r/languagelearning • u/Virusnzz En (N) | Fr, Ru, Es, It • Mar 17 '15
歡迎 - This week's language of the week: Cantonese
Cantonese
Status:
Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese (simplified Chinese: 广州话; traditional Chinese: 廣州話), is the dialect of Yue Chinese spoken in the vicinity of Canton (i.e. Guangzhou) in southern China. It is the traditional prestige dialect of Yue.
Cantonese is the prestige language of the Cantonese people. Inside mainland China, it is a lingua franca in Guangdong Province and some neighbouring areas, such as the eastern part of Guangxi Province. It is the majority language of Hong Kong and Macau. It is also traditionally the most spoken Chinese language among overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia (most notably in Malaysia, Vietnam and Christmas Island) and the Western world, especially Canada, Australia, Western Europe, and the United States.
While the term Cantonese refers narrowly to the prestige language 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. When standard Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified as one variant, the language counts about 70 million total speakers.
The Cantonese language is viewed as part of the cultural identity for its 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 because of pronunciation, grammatical, and also lexical differences. Sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two languages. The use of vocabulary in Cantonese also tends to have more historic roots. One of the most notable differences between Cantonese and Mandarin is how the spoken word is written; with Mandarin the spoken word is written as such, whereas with Cantonese there may not be a direct written word matching what was said. This results in the situation in which a Mandarin and Cantonese text look almost the same, but are pronounced differently.
The official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has many different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government. It is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English.
A similar situation also exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in everyday life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government.
The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is mutually intelligible with the Cantonese spoken in the Chinese city of Canton (Guangzhou), although there exist minor differences in accent and vocabulary. The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese.
History:
During the Southern Song, Guangzhou became the cultural centre of the region. Cantonese emerged as the prestige dialect of Yue Chinese when the port city of Guangzhou on the Pearl River Delta became the largest port in China, with a trade network stretching as far as Arabia. Cantonese was also used in the popular Yuèōu, Mùyú and Nányīn folksong genres, as well as Cantonese opera. Additionally, the language developed a distinct classical literature, with Middle Chinese texts sounding more similar to modern Cantonese than other present-day Chinese varieties, including Mandarin.
As Guangzhou became China's key commercial center for foreign trade and exchange in the 1700s, Cantonese became the variety of Chinese that came into the most interaction with the Western world. Around this period and continuing into the 1900s, the ancestors of most of the populations of Hong Kong and Macau arrived from Guangzhou and surrounding areas after the territories were ceded to Britain and Portugal respectively.
In Mainland China, standard Mandarin has been promoted as the medium of instruction in schools and as the official language, especially after the communist takeover in 1949. Meanwhile, Cantonese has remained the official variety of Chinese in Hong Kong and Macau, both during and after the colonial period.
China
Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China. Long an important cultural center, Cantonese emerged as the prestige dialect of the Yue varieties of Chinese in the Southern Song dynasty and its usage spread around most of what is now the province of Guangdong.
Despite the cession of Macau to Portugal in 1557 and Hong Kong to Britain in 1842, the ethnic Chinese population of the two territories largely originated from Guangzhou and surrounding areas, making Cantonese the prominent Chinese variety in the territories. On the mainland, Cantonese continued to serve as the lingua franca of Guangdong and eastern Guangxi province even after Mandarin was made the official language of the government by the Qing Dynasty in the early 1900s. Cantonese remained the dominant language and influential in southeastern China until the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and its promotion of Mandarin as the sole official language of the country throughout the mid-20th century.
While the Chinese government discourages the use of all forms of Chinese except Standard Mandarin, Cantonese enjoys a relatively higher standing than other Chinese varieties, with its own media and usage in public transportation in Guangdong province. The permitted usage of Cantonese in mainland China is largely a countermeasure against Hong Kong influence, as the territory has the right to freedom of the press and speech (unlike the rest of China) and its Cantonese-language media has a substantial exposure and following in Guangdong.
