How many Cantonese speakers are there in the world?

Worldwide, the population of Cantonese is about 67 million-65438+300 million, and it is widely used. Cantonese is not only widely used in overseas Chinese communities, but also supports Cantonese culture centered on Hong Kong culture and South Guangdong culture, which makes Cantonese have a strong influence and can be said to be one of the most vibrant languages in the world at present.

Cantonese accent is recognized as standard Cantonese, but under the influence of Cantonese pop music, TV and movies in Hong Kong, Hong Kong has actually replaced Guangzhou as the center of Cantonese pop culture and provided a large number of new words for modern Cantonese. With the sharp increase of the migrant population in Guangzhou, in some areas where Cantonese was originally spoken in China (such as Shenzhen), the migrant population is even more than the local population, and the national policy does not encourage the use of Cantonese in schools and media, which also reduces the influence of Cantonese.

However, there is no obvious difference in pronunciation between Hong Kong Spoken Language and Guangzhou Spoken Language, except that the two places are in different environments and have different customary names for certain things. If regional slang factors are put aside, Guangzhou dialect and Hong Kong dialect can communicate with each other.

Guangdong dialect film (standard Guangdong)

Cantonese and Cantonese films are commonly known as Guangfu dialect. Cantonese, the standard pronunciation of Cantonese, belongs to Cantonese films. There is little difference between Guangdong films and Shanghai films, and they can generally talk smoothly. Including Guangzhou dialect, Hong Kong Cantonese, Shaoguan dialect and Zhanjiang dialect. Hong Kong dialect is very close to Guangzhou dialect, and Zhanjiang dialect has some changes compared with Guangzhou dialect.

Cantonese pronunciation

Guangzhou dialect, also known as "Guangzhou dialect", is a typical representative of Cantonese, but Guangfu dialect itself is constantly changing and developing. Before 1949, the words used in Guangzhou dialect were quaint and less influenced by the northern dialect. However, in recent decades, under the influence of "Promoting Putonghua" in Chinese mainland, the Cantonese level of Guangzhou people has been greatly improved in the past 20 years, while many authentic Cantonese words have disappeared in daily use. For example, people in Guangzhou today rarely use "goldfish yellow" to describe "orange" as they did 20 years ago; Even on public transport, the broadcast words of Guangzhou dialect are used to stiffly reading the words of northern dialect in Cantonese-for example, they will say "station" in Cantonese instead of "enterprise". There are also some mixed words of Cantonese and Northern dialect, such as "class dismissed" and "class dismissed".

Nanfanshun dialect

Because today's Guangzhou, Panyu and Nanhai are closely linked geographically and historically-Guangzhou, Panyu and Nanhai even represent the same place in history, today's dialects in Guangzhou, Panyu and Nanhai are relatively close, but many words in Shunde are pronounced differently from other places, such as "concave" without pronunciation [l? P] and read [ni? p]； "Eat" is not called "eat", but "厣 [jɑ? K] rice. "

Zhongshan dialect

Shiqi dialect is mainly popular in the south of Shi Qi District, Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province. It is similar to Guangzhou dialect, but not the same. Compared with Guangzhou dialect, the names or generic terms of some things have their own uniqueness. Shiqi people in Zhongshan can fully understand and speak Guangzhou dialect, but it is difficult for Guangzhou people or Hong Kong people to fully understand Shiqi dialect. For example, Guangzhou dialect and Shiqi dialect also use "sleep" (meaning sleep), but they are generally called "sleep" (the sound of sleep here is "mi" [m:]). There is an idiom in Shiqi dialect to describe a person's laziness. Guangzhou dialect "Touxian" (meaning just now) is also used in Shiqi dialect, but it is often called "Touxian" (sound "tight thinking" [g? N si]), Pre-Qin. In addition, there are some differences in accent between Shiqi dialect and Guangzhou dialect.

1After the end of 1970s, due to the development of mass media, Shi Qi dialect kept moving closer to Guangzhou dialect, and many old pronunciations and vocabulary usage gradually decreased or even died out. For example, the "sleep sense" mentioned above is used less and less frequently and is gradually replaced by "sleep sense". "Xiajian" (kitchen) and "Yin Qian" (Yuan's common name, "two Yin Qian" means two Yuan's) are rarely used by the new generation of Zhongshan people in the old Shiqi dialect.

