Cantonese (linguistics)
Encyclopedia
Yue,General Chinese
: Yuet-qiuu. Pronounced ˈjuːeɪ or /juːˈeɪ/ in English. ("Yueh", Webster's Third International Dictionary) commonly known as Cantonese,In English, the name "Cantonese" generally refers specifically to the dialect of Guangzhou
(Canton), which has spread to Hong Kong
and Macau
and emerged as the prestige dialect
of Yue. "Cantonese" in this sense is frequently contrasted with other Yue dialects such as Taishanese, and that convention will be followed in this article. is a primary branch of Chinese
spoken in southern China.
The issue of whether Yue is a language in its own right or a dialect of a single Chinese language depends on conceptions of what a language
is. Like the other branches of Chinese, Yue is considered a dialect for ethnic, political, and cultural reasons, but it is also considered a distinct language because of linguistic reasons. Spoken Cantonese is mutually unintelligible
with other varieties of Chinese
, though intelligible to a certain degree in its written form
.
The areas of China with the highest concentration of speakers are the provinces of Guangdong
and (eastern) Guangxi
and the regions of Hong Kong and Macau. There are also substantial Cantonese
- and Taishanese-speaking minorities overseas in Southeast Asia
, Canada
, Australia
, and the United States
.
spelling, and either restrict "Cantonese" to its common usage as the dialect of Guangzhou, or avoid the term "Cantonese" altogether and distinguish Yue from Canton or Guangzhou dialect.
In Chinese, people of Hong Kong, of Macau, and Cantonese
immigrants abroad usually call the Yue language Gwóngdùng wá kʷɔ̌ːŋ tʊ́ŋ wǎː (廣東話) "speech of Guangdong".廣東話: Yale
Gwóngdùng wá, Jyutping Gwong2 dung1 waa2, Mandarin
pinyin Guǎngdōng huà People of Guangdong and Guangxi do not use that term, but rather Yuht Yúh jỳt jy̬ː (粵語) "Yue language". They also use baahk wá pàːk wǎː on its own to refer to the Guangzhou dialect. It is also used to refer to Yue dialects in Guangxi, as for example in an expression like "南宁白话", which means the baak waa of Nanning.
or Middle Chinese
, characters that once rhymed in poetry may no longer do so today. Some linguists agree to some extent that Cantonese is closer to classical Chinese in its pronunciation and some grammar. Many poems that don't rhyme in Mandarin do so in Cantonese. Cantonese retains a flavour of archaic and ancient Chinese, and this has been used to study ancient Chinese culture
.
Chinese troops moved southward and conquered the Baiyue territories, and many Han people began settling in the Lingnan
area. This migration led to the Chinese language being spoken in the Lingnan
area. After Zhao Tuo
was made the Duke of Nanyue
by the Qin Dynasty
and given authority over the Nanyue region, many Han people entered the area and lived together with the Nanyue population, consequently affecting the lifestyle of the Nanyue people as well as stimulating the spread of the Chinese language
.
, North China
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 Lingnan language began to develop more significant differences with central Chinese.
. Dialectologists
believe that migrants and exiled officials from the heart of the Tang brought their dialect to Guangdong. Remoteness and inefficient transport to Guangdong created an environment in which the language remained largely intact after it arrived.
, the differences between central Chinese and Yue became more significant, and the languages became more independent of one another. This trend continued during the Yuan
and Ming
dynasties.
, the dynasty had gone through a period of maritime
ban under the Hai jin
. Guangzhou remained one of the few cities that allowed trading with foreign countries, since the trade chamber of commerce was established there. Therefore, some foreigners learned Cantonese and some Imperial government officials spoke the Cantonese
dialect of Yue, making the language very popular in Cantonese-speaking Guangzhou. Also, European control of Macau and Hong Kong had increased the exposure of Cantonese to the world.
met to choose a new national language to replace Classical Chinese
. Mandarin Putonghua was then a northern dialect spoken by the Manchu
rian officials. Many perceived it as an 'impure form' of Chinese. Cantonese is said to have lost out by a small margin of the vote to Putonghua, though some historians dispute this.