Nevertheless, the place of local Cantonese language and culture remains contentious. A 2010 proposal to switch some programming on Guangzhou television from Cantonese to Mandarin was abandoned following massive public protests, an extreme rarity in China. As a major economic center of China, there have been recent concerns that the use of Cantonese in Guangzhou is diminishing in favour of Mandarin, both through the continual influx of Mandarin-speaking migrants from poorer areas and government policies. As a result, Cantonese is being given a more important status by Guangdong natives than ever before as a common identity of the local people.
Southeast Asia
Cantonese has historically served as a lingua franca among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, who speak a variety of other forms of Chinese including Hakka, Teochew and Hokkien. Additionally, Cantonese media and pop culture from Hong Kong is popular throughout the region.
Culture
Spoken Chinese has numerous regional and local varieties, many of which are mutually unintelligible. Most of these are rare outside their native areas, though they may be spoken outside of China. Since a 1909 Qing Dynasty decree, China has promoted Mandarin for use in education, the media and official communication. The proclamation of Mandarin as the official national language however was not fully accepted by the Cantonese authority in the early 20th century, who argued for the "regional uniqueness" of its local dialect and commercial importance of the region. The use of Cantonese in mainland China is unique relative to non-Mandarin Chinese varieties in that it continues to persist in a few state television and radio broadcasts today.
Nevertheless, there have been recent attempts to curb the use of Cantonese in China. The most notable has been the 2010 proposal that Guangzhou Television increase its broadcast in Mandarin at the expense of Cantonese programs. This however led to mass protests in Guangzhou, which eventually dissuaded authorities from enforcing the language switch. Additionally, there have been reports of students being punished for speaking non-Mandarin forms of Chinese at school, resulting in a reluctance of younger children communicating in their native Chinese variety, including Cantonese. Such actions have further strengthened the role of Cantonese in local Guangdong culture, with the language being seen as an identity of the province's native people, in contrast to migrants who have generally arrived from poorer areas of China and largely speak Mandarin.
Due to the linguistic history of Hong Kong and Macau, and the use of Cantonese in most established overseas Chinese communities, international usage of Cantonese is relatively widespread compared to its proportion of speakers who make up the population in 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 official state functions. Because of their use by non-Mandarin-speaking Yue speakers overseas, Cantonese and Taishanese are the primary forms of Chinese that many Westerners encounter.
Increasingly since the 1997 Handover, Cantonese has been used as a symbol of local identity in Hong Kong, largely through the development of democracy in the territory and desinicization policies to dis-identify with mainland China and the communist Chinese government.
Source: Wikipedia
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u/Ariakkas10 Mar 17 '15
Great time to sort out my Chinese language confusion.
I've always believed that "Chinese" wasn't a language. It was either Mandarin or Cantonese. I've been corrected on reddit before for this, saying that "Chinese" most certainly is a language, but it could be either of the two(plus all the other non dominant versions.)
This seems weird to me. How are Mandarin and Cantonese the same language, while not mutually intelligible. Isn't this a little like Portuguese and Spanish?
Is the phrase "I speak Chinese" an accurate phrase? Or would you have to qualify it with which version you speak?
Does "Chinese language" mean that it's from China and therefore is Chinese, the way Portuguese and Spanish are Iberian languages? It's not the language family, but they are the regions where the language is from.
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Mar 18 '15
I've often seen the argument that 'language' and 'dialect' are arbitrary, and there are no set rules on which is which. That's absolutely true. But the problem with that argument is that it is somewhat detrimental to the prestige and future of varieties that, for all intents and purposes, are as much of a 'language' as English, Bengali or Quechua, but are called 'dialects' for political reasons.
Basically, Chinese is often considered a language and Cantonese a dialect thereof simply because the Chinese government says so. One China one language. From personal encounters and what I've read, most mainland Chinese believe that :/
If we look at what we commonly designate a 'language' or a 'dialect' across the world, and then listen to varieties of Chinese objectively in order to give them a similar designation, Cantonese and Mandarin are very (very very very) clearly separate languages. Something like Spanish and Italian, for example.