Hong kong standard cantonese

Hong Kong standard Cantonese refers to Cantonese used by Hong Kong officials, media and urban areas in Hong Kong, which is very close to Cantonese (with different words). The local Cantonese in the New Territories of Hong Kong is mainly Wanbao dialect.

Before Hong Kong 1949, Cantonese and Hakka dialects lived together, so Hong Kong dialect had a strong Cantonese-Hakka mixed accent (that is, Hong Kong Hakka dialect and Hong Kong Guangfu dialect influenced each other in tone and vocabulary).

After 1949, a large number of lazy sounds began to appear in Hong Kong dialect, among which nasal sounds disappeared (that is, n/l is indistinguishable) and W- awkward sounds disappeared most obviously. The new generation of young people generally pronounce "you" [nei] and "I" as [lei] and [? ] 。 Put "country" [gw? K] is misread as "angle" [g? K], Guo [gw? ] pronounced "a" [g? ] 。 This phenomenon seems to be related to a large number of foreign immigrants. For them, the pronunciation of n/l is not very different, and in most cases, confusing the two will not bring serious communication obstacles. Therefore, when they come to Hong Kong to learn this new dialect, they often give up what is difficult and take what is easy, thus diluting some indistinguishable pronunciation differences. This is also called "immigration theory", and this phenomenon has also appeared in the evolution of desktop Mandarin and American English.

However, the mass media before 1980 still tried their best to avoid lazy voices in radio and TV programs. Up to today, there are still Hong Kong linguists who criticize lazy pronunciation many times and put forward the activity of "correcting pronunciation", but lazy pronunciation seems to have become the feature of Cantonese in Hong Kong. In most mass media and singers' performances, lazy voices often appear in the mouths of the generation born in the 1970s and 1980s. But on the whole, Hong Kong dialect is still very close to Guangzhou dialect.

English is more popular in Hong Kong. In the past, Hong Kong usually came into contact with foreign new things before the mainland. In the past, the lower classes who didn't know English spelled everyday English words in Cantonese, so English loanwords in Cantonese are very common in Hong Kong. For example, the floor coiler is called foreman, the brake is called brake, the bearing is called bearing, the strawberry is called strawberry, and so on. Many old people still refer to stamps as stamps and insurance as insurance. In addition, Hong Kong people address men as "gentlemen" and women as "ladies". These idioms may confuse Cantonese speakers in other places.

There is a view that it is more reasonable to take the popular "lazy tone" in Hong Kong as the standard to distinguish Cantonese from Cantonese in Hong Kong. Distinguish Hong Kong standard Cantonese from Cantonese by using "English Cantonese spelling". If Guangzhou is called "Floor Plumber", Hong Kong is called "Kewen" and Foshan is translated into "Wen", there will be Foshan standard Cantonese. This division method is not valid from the perspective of language, because its pronunciation is exactly the same and words are not exclusive.

Since a large number of Hong Kong people emigrated overseas from1980s to1990s, overseas Cantonese was also influenced by Hong Kong dialect, and Hong Kong-style terms such as "Bao" (overtaking quickly) and "swiping a card" also appeared in daily language and news [1].

Guanbao dialect film

Guan Bao films include Dongguan Cantonese and Bao 'an Cantonese (Shenzhen local Cantonese, urban Guangzhou dialect). The former is based on Guancheng dialect, while the latter is based on Weitou dialect. Someone merged Wanbao movies into Cantonese movies. But in fact, the dialogue between Wanbao and Bao Yue movies is quite difficult (for example, in the movie "I Love Twisting Wood", there are a lot of dialogues in the surrounding text, which many Hong Kong people living in the urban area can't understand), so it is more scientific to look at Wanbao movies separately.