The popularity of Cantonese-language media, Cantopop
and the Hong Kong film industry, has since led to substantial exposure of Cantonese to China and the rest of Asia. On the Mainland, the national policy is to promote Putonghua. While the government does not prevent people from promoting local Cantonese language and culture, it does not support them. Occasionally there are news reports of children being punished for speaking Cantonese in schools.
The Yue language includes several dialects. In the classification of J.M. Campbell, they are:
The Yue dialects spoken in Guangxi Province are mutually intelligible with the Canton dialect. For instance, Wuzhou is about 120 miles upstream from Guangzhou, but its dialect is more like Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou, than is that of Taishan which is 60 miles southwest of Guangzhou and separated by several rivers from it.
Formerly Pinghua , which is not mutually intelligible with the Canton dialect spoken in central Guangxi, was classified as Yue in China, but it was designated a separate primary branch of Chinese by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
in the 1980s, a classification generally followed in the west.
The Canton/Guangzhou dialect of Yuehai is the prestige dialect and social standard of Yue, and historically the word "Cantonese" has referred specifically to this dialect.
Mandarin is the medium of instruction in the state education system in Mainland China but in Chinese schools in Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese is the oral language of instruction. It is used extensively in Cantonese-speaking households, Cantonese-language media (Hong Kong films, television serials, and Cantopop
), isolation from the other regions of China, local identity, and the non-Mandarin speaking Cantonese diaspora in Hong Kong and abroad give the language a unique identity. Most wuxia
films from Canton are filmed originally in Yue and then dubbed or subtitled in Mandarin, English
, or both.
. It is the most widely spoken dialect of Yue, spoken in Canton (Guangzhou), Hong Kong, and Macau, and is the lingua franca
of not only Guangdong
province, but of overseas Cantonese emigrants, though in many areas abroad it is numerically second to the Taishanese dialect of Yue.
for the sounds of the Guangzhou–Hong Kong dialect, and Taishanese for the phonology of that dialect.
and is taught nearly universally as a supplement to local languages such as Cantonese in Guangdong. Yue is the de facto official language of Hong Kong (along with English) and Macau (along with Portuguese), though legally the official language is just "Chinese". Yue is also one of the main languages in many overseas Chinese communities including Australia, Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe. Many of these emigrants 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. The prestige dialect of Yue is the Guangzhou dialect. In Hong Kong, colloquial Cantonese often incorporates English words due to historical British influences.
language than Mandarin. For example, Yue has retained ancestral consonant endings that have been lost in Mandarin. Putonghua has 23 syllable rime
s, while Cantonese has 59, leading Putonghua to rely heavily on compounding and context for meaning. For example, because of the larger number of syllable finals, the Cantonese Yue transcription
of David Beckham
's family name uses two characters (碧咸 bik1haam4), while Putonghua's uses four (貝克漢姆 bèikèhànmǔ).
On the other hand, Yue has lost distinctions in the initial and medial consonants which Mandarin has retained, and Wu Chinese has preserved the three series of stop consonant
initials from Middle Chinese
that both Mandarin and Yue have reduced to two.
), is more conservative than Cantonese. It has preserved the initial /n/ sound of words, whereas many post-World War II-born Hong Kong Cantonese speakers have changed this to an /l/ sound ("ngàuh lām" instead of "ngàuh nām" for "beef brisket" ) 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" , which is the same character used in Mandarin, whereas Cantonese uses the classical word "bīn go" , meaning which one.
, Yale, Cantonese Pinyin. According to other analyses, the number of tones may also be 7 or 8. The choice mainly depends 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. 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.
Yue preserves many syllable-final sounds that Mandarin has lost or merged. For example, the characters 裔, 屹, 藝, 憶, 譯, 懿, 誼, 肄, 翳, 邑, and 佚 are all pronounced "yì" in Mandarin, but they are all different in Yue (Cantonese jeoih, ngaht, ngaih/ngaaih, yìk, yihk, yi, yìh, yih, ai, yap, and yaht, respectively). Like Hakka and Min Nan
, Yue 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]. The final consonants of Yue match those of Middle Chinese with very few exceptions. 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 "taahm" (譚) and "tàahn" (壇) versus Mandarin tán; "yìhm" (鹽) and "yìhn" (言) versus Mandarin yán; "tìm" (添) and "tìn" (天) versus Mandarin tiān; "hàhm" (含) and "hòhn" (寒) versus Mandarin hán. The examples are too numerous to list. Nasals can be independent syllables in Yue words, e.g. Cantonese "ńgh" (五) "five", and "m̀h" (唔) "not", even though such type of syllables did not exist in Middle Chinese.