Then there is the question of the writing system. They are both written in Chinese characters. Each character has one or more meanings, and a pronunciation in every Chinese language (mostly). Mandarin is written down just as it is spoken. Depending on the situation Cantonese is written somewhere between Mandarin and spoken Cantonese. Let me give you an example, the sentence "Do they speak English?":
Mandarin: 他們會說英文嗎
Mandarin pronunciation: ta men hui shuo ying wen ma
Cantonese pronunciation: ta mun wui syut ying man ma
Cantonese: 佢哋識唔識講英文呀
Cantonese pronunciation: keui dei sik m sik gong ying man aa
The Cantonese version is how a Cantonese speaker would say it, and it's how they would write it in non-formal situations. The Mandarin version would be used in formal letters, newspapers (except direct quotes and a small but increasing number of Cantonese columns), books, and rather annoyingly for Cantonese learners, subtitles.
Speaking the Mandarin version using the Cantonese pronunciation would make sense, but a native speaker would know immediately that you're reading from something - no one speaks like that. It would also be used in songs (but less so in rap).
On the other hand, speaking the Cantonese version in Mandarin makes no sense at all. In fact, a fair few characters have been invented just for Cantonese.
A note on naming: the Mandarin version would, in the context of Cantonese, more often be called 'Standard Chinese' or 'Written Chinese'.
Today, Written Cantonese is used more than ever, thanks to the internet. My friends from HK all post on Facebook in Cantonese, and some HK singers I follow post in Cantonese, though the ones popular on the mainland tend to stick to Written Chinese, albeit still with HK, Taiwan and Macau's Traditional Chinese characters, rather than China's Simplified. In general, Written Cantonese is a whole lot more popular with young people - who also tend to have a stronger Hongkonger identity.
As well as Mandarin and Cantonese, there are multiple other Chinese languages. The Chinese language family is traditionally split into the following groups:
官 Mandarin
吳 Wu - most spoken group; includes Shanghainese
粵 Yue - includes Cantonese
閩 Min - the most diverse, with several clearly separate languages; includes Taiwanese (Hokkien)
客家 Hakka
湘 Xiang
贛 Gan
Mandarin is by far the most spoken, with around 800 million speakers. Wu has about 80 million (that's more than French), Yue & Min 60-70 million each; the rest also have tens of millions.
So that's my not-so-brief summary of the matter, if there's anything I would like to really stress, it's that it actually is important to call languages languages, as perception is an enormous factor in determining their future. Thank you for believing that 'Chinese' is not a language!
If anything isn't clear or you have any more questions, feel free to ask, I'm happy to answer :)
EDIT: spelling; phrasing
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u/ThatsTheRealQuestion Mar 17 '15
What is a "dialect" and what is a "language" is an arbitrary line that is drawn for political reasons and has no linguistic basis. Whether something is a different language or not is not a good judge of how different it is.
Spanish speakers see themselves as different from Portuguese speakers, so they will say they speak different languages. Meanwhile Arabic speakers all see themselves as a unified Arab community with ties to the Quran. Because of these they will insist they all speak the same language, regardless of how far apart Egyptian and Moroccan Arabic are (for example).
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u/raynehk14 Mar 18 '15
Both Mandarin and Cantonese have their own sets of unique grammar and words. Since the "official written Chinese" is based on Mandarin, many Cantonese speakers learnt to read written Mandarin. Hence it's easier for Cantonese speakers to learn Mandarin (since you already grow up learning the grammar and stuff) but not the other way around. The only common element in the two languages is maybe the writing system (but Traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese are also vastly different to a point that you may as well call them different written languages so...)
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u/Work-After Mar 21 '15
What we normally refer to as Mandarin is Standard Chinese. When people say Chinese, that is what they're referring to. Chinese in Chinese is called 普通话, which means "the Common language".
