Where is the birthplace of Cantonese?

The birthplace of Cantonese is guangzhou fu today.

The origin and maturity of Cantonese were far before the early division of Guangdong and Guangxi in the Song Dynasty. On the historical and cultural level, "Cantonese" is actually "Lingnan language" in a broad sense, rather than "Cantonese" in particular. Just like English, it's not particularly British. Cantonese is written as "Canton" in English and "Yidong" in Japanese, which is commonly known as "Cantonese".

Cantonese was formed much earlier than the Song Dynasty, which is also the reason why Cantonese is popular in Guangdong and Guangxi. Cangwu, an ancient country in Lingnan for about 5,000 years, is the birthplace of Lingnan culture and Pearl River culture, and also the birthplace of Cantonese.

Cantonese not only retains a large number of ancient Chinese vocabulary and grammar, but also retains the pronunciation and tone of ancient Chinese, especially the entering tone. But now the popular Mandarin has no tone. The so-called "entering three tones" has been sent to three tones: flat, up and down. Because there is no entering tone, reading China's classical poems in Mandarin can't tell the difference between level tone, rhyme and rhyme. ?

Extended data:

1, Cantonese, also known as "vernacular" and "Cantonese" among the people, is called "Tang dialect" in Chinatown in the United States. The two common names "Guangfu dialect" and "provincial dialect" specifically refer to Cantonese in old guangzhou fu (now Guangzhou and its surrounding Nanfanshun area), Hong Kong, Macao, Wuzhou and Hezhou, which are smaller than the concept of "vernacular" and are generally called "Cantonese".

2. "Cantonese" is actually "Lingnan language" in a broad sense, not specifically "Cantonese". Just like English, it's not particularly British. Cantonese is written as "Canton" in English and "Yidong" in Japanese, which is commonly known as "Cantonese".

3. Cantonese has wider meanings and more vivid parts of speech than Mandarin. Cantonese is used to monosyllabic words, but modern Chinese is mostly disyllabic words. In addition, Cantonese retains many ancient words and expressions in both spoken and written languages.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia-Cantonese