Introduction to Cantonese,Introduction to Cantonese

Cantonese, also known as Cantonese, Cantonese, Cantonese, Cantonese dialect, and vernacular, is called Cantonese (or Yue) in English. It is mainly spoken in most of Guangdong Province, southeastern Guangxi Province, Hong Kong, Macau, and some overseas Chinese communities. It is one of the five major dialects used in daily life in China, second only to Mandarin, the official language of China.

Linguistically, Cantonese is a tonal language and belongs to the Chinese family of the Sino-Tibetan language family. There are four major Cantonese films: Guangdong film, Siyi film, Guinan film and Gaoyang film. Guangdong is the birthplace of Cantonese, and Cantonese films are generally regarded as the basis for standard Cantonese.

In terms of population, according to statistics, there are 66 million people speaking Cantonese with various accents, ranking 16th in the world; some statistics also claim that the number of Cantonese speakers is 120 million. Although its speaker population is smaller than Mandarin, due to the rapid economic development in Guangdong and the economic prosperity of Hong Kong and Macao, the status of Cantonese has rapidly increased and it has become a strong dialect. In addition, since the 18th century, a large number of Cantonese-speaking people have immigrated abroad, making Cantonese a language spoken by a relatively large number of overseas Chinese.

In the Lingnan area, Cantonese walks along the tributaries of the Pearl River, which can be divided into six areas: Xijiang/Pearl River, Xunjiang/Yujiang, Beiliujiang/Nanliujiang, Nanjiang/Jianjiang, Moyang River, Tanjiang. The first four waterways have frequent traffic and can be connected with each other; the latter two are separated by water systems, making it difficult to communicate with each other.

Since Guangzhou is the birthplace of Cantonese, Guangzhou’s Cantonese can be regarded as the basis of Cantonese standards. Since the language used in Hong Kong is also Cantonese, and Hong Kong has frequent exchanges with the outside world, Hong Kong also speaks Cantonese, and a large number of Cantonese pop songs, TV series, movies, advertisements, novels, comics, etc. are broadcast across the country. It has greatly enhanced the influence of Cantonese and expanded the social communication function of Cantonese.

With the development of society, economy and culture, and the construction of the "Pan-Pearl River Delta", Sino-foreign exchanges and north-south exchanges have become increasingly frequent. Cantonese has become a popular language in Guangdong, Hong Kong or Macau. It is one of the languages ??that people who study, work or do business locally and those who go abroad are eager to master.