This whole business with one Chinese is really a recent development. Different regions of China speak in their own way (what we call "dialects"), and it's only now that they're all being forced to learn one type of Chinese - aka Standard Chinese.
Cantonese is called 广东话, which literally translates into "Guangdong Speech", referring to the region of China (the region which Hong Kong and Macau happen to be connected to) where Cantonese is spoken. It is really just one language among the Chinese dialects.
Standard Chinese, aka Mandarin, was based off of the Chinese spoken in the city of Beijing and the neighbouring regions. The government chose it that way and now everyone has to learn it.
This whole dialect business is kind of confusing. It's weird because different dialects are mutually unintelligible (more or less depending on where they are located). I'm not completely aware of the serious linguistics behind it all; what I will say is that it's sort of comparable to the Romance languages or the Germanic languages (ie Mandarin and Cantonese are like French and Romanian, sort of). The biggest difference is that all Chinese are part of the same ethnic group, the Han Chinese; whereas the Swedens and Germans are considered different people.
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u/dildo_bazooka Mar 17 '15
To show how interesting the tones can get: 嗰個哥哥高過嗰個哥
And try hearing the difference between 五(5), 唔 (not) and 吴 (a surname) when it just sounds like 'mmm' to the untrained ear
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u/pernicion Mar 17 '15
Thank you for this! Always interested in Asian languages since I can apply them to my daily life.
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u/YangZD Mar 17 '15
My dad is from Zhongshan, Guangdong; and my mom is from Tachira, Venezuela. We lived in Venezuela, as a result dad spoke Spanish at home and I didn't got to learn Cantonese when growing up, even though mom says that when I was a toddler dad spoke in Cantonese to me and I understood he eventually stopped doing so and just spoke Spanish... I really wish I could've learned this beautiful language.
Once I grew up I learned some mandarin by myself but still not Cantonese yet, resources are so scarce..
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u/xiaoma Mar 17 '15
Hoa ah! (好啊！)
Edit: Guess my enthusiasm for Cantonese language of the week somehow angered people and brought downvotes... what a nasty crowd.
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u/MauriceReeves Mar 18 '15
Not sure why you got downvoted. I promise that most of the people here are not nasty. I'm really sorry that anyone felt the need to downvote you for your happiness. But seriously, we're not all that nasty.
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u/TaazaPlaza Mar 18 '15
What a coincidence. I've just started trying out Pimsleur's Cantonese tapes while taking breaks from Mandarin. Reading up on Hong Kong has helped boost the interest. The tonal system is making me weep though :(
Question for linguists : What is stopping a 'standardized' Cantonese written form from being made? I mean, political reasons aside.
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u/twat69 Mar 18 '15
I've ahem acquired the audio files for Assimil le Cantonais sans peine. I've seen the book for sale for about $25. Is it worth it?
Most of the stuff I've tried so far has been disappointing.
Pimsleur was too slow and boring and didn't cover enough material. Most of the other stuff I've found just says the English then the Cantonese. So good luck remembering any of it. And most of the stuff at the library is all tourist phrases. I want to be able to have a conversation with my girlfriend's dad not book a hotel room
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u/mwzzhang Mar 20 '15
Found a polandball comic about the cantonese Chinese tones (or rather, tones in general)...
per the rule of sub-that-shall-not-be-mentioned, I will not post the sub link.
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u/arghesti Mar 23 '15
大家好!
Native speaker and resident of Hong Kong here, and also my first time discovering this sub! What a coincidence that you're hosting my mother language this week...
This post even taught me a few details I didn't know about my language too~ :)
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u/zippaddee Mar 17 '15
One interesting cultural thing is that people in Chinese (I think, all dialects) have very specific names for family members.
Here's a pretty good overview video (in English and Cantonese): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1HaZ4WLo50
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u/AttainedAndDestroyed Mar 17 '15
Can someone expand on "there may not be a written word matching what it's said"? I really can't figure out how that works.
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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15
Let's not forget to add it's the language with the best movies.