Dongguan dialect

Dongguan Cantonese includes Dongguan dialect and Jiahua dialect. The latter does not belong to Wanbao tablets. Dongguan dialect is based on Guancheng dialect. Guancheng dialect is very different from Guangzhou dialect. It is difficult for untrained Guangzhou people to understand Guancheng dialect, and it is also difficult for the old people in Guancheng who have little contact with Guangzhou dialect to talk to Guangzhou people.

Baoan cantonese

Baoan Cantonese is also called Weitou Dialect because it is widely used in Weicun around here. Fuyong, Songgang and Shajing in Baoan District of Shenzhen, Pinghu in Longgang District, Nantou in Nanshan District and the New Territories of Hong Kong all use this dialect.

There are dozens of natural villages in Shenzhen, such as Shuiwei, Shangsha, Xiasha, Shawei, Shazui, Shi Xia, Meilin, Huanggang, Xinzhou, Futian, Gangxia, Shangbu and Chiwei, all of which are the same as those in the New Territories.

Luoguang dialect

Luoguang dialect is distributed in Zhaoqing, Sihui, Luoding, Guangning, Huaiji, Fengkai, Deqing, Yunan, Yangshan, Lianzhou and Lianshan. Represented by Zhaoqing dialect.

Although all the phonetics and vocabulary of Luoguang dialect film are close to those of Guangzhou dialect film, the intonation still retains the characteristics of early archaism. If the high and low key of Yin Ping Tone is obviously different from that of Gaoping Tone, we should emphasize the tone of Yin Ping Tone (the tone value is similar to the fourth tone of Putonghua). There is almost no prevalent lazy sound in Cantonese dialect. For example, all words that start with a vowel other than [i] begin with the first letter [? ]，Ke [ 1]，Short [i2]，Sub [？ A3], love [i3], evil [k3]; The sounds [n] and [l] are completely different.

Siyi dialect

Main Project: Siyi Dialect

Siyi dialect refers to the dialects of Xinhui, Enping, Kaiping and Taishan, among which Taishan dialect is the representative. Half of the people in Zhuhai speak Siyi dialect (especially in Doumen area), and other areas use Xiangshan Cantonese, but the two dialects have gradually merged, which is the closest to Guangzhou dialect among Siyi dialects.

Siyi dialect is a sub-dialect which is the most different from Guangzhou dialect in Cantonese system. According to linguists' research, some Fujian people moved from Putian, Fujian Province to Siyi area by sea 400 years ago, and merged with the descendants of Guangfu people and a few South Vietnamese people, as well as a few Hakka people who later moved to Siyi, forming a unique Siyi dialect. In other words, Siyi dialect is a unique language with Cantonese as the main body and influenced by Hakka and Min dialects. This can be proved from the pronunciation and vocabulary of Siyi dialect.

Because the pronunciation gap is too big for ordinary Guangfu people to understand, Siyi people in Hong Kong have always maintained a different ethnic identity from Guangfu people. Siyi people came to work in the urban area of Hong Kong in the early days of port opening, and maintained a high degree of unity within their ethnic groups, so their languages were preserved. Like other ethnic groups, in the 1970' s, families who spoke Siyi dialect began to speak Cantonese because of the weakening of ethnic concepts.

Movies in Levin dialect

Levin dialect is mainly distributed in Yangjiang and Leizhou Peninsula.

Southern Guangxi dialect

Mainly distributed in southeastern Guangxi. Take the county in northeast Guangxi to Nanning and Pingxiang in south Guangxi as the dividing line. Cantonese is mainly spoken in the southeast of Guangxi, accounting for almost one-third of the total area of Guangxi; Mandarin is mainly spoken in the northwest of the line. Cantonese in Guangxi is similar to Cantonese in Guangzhou, and everyone can understand it. However, in the early days, some Cantonese residents moved into ethnic minority areas and absorbed ethnic minority language elements, forming a dialect that is completely different from Guangzhou dialect, such as Goulou Cantonese. It mainly includes Yongxun Cantonese, Wuzhou Cantonese, Goulou Cantonese and Qinlian Cantonese. The classification is as follows:

Yongxun Cantonese (Nanning Dialect)