Differences also arise from Mandarin's relatively recent sound change
s. 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 Yue. For example, 晶, 精, 經 and 京 are all pronounced as "jīng" in Mandarin, but in Yue, the first pair is pronounced "jīng", and the second pair "gīng".
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 Yue, Hakka, Hokkien
, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese are "hohk", "hók" (pinjim), "" (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 ɕɥɛ̌.
However, the Mandarin vowel
system is somewhat more conservative than that of Yue, or at least the Cantonese dialect of Yue, in that many diphthong
s preserved in Mandarin have merged or been lost in Yue. Also, Mandarin makes a three-way distinction among alveolar
, alveolo-palatal
, and retroflex
fricative consonant
s, distinctions that are not made by modern Cantonese. For example, jiang (將) and zhang (張) are two distinct syllables in Mandarin or old Yue, but in modern Cantonese Yue 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.”
There are clear sound correspondences in the tones. For example, a fourth-tone (low falling tone) word in Yue is usually second tone (rising tone) in Mandarin. 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 nine tones, Mandarin four, and Late Middle Chinese eight. Within this system, Mandarin merged the so-called "yin" and "yang" tones except for the Ping (平, flat) category, while Yue not only preserved these, but split one of them into two over time. Also, within this system, Yue and Wu are the only Chinese languages known to have split a tone, rather than merge two or more of them, since the time of Late Middle Chinese.
General Chinese
General Chinese is a diaphonemic orthography invented by Yuen Ren Chao to represent the pronunciations of all major varieties of Chinese simultaneously. It is "the most complete genuine Chinese diasystem yet published"...
: Yuet-qiuu. Pronounced ˈjuːeɪ or /juːˈeɪ/ in English. ("Yueh", Webster's Third International Dictionary) commonly known as Cantonese,In English, the name "Cantonese" generally refers specifically to the dialect of 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...
(Canton), which has spread to 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 emerged 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. "Cantonese" in this sense is frequently contrasted with other Yue dialects such as Taishanese, and that convention will be followed in this article. is a primary branch of 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...
spoken in southern China.
The issue of whether Yue is a language in its own right or a dialect of a single Chinese language depends on conceptions of what a language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
is. Like the other branches of Chinese, Yue is considered a dialect for ethnic, political, and cultural reasons, but it is also considered a distinct language because of linguistic reasons. Spoken Cantonese is mutually unintelligible
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 other varieties of Chinese
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...
, though intelligible to a certain degree in its written form
Written Cantonese
Cantonese has the most well-developed written form of all Chinese varieties apart from the standard varieties of Mandarin and Classical Chinese. Standard written Chinese is based on Mandarin, but when spoken word for word as Cantonese, it sounds unnatural because its expressions are ungrammatical...
.
The areas of China with the highest concentration of speakers are the provinces of 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...
and (eastern) Guangxi
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...
and the regions of Hong Kong and Macau. There are also substantial Cantonese
Cantonese
Cantonese is a dialect spoken primarily in south China.Cantonese may also refer to:* Yue Chinese, the Chinese language that includes Cantonese* Cantonese cuisine, the cuisine of Guangdong province...
- and Taishanese-speaking minorities overseas 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...
, 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...
, 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 the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Names
The prototypical use of the name "Cantonese" in English is for the Guangzhou (Canton) dialect of Yue, but it is commonly used for Yue as a whole. To avoid confusion, academic texts may call the primary branch of Chinese Yue, following the Mandarin pinyinPinyin
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...
spelling, and either restrict "Cantonese" to its common usage as the dialect of Guangzhou, or avoid the term "Cantonese" altogether and distinguish Yue from Canton or Guangzhou dialect.
In Chinese, people of Hong Kong, of Macau, and 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...
immigrants abroad usually call the Yue language Gwóngdùng wá kʷɔ̌ːŋ tʊ́ŋ wǎː (廣東話) "speech of Guangdong".廣東話: Yale
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...
