systems created during World War II for use by United States military personnel. ...

The dialectal 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 Mandarin (putonghua/guoyu), with varying degrees of fluency, and their native local language/dialect, such as Min (Hokkien and other Fujian dialects), Wu, Mandarin, Cantonese etc. As a result Standard Mandarin is increasingly becoming more common as the Chinese lingua franca amongst the overseas Chinese. Map of eastern China and Taiwan, showing the historic distribution of Mandarin Chinese in light brown. ... Mǐn Nán (Chinese: 閩南語), also spelt as Minnan or Min-nan; native name Bân-lâm-gú; literally means Southern Min or Southern Fujian and refers to the local language/dialect of southern Fujian province, China. ...   (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Fu-chien; Postal map spelling: Fukien, Foukien; local transliteration Hokkien from Min Nan Hok-kiàn) is one of the provinces on the southeast coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Wu (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is one of the major divisions of the Chinese language. ... This article is on all of the Northern and Southwestern Chinese dialects. ...

[edit] Cantonese as a foreign language

Cantonese courses can be found at some U.S. universities such as Harvard University, Yale University, Stanford University, the University of Hawaii, Brigham Young University, San Jose State University, New York University, Duke University and Cornell University. In Canada, Cantonese courses can be taken at various universities such as the University of Toronto. The language is also commonly taught in 'heritage language' programs in the public schools in areas where many children have parents who speak the language. It can be easier for a Cantonese-speaker who does not speak Mandarin to learn Mandarin than vice-versa. This is because Cantonese speakers who do not speak Mandarin are educated to read and write in standard modern written Chinese but with Cantonese pronunciation when read aloud, so they are already familiar with Mandarin grammar and vocabulary because the grammar and vocabulary of standard modern written Chinese is more similar to Mandarin than Cantonese. Harvard redirects here. ... Yale redirects here. ... Stanford redirects here. ... This article is about the University of Hawaii system. ... , Brigham Young University (BYU), located in Provo, Utah, is a private coeducational school completely owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon Church) and run under the auspices of its Church Educational System. ... San Jose State University San José State University, commonly shortened to San Jose State and SJSU, is the oldest university in what became the California State University system. ... New York University (NYU) is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational research university in New York City. ... Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. ... Cornell redirects here. ... The University of Toronto (U of T) is a public research university in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ...

[edit] History

[edit] Qin and Han

In ancient China, Guangdong was called Nanyue, and very few Han people lived there. Therefore, the Chinese language was not widely spoken there at that time. However, in the Qin Dynasty Chinese troops moved south and conquered the Baiyue territories, and thousands of Han people began settling in the Lingnan area. This migration led to the Chinese language being spoken in the Lingnan area. After Zhào Tuó was made the Duke of Nanyue by the Han Dynasty and given authority over the Nanyue region, many Han people entered the area and lived together with the Nanyue population, consequently affecting the livelihood of the Nanyue people as well as stimulating the spread of the Chinese language. Although Han Chinese settlements and their influences soon dominated, some indigenous Nanyue population did not escape from the region. Today, the degree of interaction between Han Chinese and the indigenous population remains a highly controversial topic due to the lack of historical records and the hostility between modern Chinese and Vietnamese. Tây SÆ¡n Dynasty (1778–1802) Nguyá»…n Dynasty (1802–1945) Union of Indochina (1887–1954) Empire of Vietnam (1945) North-South Division During The Indochina Wars (1945–1975) Democratic Republic of Vietnam State of Vietnam Republic of Vietnam Republic of South Vietnam Socialist Republic of Vietnam (from 1976... Han Chinese (Simplified: 汉; Traditional: 漢; Pinyin: hàn) is a term which refers to the majority ethnic group within China and the largest single human ethnic group in the world. ... Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... Qin, Qín or Chin (Wade-Giles) can refer to. ... Yue (Traditional Chinese: ; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Yüeh4; also seen as Yueh, Yuet, Việt) refers to ancient semi-Sinicized or non-Sinicized Chinese peoples of southern China, originally those along the eastern coastline of present-day Zhejiang province and Shanghai. ... Yeongnam (literally south of the passes) is the name of a region that coincides with the former Gyeongsang Province in what is now South Korea. ... Yeongnam (literally south of the passes) is the name of a region that coincides with the former Gyeongsang Province in what is now South Korea. ... Zhao Tuo (Traditional Chinese: 趙佗; pinyin: Zhào Tuō) or Triệu Đà in Vietnamese, was a Chinese commanding general of the Qin dynasty who later founded the kingdom of Nanyue, or Nam Việt (南越). He was also the founder of the Zhao Dynasty (Trieu Dynasty) of Nanyue. ... Tây SÆ¡n Dynasty (1778–1802) Nguyá»…n Dynasty (1802–1945) Union of Indochina (1887–1954) Empire of Vietnam (1945) North-South Division During The Indochina Wars (1945–1975) Democratic Republic of Vietnam State of Vietnam Republic of Vietnam Republic of South Vietnam Socialist Republic of Vietnam (from 1976... Han Dynasty in 87 BC Capital Changan (206 BC–9 AD) Luoyang (25 AD–220 AD) Language(s) Chinese Religion Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Chinese folk religion Government Monarchy History  - Establishment 206 BC  - Battle of Gaixia; Han rule of China begins 202 BC  - Interruption of Han rule 9 - 24  - Abdication... Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ...