Yong Xun Cantonese is close to Wuzhou Cantonese and Guangzhou Dialect. It is mainly popular in towns with convenient transportation on both sides of the strait, such as Nanning, Yongning County, Chongzuo County, Ningming County, Hengxian County, Guiping City, Pingnan County and parts of Liuzhou City. Take Nanning as the representative point. However, due to the influx of a large number of migrants since the 1980s, and the language and cultural policy of the Nanning Municipal Government is to weaken local dialects and promote Putonghua, the population using Nanning dialect in Nanning city has dropped sharply, and the population using Nanning dialect has dropped sharply to less than 30%. The representative accent of Yongxun Cantonese has actually moved to Guiping, which was called Zhou Xun in ancient times. Now quite a few people are worried that Nanning dialect has actually become extinct language.

From 65438 to 0996 and 1997, due to the radical language and cultural policies and the Nanning municipal government's policy of promoting Putonghua, all Cantonese media in Nanning, from TV programs to taxi radio stations, were cancelled, and even the Cantonese broadcasting of public buses was cancelled. And in public places, schools and other places, publicly advise people not to use Cantonese. ) Cantonese in Nanning is rapidly declining. Because the population of Nanning Development Zone and all parts of the country is moving more and more frequently in Nanning, it is widespread in Nanning city. Because of the need of communication, government agencies, schools, hospitals and other public institutions and institutions increasingly use Mandarin as their working language, but most Nanning people, including young people under the age of 20, still mainly communicate in Mandarin.

On June 5438+February, 2006, some Nanning residents whose mother tongue is Nanning Cantonese launched the "Call for Mother Tongue Revival" on Nanning Space-Time Online. It is suggested that all Nanning residents whose mother tongue is Nanning Cantonese should try their best to protect and inherit their mother tongue culture. And implicitly criticized the extreme policy of Nanning municipal government to promote Putonghua. However, the effect is still unknown.

Since around 2004, some Cantonese media have been restored in Nanning. For example, Nanning TV station relaunched "Old Friends News" with Cantonese as the broadcasting language, and Guangxi TV station also launched a Cantonese theater to play TVB TV series. However, Nanning TV, which used to broadcast in Nanning Cantonese, has not resumed any Cantonese channel since it cancelled Cantonese broadcasting.

Generally speaking, Nanning Cantonese is a typical "endangered language" because it is estimated that there are still about 250,000 to 300,000 users in Nanning.

Similar to the situation of Cantonese in Nanning, Pinghua, which exists in the south of Nanning, is also on the verge of extinction.

Unlike other cities with endangered dialects, the Nanning municipal government has not made any official commitments and practical measures to save them. On the contrary, Nanning officials usually position Nanning as an "advanced city to promote Putonghua". Try to avoid any dialects (including urban Cantonese and Jiangnan Pinghua) in any public places. When Snow Wolf Lake was staged in Nanning, only the Mandarin version was staged.

Wuzhou Cantonese (Wuzhou Dialect)

Wuzhou Cantonese is very close to Guangzhou Dialect. Mainly distributed in Wuzhou City, Daan, Danzhu Town, Wulin Town, Cangwu County, Hexian County and its vicinity. The internal differences are very small. Represented by Wuzhou dialect, the phonetic system has 2 1 initials and 46 finals.

Goulou Cantonese (Yulin Dialect)

Goulou Cantonese is mainly distributed in Yulin and Wuzhou (except Pingnan County and Guiping County) 13 counties and cities. The phonology is complex, with 10 tones. There are rare voiced initials B and D in other dialects of Cantonese. The endings of many words are lost, such as "two" pronounced as [lar]. And the vocabulary is also very distinctive. It is very different from Guangzhou dialect, so it is difficult for two speakers to communicate with each other.

Qinlian Cantonese (Qinlian Dialect)

Qinlian Cantonese and Yongxun Cantonese are basically the same, with little internal difference. Mainly distributed in Qinzhou City, Hepu County (formerly known as Lianzhou), Pubei County, Fangcheng County, Lingshan and Beihai City.

Wu Chuanhua

Wuchuan dialect is distributed in Wuchuan City and Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province.