Gwóngdùng wá, Jyutping Gwong2 dung1 waa2, Mandarin
Standard Mandarin
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....
pinyin Guǎngdōng huà People of Guangdong and Guangxi do not use that term, but rather Yuht Yúh jỳt jy̬ː (粵語) "Yue language". They also use baahk wá pàːk wǎː on its own to refer to the Guangzhou dialect. It is also used to refer to Yue dialects in Guangxi, as for example in an expression like "南宁白话", which means the baak waa of Nanning.
Relation to Classical Chinese
Since the pronunciation of all modern varieties of Chinese is different from Old ChineseOld Chinese
The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at a site near modern Anyang identified as Yin, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1200 BC....
or Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese , also called Ancient Chinese by the linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties...
, characters that once rhymed in poetry may no longer do so today. Some linguists agree to some extent that Cantonese is closer to classical Chinese in its pronunciation and some grammar. Many poems that don't rhyme in Mandarin do so in Cantonese. Cantonese retains a flavour of archaic and ancient Chinese, and this has been used to study ancient Chinese culture
Culture of China
Chinese culture is one of the world's oldest and most complex. The area in which the culture is dominant covers a large geographical region in eastern Asia with customs and traditions varying greatly between towns, cities and provinces...
.
Qin and Han
In the Qin DynastyQin Dynasty
The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...
Chinese troops moved southward and conquered the Baiyue territories, and many Han people began settling in the Lingnan
Lingnan
Lingnan is a geographic area referring to lands in the south of China's "Five Ranges" which are Tayu, Qitian, Dupang, Mengzhu, Yuecheng. The region covers the Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces of modern China and northern Vietnam...
area. This migration led to the Chinese language being spoken in the Lingnan
Lingnan
Lingnan is a geographic area referring to lands in the south of China's "Five Ranges" which are Tayu, Qitian, Dupang, Mengzhu, Yuecheng. The region covers the Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces of modern China and northern Vietnam...
area. After Zhao Tuo
Zhao Tuo
Zhao Tuo , was the founder of the kingdom of Nanyue |Zhao]]. The state of Zhao was defeated and absorbed by the state of Qin in 222 BC, whereupon Zhao Tuo became a citizen of the state of Qin. He later served in a Qin expeditionary force that was sent south...
was made the Duke of Nanyue
Nanyue
Nanyue was an ancient kingdom that consisted of parts of the modern Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan and northern Vietnam. Nanyue was established in 204 BC at the final collapse of the Qin Dynasty by Zhao Tuo, who was the military commander of Nanhai Commandery at the time, and...
by the Qin Dynasty
Qin Dynasty
The Qin Dynasty was the first imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 221 to 207 BC. The Qin state derived its name from its heartland of Qin, in modern-day Shaanxi. The strength of the Qin state was greatly increased by the legalist reforms of Shang Yang in the 4th century BC, during the Warring...
and given authority over the Nanyue region, many Han people entered the area and lived together with the Nanyue population, consequently affecting the lifestyle of the Nanyue people as well as stimulating the spread of the Chinese language
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...
.
Sui
In the Sui DynastySui Dynasty
The Sui Dynasty was a powerful, but short-lived Imperial Chinese dynasty. Preceded by the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it ended nearly four centuries of division between rival regimes. It was followed by the Tang Dynasty....
, North China
North China
thumb|250px|Northern [[People's Republic of China]] region.Northern China or North China is a geographical region of China. The heartland of North China is the North China Plain....
was in a period of war and discontent, and many people moved southwards to avoid war, forming the first mass migration
Human migration
Human migration is physical movement by humans from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. Historically this movement was nomadic, often causing significant conflict with the indigenous population and their displacement or cultural assimilation. Only a few nomadic...
of Han
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
people into the South. As the population in the Lingnan
Lingnan
Lingnan is a geographic area referring to lands in the south of China's "Five Ranges" which are Tayu, Qitian, Dupang, Mengzhu, Yuecheng. The region covers the Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces of modern China and northern Vietnam...
area dramatically rose, the Chinese language in the south developed significantly. Thus the Lingnan language began to develop more significant differences with central Chinese.
