What is Cantonese?
Q: What is Cantonese?
A: Cantonese is an East Asian language which comes from Canton, southern China. It is often used to refer to the Guangzhou dialect, Hong Kong dialect, Xiguan dialect, Wuzhou dialect and Tanka dialect of Yue.
Q: Where is it spoken?
A: Cantonese is spoken by people in Southern China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia and Singapore as well as places with many overseas Chinese who came from Cantonese-speaking parts of China such as Melbourne. It is also the most common language of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and North America.
Q: How many people speak it?
A: It is said that over 100 million people speak Cantonese.
Q: Is it a tonal language?
A: Yes, it has 6 kinds of tones.
Q: How does its status compare to other Chinese languages?
A: While Cantonese is only the third most spoken dialect of Chinese after Mandarin and Wu, its official status in Hong Kong and Macau make it widely known among other Chinese dialects.
Q: Is it mutually intelligible with Mandarin?
A: No, they are not mutually intelligible meaning that a speaker of one language cannot understand the other language without learning it beforehand.
Q: Is there any relationship between Classical or Traditional Chinese and Cantonese?
A: It is said that Cantonese is more closely related to Classical Chinese or Traditional Chinese than Mandarin.