Jia dialect

The definition of Tujia nationality is controversial in academic circles. One is that fishermen in coastal areas claim to be themselves, and the other is "Cantonese on the water". Tujia dialect, also known as Shuicantonese, is widely used in boathouse, Guangdong and Guangxi. However, there are also a few fishermen in the coastal areas of Zhejiang and Fujian who call themselves "Tujia", but the language they speak is very different from that of Guangdong and Guangxi. Tujia dialect can communicate with Guangzhou dialect, but the accent is obvious. There has always been controversy in academic circles about the lineage of Tujia dialect. One says it belongs to Cantonese, and the other says it has its own system.

Controversial dialect movies

Huizhou dialect

Huizhou dialect has many characteristics of Cantonese and Hakka dialect, and its ownership is still controversial. Some people claim to classify it as Hakka Dongjiang local film, while others claim to classify it as Guangdong Huizhou film (or Dongjiang film).

Longmen dialect

Longmen dialect is a kind of Huizhou dialect, which is generally classified as Cantonese. Some of them are classified as Dongjiang in Hakka dialect. Actually. Longmen dialect has both these characteristics, which can be considered as the product of the mutual infiltration of Cantonese and Hakka dialect.

Danzhou dialect

Some scholars believe that Danzhou dialect also belongs to Cantonese.

Guangxi Nanping dialect

Pinghua in southern Guangxi has traditionally been classified as Cantonese. In recent years, some people have tried to separate Nanping dialect from Cantonese, but compared with many similarities of other Cantonese dialects, the few differences can hardly be used as evidence of the independence of Nanping dialect in Guangxi.

Guangzhou dialect or Guangfu dialect has many meanings, generally referring to the language family in Guangdong and Guangxi (including Hakka dialect and Chaoshan dialect in Guangdong), also known as "Cantonese" or "Cantonese dialect", belonging to Sino-Tibetan language family; In a narrow sense, it refers to Cantonese which is circulating in Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macao today. It is a dialect, also known as "provincial dialect" and "vernacular", and also called "Cantonese" or "Cantonese".

The word Guangzhou dialect originated from Guangzhou in the past. Guangzhou was founded by Sun Quan, the master of Soochow in the Three Kingdoms period, and it was separated from Jiaozhou, including Guangdong and Guangxi today, which is different from the general Guangzhou City. Guangzhou dialect is a Chinese language family, not just Guangzhou dialect. Speaking of language families, Cantonese is equivalent to Cantonese. Speaking of dialects in the Cantonese family, Cantonese represents Cantonese in Guangzhou today. In order to avoid the confusion of these two meanings, the Cantonese family will be called "Guangfu dialect" or "Cantonese" and the Cantonese in Guangzhou will be called "Guangzhou dialect".

Cantonese (language family) is popular in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macao, Pearl River Delta, Guangxi and Qingyuan. Hongkong and Taiwan Province Province generally call it Cantonese. However, the term "Cantonese" is not correct in linguistics. Because Guangdong Province has not only one language family, but also other Chinese language families such as Hakka and Chaoshan. Cantonese itself is one of the main languages in Guangxi (because Guangxi is located in guangzhou fu). So "Cantonese" is actually a wrong name. (However, similar linguistic "mistakes" actually occur in politically correct words such as "Chinese", "Putonghua" and "Mandarin", because there is not only one language family in China, nor is it only the Han nationality. )

People whose mother tongue is Cantonese in Guangzhou are basically the old neighborhoods in Guangzhou (Old Four Districts: Dongshan District, Yuexiu District, Liwan District and Haizhu District) and Shiqiao District in Panyu District. In addition, there are people who speak pure Cantonese in other districts of Guangzhou, but the proportion is relatively small. Most of these residents moved in from the old urban areas such as the Old Four District. Hong Kong Cantonese (Cantonese in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region) and Guangzhou Cantonese (Cantonese in Guangzhou) are very close. In addition, some young people in Guangfu (Cantonese and Cantonese films), Shaoguan, Qingyuan, western Guangdong and other places can also speak Cantonese, and some even use Cantonese instead of their original Cantonese as their mother tongue.