Tang
Yue pronunciation and vocabulary are quite similar to the official language of the Tang dynastyTang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
. Dialectologists
Dialectology
Dialectology is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features...
believe that migrants and exiled officials from the heart of the Tang brought their dialect to Guangdong. Remoteness and inefficient transport to Guangdong created an environment in which the language remained largely intact after it arrived.
Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing
In the Song DynastySong Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
, the differences between central Chinese and Yue became more significant, and the languages became more independent of one another. This trend continued during the Yuan
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...
and Ming
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
dynasties.
Mid to late Qing
In the late QingQing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
, the dynasty had gone through a period of maritime
Sea
A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...
ban under the Hai jin
Hai jin
The Hǎi Jìn order was a ban on maritime activities imposed during China's Ming Dynasty and again at the time of the Qing Dynasty. Intended to curb piracy, the ban proved ineffective for that purpose...
. Guangzhou remained one of the few cities that allowed trading with foreign countries, since the trade chamber of commerce was established there. Therefore, some foreigners learned Cantonese and some Imperial government officials spoke the Cantonese
Cantonese
Cantonese is a dialect spoken primarily in south China.Cantonese may also refer to:* Yue Chinese, the Chinese language that includes Cantonese* Cantonese cuisine, the cuisine of Guangdong province...
dialect of Yue, making the language very popular in Cantonese-speaking Guangzhou. Also, European control of Macau and Hong Kong had increased the exposure of Cantonese to the world.
20th century
In 1912, shortly after the fall of the Qing dynasty, revolutionary leaders including Sun Yat-senSun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the "Father of the Nation" , a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China...
met to choose a new national language to replace Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese...
. Mandarin Putonghua was then a northern dialect spoken by the Manchu
Manchu
The Manchu people or Man are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the 17th century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels , they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which...
rian officials. Many perceived it as an 'impure form' of Chinese. Cantonese is said to have lost out by a small margin of the vote to Putonghua, though some historians dispute this.
The popularity of Cantonese-language media, 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...
and the Hong Kong film industry, has since led to substantial exposure of Cantonese to China and the rest of Asia. On the Mainland, the national policy is to promote Putonghua. While the government does not prevent people from promoting local Cantonese language and culture, it does not support them. Occasionally there are news reports of children being punished for speaking Cantonese in schools.
Dialects
- CantoneseCantoneseCantonese is a dialect spoken primarily in south China.Cantonese may also refer to:* Yue Chinese, the Chinese language that includes Cantonese* Cantonese cuisine, the cuisine of Guangdong province...
proper, Guangfu or Yuehai , which includes the language of GuangzhouGuangzhouGuangzhou , 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 the surrounding areas of ZhongshanZhongshanZhongshan , also spelled Chungshan and historically known as Xiangshan or Siangshan, is a prefecture-level city in the south of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province in southern China. Zhongshan, one of the few cities in China with an eponymous name, is named after Dr. Sun Yat-sen who was...
, WuzhouWuzhouWuzhou , historically known as Wuchow, is a prefecture-level city in China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.-Geography and climate:Wuzhou is located in eastern Guangxi bordering Guangdong province. It is at the confluence of the Gui River and the Xun River where they form the Xi River; 85% of all...
, and FoshanFoshanFoshan is a city in central Guangdong province in southern China. The prefectural area under the city's jurisdiction over an area of about 3,840 km² and a population of 5.4 million of which 1.1 million reside in the city proper ....
, as well as Hong KongHong KongHong 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 MacauMacauMacau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
; - SìyìSiyi dialectSiyi is a coastal branch of Yue Chinese spoken in Guangdong province. It includes Taishanese, one of the most important Chinese dialects in American Chinese communities.-Dialects:Taishanese dialect is representative.*Taishan dialect...
( Seiyap), exemplified by the TaishanTaishanTaishan is a coastal county-level city in Guangdong Province, China. The city is part of the Greater Taishan Region....
dialect , also known as Taishanese, which was ubiquitous in American ChinatownChinatownA Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...
s before ca 1970; - Gao–YangGaoyang dialectGao-Yang is one of four principal dialects of Yue . It is spoken in and around Maoming and Yangjiang.The name derives from its two subdialects, Gaozhou and Yangjiang....
, spoken in YangjiangYangjiangYangjiang , historically known as Yeungkong, is a prefecture-level city in southwestern Guangdong province, People's Republic of China. It borders Maoming to the west, Yunfu to the north, Jiangmen to the east, and looks out to the South China Sea to the south. It is famous for being the base of...