[edit] Sui

In the Sui Dynasty, Zhongyuan was in a period of war and discontent, and many people moved southwards to avoid war, forming the first mass migration of Han people into the South. As the population in the Lingnan area dramatically rose, the Chinese language in the south developed significantly. Thus, the Cantonese language began to develop more significant differences with central Chinese. The Sui Dynasty of China amongst the Asian, African, and European spheres of the world, 600 AD. The Sui Dynasty (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; 581-618 AD[1]) followed the Southern and Northern Dynasties and preceded the Tang Dynasty in China. ... Alternative meaning: In geology, North China (continent) and South China (continent) were two ancient landmasses that correspond to modern northern and southern China. ... Net migration rates for 2006: positive (blue), negative (orange) and stable (green). ... Han Chinese (Simplified: 汉; Traditional: 漢; Pinyin: hàn) is a term which refers to the majority ethnic group within China and the largest single human ethnic group in the world. ... Yeongnam (literally south of the passes) is the name of a region that coincides with the former Gyeongsang Province in what is now South Korea. ...

[edit] Tang

As the Han population in the Guangdong area continued to rise during the Tang Dynasty, some indigenous people living in the south had been culturally assimilated by the Han population, while others moved to other regions (such as Guangxi), developing their own dialects. At the time, Cantonese had been affected by central Chinese and became more standardized, but it further developed a more independent language structure, vocabulary, and grammar. Not to be confused with the former Kwantung Leased Territory in north-eastern China. ... For the band, see Tang Dynasty (band). ...

[edit] Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing

In the Song Dynasty, the differences between central Chinese and Cantonese became more significant, and the languages became more independent of one another. During the Yuan and Ming dynasties, Cantonese evolved still further, developing its own characteristics. For other uses, see Liu Song Dynasty. ... Capital Dadu Language(s) Mongolian Chinese Government Monarchy Emperor  - 1260-1294 Kublai Khan  - 1333-1370 (Cont. ... For other uses, see Ming. ...

[edit] Mid to Late Qing

In the late Qing, the dynasty had gone through a period of maritime ban under the Hai jin. Guangzhou remained one of the only cities that allowed trading with foreign countries, since the trade chamber of commerce was established there.^[9] Therefore, some foreigners learned Cantonese and some Imperial government officials spoke Cantonese, making the language very popular in Cantonese speaking Guangzhou. Also, the European control of Macau and Hong Kong had increased the exposure of Cantonese to the world. Flag (1890-1912) Anthem Gong Jinou (1911) Qing China at its greatest extent. ... This article is about the body of water. ... The Hai jin (海禁) was a ban on maritime activities during the mid-Ming Dynasty of China. ...

[edit] 20th century

In the Cantonese speaking region of mainland China, Mandarin is used for official purposes while Cantonese (including all varieties) is used more informal situations.