; - Wu–HuaWu-Hua YueWu–Hua is a western Guinan branch of Yue Chinese spoken in Guangxi province composed of two dialects, Wuchuan dialect and Huazhou dialect....
( Ngfaa), spoken mainly in western Guangdong; - Gou–Lou ( Ngaulau), spoken in western Guangdong and eastern Guangxi, which includes the dialect of Yulin, GuangxiYulin, GuangxiYulin is one of the fourteen prefecture-level cities of Guangxi autonomous region, in China.-Geography and climate:Yulin is located in southeastern Guangxi province along the border with Guangdong. It is a hilly basin with a total area of 12,838 sq. km....
; - Yong–XunYong-Xun YueYong–Xun is a western Guinan branch of Yue Chinese spoken in Guangxi province.-Dialects:Nanning dialect is representative.*Nanning dialect*Yongning dialect*Guiping dialect*Chongzuo dialect*Ningmin dialect*Hengxian dialect*Baise dialect...
( Jungcam), spoken mainly in Guangxi and its capital NanningNanningNanning is the capital of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China. It is known as the "Green City" because of its abundance of lush tropical foliage.-History:...
; - Qin–LianQin-Lian YueQin–Lian is a southern Guinan branch of Yue Chinese spoken in coastal Guangxi province.-Dialects:Beihai dialect is representative.*Beihai dialect*Qinzhou dialect*Fangchenggang dialect*Lianzhou dialect*Lingshan dialect...
( Jamlim), spoken in southern Guangxi, which includes the BeihaiBeihaiBeihai is a prefecture-level city of Guangxi, China. Beihai means "north of the sea" in Chinese, signifying its status as a seaport on the north shore of the Gulf of Tonkin. Between the years 2006 and 2020, Beihai is predicted to be the world's fastest growing city...
dialect; - Danzhou , which includes the dialect of ChangjiangChangjiang Li Autonomous CountyChangjiang Li Autonomous County is an autonomous county in Hainan, the People's Republic of China. It is one of 6 counties of Hainan. Its postal code is 572700, and in 1999 its population was 225,131 people, largely made up of the Li people.-References:...
- Haihua , the dialect of LianjiangLianjiang, GuangdongLianjiang is a County-level city in the municipal region of Zhanjiang, Guangdong.The city is bordered on the east by Maoming Municipality ; on the south by Wuchuan City , Beitou District and Suixi County , all in Zhanjiang; on the west by Anpugang Harbour and Beihai, in Guangxi Province; and on...
- Dongguan , spoken only by natives of DongguanDongguanDongguan is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong province, People's Republic of China.An important industrial city located in the Pearl River Delta, Dongguan borders the provincial capital of Guangzhou to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, Shenzhen to the south, and the Pearl River to...
The Yue dialects spoken in Guangxi Province are mutually intelligible with the Canton dialect. For instance, Wuzhou is about 120 miles upstream from Guangzhou, but its dialect is more like Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou, than is that of Taishan which is 60 miles southwest of Guangzhou and separated by several rivers from it.
Formerly Pinghua , which is not mutually intelligible with the Canton dialect spoken in central Guangxi, was classified as Yue in China, but it was designated a separate primary branch of Chinese by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences , established in 1977, is the premier and highest academic research organization in the fields of philosophy and social sciences as well as a national center for comprehensive studies in the People's Republic of China. It was described by Foreign Policy...
in the 1980s, a classification generally followed in the west.
The Canton/Guangzhou dialect of Yuehai is the prestige dialect and social standard of Yue, and historically the word "Cantonese" has referred specifically to this dialect.
Mandarin is the medium of instruction in the state education system in Mainland China but in Chinese schools in Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese is the oral language of instruction. It is used extensively in Cantonese-speaking households, Cantonese-language media (Hong Kong films, television serials, and 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...
), isolation from the other regions of China, local identity, and the non-Mandarin speaking Cantonese diaspora in Hong Kong and abroad give the language a unique identity. Most wuxia
Wuxia
Wuxia is a broad genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists. Although wuxia is traditionally a form of literature, its popularity has caused it to spread to diverse art forms like Chinese opera, manhua , films, television series, and video games...
films from Canton are filmed originally in Yue and then dubbed or subtitled in Mandarin, 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...
, or both.
Cantonese dialect
The Cantonese dialect is the prestige dialect of Guangdong province, and along with English an official language of Hong KongBilingualism in Hong Kong
Hong Kong is an officially bilingual territory. Under the Hong Kong Basic Law and the Official Languages Ordinance , "English and Chinese" are, of equal status, the official languages of the territory. However, it is not specified which variety of "Chinese" is referred to...
. It is the most widely spoken dialect of Yue, spoken in Canton (Guangzhou), Hong Kong, and Macau, and is the 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...
of not only 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...
province, but of overseas Cantonese emigrants, though in many areas abroad it is numerically second to the Taishanese dialect of Yue.
Phonology
See 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...
for the sounds of the Guangzhou–Hong Kong dialect, and Taishanese for the phonology of that dialect.
Yue development and usage
Usage
By law, Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua 普通话 or guoyu 国语) is the standard language of mainland China and TaiwanRepublic 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 is taught nearly universally as a supplement to local languages such as Cantonese in Guangdong. Yue is the de facto official language of Hong Kong (along with English) and Macau (along with Portuguese), though legally the official language is just "Chinese". Yue is also one of the main languages in many overseas Chinese communities including Australia, Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe. Many of these emigrants 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. The prestige dialect of Yue is the Guangzhou dialect. In Hong Kong, colloquial Cantonese often incorporates English words due to historical British influences.
Development
Yue is in some respects a more conservativeConservative (language)
In linguistics, a conservative form, variety, or modality is one that has changed relatively little over its history, or which is relatively resistant to change...
language than Mandarin. For example, Yue has retained ancestral consonant endings that have been lost in Mandarin. Putonghua has 23 syllable rime
Syllable rime
In the study of phonology in linguistics, the rime or rhyme of a syllable consists of a nucleus and an optional coda. It is the part of the syllable used in poetic rhyme, and the part that is lengthened or stressed when a person elongates or stresses a word in speech.The rime is usually the...
s, while Cantonese has 59, leading Putonghua to rely heavily on compounding and context for meaning. For example, because of the larger number of syllable finals, the Cantonese Yue transcription
Transcription (linguistics)
Transcription in the linguistic sense is the systematic representation of language in written form. The source can either be utterances or preexisting text in another writing system, although some linguists only consider the former as transcription.Transcription should not be confused with...
of David Beckham
David Beckham
David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE is an English footballer who plays midfield for Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer, having previously played for Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, and A.C...
's family name uses two characters (碧咸 bik1haam4), while Putonghua's uses four (貝克漢姆 bèikèhànmǔ).
On the other hand, Yue has lost distinctions in the initial and medial consonants which Mandarin has retained, and Wu Chinese has preserved the three series of stop consonant
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
initials from Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese , also called Ancient Chinese by the linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties...
that both Mandarin and Yue have reduced to two.
Variations
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 BonanzaBonanza
Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...
), is more conservative than Cantonese. It has preserved the initial /n/ sound of words, whereas many post-World War II-born Hong Kong Cantonese speakers have changed this to an /l/ sound ("ngàuh lām" instead of "ngàuh nām" for "beef brisket" ) 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" , which is the same character used in Mandarin, whereas Cantonese uses the classical word "bīn go" , meaning which one.
Sound
Yue 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 of them than Mandarin. Canton dialect is generally considered to have 6 romanization tones, as reflected in most romanization schemes such as JyutpingJyutping
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...
, Yale, Cantonese Pinyin. According to other analyses, the number of tones may also be 7 or 8. The choice mainly depends 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. 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.
Yue preserves many syllable-final sounds that Mandarin has lost or merged. For example, the characters 裔, 屹, 藝, 憶, 譯, 懿, 誼, 肄, 翳, 邑, and 佚 are all pronounced "yì" in Mandarin, but they are all different in Yue (Cantonese jeoih, ngaht, ngaih/ngaaih, yìk, yihk, yi, yìh, yih, ai, yap, and yaht, respectively). Like Hakka and Min Nan
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....
, Yue has preserved the final consonants [-m, -n, -ŋ -p, -t, -k] from Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese , also called Ancient Chinese by the linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties...