In Hong Kong, Hong Kong Cantonese is the main and dominant form of spoken Chinese and is used in education, the government, public life, the media and entertainment (e.g. Hong Kong cinema), in business dealings with Cantonese speaking overseas Chinese communities, in addition to being used in the home and informal situations. Hong Kong Cantonese (traditional Chinese: ) is a variant of Cantonese, one of the spoken forms of the Chinese language, spoken in Hong Kong. ...

Nowadays, due to Putonghua (Mandarin) being the medium of education on the mainland, many youngsters in the Cantonese speaking region in mainland China do not know specific historical and scientific vocabularies in Cantonese but do know social, cultural, entertainment, commercial, trading, and all other vocabularies. The language is widely spoken and learned by overseas Chinese of Guangdong and Hong Kong origin.

The popularity of Cantonese language media and entertainment from Hong Kong has led to a wide and frequent exposure of Cantonese to large portions of China and the rest of Asia. Cantopop and the Hong Kong film industry are prominent examples of modern Cantonese language media. Cantopop (Chinese: 粵語流行曲) is a colloquial portmanteau for Cantonese popular music. It is also referred to as HK-pop, short for Hong Kong popular music. It is categorized as a subgenre of Chinese popular music within C-pop. ...

[edit] See also

• Standard Cantonese
• Hong Kong Government Cantonese Romanisation
• Standard Cantonese Pinyin
• Jyutping (LSHK)
• Yale Romanization#Cantonese
• Written Cantonese
• Cantonese grammar
• Chinese written language
• Chinese input methods for computers

Standard Cantonese is a variant, and is generally considered the prestige dialect of Cantonese Chinese. ... The Hong Kong Government Cantonese Romanisation (not an official name) is the more or less consistent way for romanising Cantonese proper nouns employed by the Hong Kong Government departments and many non-governmental organisations in Hong Kong. ... Standard Cantonese Pinyin is a romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Yu Bingzhao (ch. ... Jyutping (sometimes spelled Jyutpin) is a romanization system for Standard Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK) in 1993. ... The Yale romanizations are four systems created during World War II for use by United States military personnel. ... Written Cantonese refers to the written language used to write colloquial standard Cantonese using Chinese characters. ... Cantonese is an analytic language where, in a sentence, the arrangement of words is important to its meaning. ... Various styles of Chinese calligraphy. ... Since the Chinese language uses a logographic script — that is, a script where one or two characters corresponds roughly to one word or meaning — there are vastly more characters, or glyphs, than there are keys on a standard computer keyboard. ...

[edit] References

Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

[edit] External links

Cantonese (linguistics) edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikibooks' Cantonese has more about this subject:

Cantonese

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[edit] Dictionaries

[edit] Cantonese dictionaries or databases with spoken Cantonese entries

• A Comparative Database of Modern Chinese and Cantonese: A Cantonese↔Standard Chinese Dictionary at the Chinese University of Hong Kong: This is one of the few online sites with an extensive database of spoken Cantonese terms and phrases on the Internet. Exclusively in Chinese.
• The CantoDict Project is a free, online Cantonese (characters, jyutping, and some pinyin; definition in English) dictionary updated frequently by volunteers from around the world. As well as tens of thousands of words, many of its example sentences may be listened to in MP3 format.
• Cantonese-Japanese Dictionary: This is an online Cantonese-Japanese dictionary aimed mainly at Japanese speakers. The corresponding Japanese-Cantonese dictionary is also on this site.

[edit] Character-only Cantonese pronunciation dictionaries

• The Chinese University of Hong Kong Research Centre for Humanities Computing: Chinese Character Database: With Word-formations Phonologically Disambiguated According to the Cantonese Dialect: A vast Chinese character database of over 13,000 characters with audio pronunciations in Cantonese. This site is viewable in Chinese and English. You can choose from seven transcription schemes to view character pronunciations. By default, the site is displayed in Chinese and uses the LSHK jyutping transcription scheme. To view the site in English and/or use a different transcription scheme, a cookies enabled browser is required. For each character you can find Cantonese pronunciations, Mandarin pronunciations, character ranking/frequency, Big5 encoding number, Unicode number, cangjie (chongkit) input code, and which radical the character can be found under using a traditional Chinese dictionary.
• Cantonese Talking Syllabary: in Chinese; require Big5 font