, while the Mandarin final consonants have been reduced to [-n, -ŋ]. The final consonants of Yue match those of Middle Chinese with very few exceptions. 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 "taahm" (譚) and "tàahn" (壇) versus Mandarin tán; "yìhm" (鹽) and "yìhn" (言) versus Mandarin yán; "tìm" (添) and "tìn" (天) versus Mandarin tiān; "hàhm" (含) and "hòhn" (寒) versus Mandarin hán. The examples are too numerous to list. Nasals can be independent syllables in Yue words, e.g. Cantonese "ńgh" (五) "five", and "m̀h" (唔) "not", even though such type of syllables did not exist in Middle Chinese.
Differences also arise from Mandarin's relatively recent sound change
Sound change
Sound change includes any processes of language change that affect pronunciation or sound system structures...
s. One change, for example, palatalized [kʲ] with [tsʲ] to [tɕ], and is reflected in historical Mandarin romanizations, such as Peking (Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
), Kiangsi (Jiangxi
Jiangxi
' is a southern province in the People's Republic of China. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze River in the north into hillier areas in the south, it shares a border with Anhui to the north, Zhejiang to the northeast, Fujian to the east, Guangdong to the south, Hunan to the west, and Hubei to...
), and Fukien (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...
). This distinction is still preserved in Yue. For example, 晶, 精, 經 and 京 are all pronounced as "jīng" in Mandarin, but in Yue, the first pair is pronounced "jīng", and the second pair "gīng".
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 Yue, Hakka, 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....
, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese are "hohk", "hók" (pinjim), "" (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 ɕɥɛ̌.
However, the Mandarin vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
system is somewhat more conservative than that of Yue, or at least the Cantonese dialect of Yue, in that many diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s preserved in Mandarin have merged or been lost in Yue. Also, Mandarin makes a three-way distinction among alveolar
Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
, alveolo-palatal
Alveolo-palatal consonant
In phonetics, alveolo-palatal consonants are palatalized postalveolar sounds, usually fricatives and affricates, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate...
, and retroflex
Retroflex consonant
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
fricative consonant
Fricative consonant
Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
s, distinctions that are not made by modern Cantonese. For example, jiang (將) and zhang (張) are two distinct syllables in Mandarin or old Yue, but in modern Cantonese Yue 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.”
There are clear sound correspondences in the tones. For example, a fourth-tone (low falling tone) word in Yue is usually second tone (rising tone) in Mandarin. 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 nine tones, Mandarin four, and Late Middle Chinese eight. Within this system, Mandarin merged the so-called "yin" and "yang" tones except for the Ping (平, flat) category, while Yue not only preserved these, but split one of them into two over time. Also, within this system, Yue and Wu are the only Chinese languages known to have split a tone, rather than merge two or more of them, since the time of Late Middle Chinese.
See also
- Sidney Lau romanisationSidney Lau romanisationSidney Lau is a system of romanisation for Cantonese, developed by Sidney Lau for teaching Cantonese. It was developed for use in Cantonese radio, and is essentially an adaptation of the Meyer-Wempe romanisation.-Initials :- Finals :-Tones:...
- Hong Kong Government Cantonese RomanisationHong Kong Government Cantonese RomanisationThe Hong Kong Government Cantonese Romanisation 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...
- Cantonese Pinyin
- Jyutping (LSHK)JyutpingJyutping 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...
- Yale Romanization
- Written CantoneseWritten CantoneseCantonese has the most well-developed written form of all Chinese varieties apart from the standard varieties of Mandarin and Classical Chinese. Standard written Chinese is based on Mandarin, but when spoken word for word as Cantonese, it sounds unnatural because its expressions are ungrammatical...
- Cantonese grammarCantonese grammarCantonese is an analytic language where, in a sentence, the arrangement of words is important to its meaning. A basic sentence is in form of SVO, i.e. a subject is followed by a verb then by an object, though this order is often violated because Cantonese is a Topic-prominent language. Unlike...
- Written Chinese
- Chinese input methods for computersChinese input methods for computersHundreds of Chinese input methods are available for entry of Chinese characters into computers, but most keyboard-based methods rely on either pinyin phonetic readings or root shapes in Chinese characters...