Yuehai () is the main branch of

Yue Chinese Yue () is a group of similar Sinitic languages spoken in Southern China, particularly in Liangguang (the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces). The name Cantonese is often used for the whole group, but linguists prefer to reserve that name for ...

, spoken in the Pearl River Delta of the province of

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

, as well as

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

and

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a p ...

. It is commonly called Cantonese, though that name is more precisely applied to the Guangzhou topolect of Yuehai.

Topolects

Yuehai is divided into four principal dialects, each of which contains various subdialects.

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...

is the prestige form. *Guangfu dialects ** Guangzhou dialect ** Hong Kong dialect ** Macau dialect **

Xiguan dialect The Xiguan accent () or Xiguan dialect (), is a sub-dialect of the Guangzhou dialect of Cantonese, spoken in Xiguan. Cantonese takes Guangzhou dialect as its standard and Guangzhou dialect once took Xiguan as its standard. With an increasing n ...

** Wuzhou dialect ** Tanka dialect *Sanyi / Nanpanshun dialects **

Nanhai dialect Nanhai () may refer to: *''Nanhai'', the Chinese name for the South China Sea, one of the Four Seas *Nanhai Commandery, the former Chinese administration over Liangguang *''Nanhai'', the Chinese name for the South China Sea Islands *The '' Nanhai I ...

Jiujiang dialect The Jiujiang dialect () is a variety of Cantonese spoken in Jiujiang Town, in Nanhai District, Foshan, Guangdong. A few words differ from Standard Cantonese, but generally other Cantonese speakers can understand Jiujiang dialect without difficu ...

Xiqiao dialect Xiqiao may refer to: * Xiqiao, Foshan (西樵镇), town in Nanhai District, Foshan, Guangdong, China * Xiqiao, Huai'an (席桥镇), town in Chuzhou District, Huai'an, Jiangsu, China * Mount Xiqiao Mount Xiqiao is a 40- to 50-million-year-old ...

Shunde dialect Shunde District, also known as Shuntak, is a district of the city of Foshan, Guangdong province, located in the Pearl River Delta. It had a population of 2,464,784 as of the 2010 census. Once a traditional agricultural county, it has become on ...

*Xiangshan dialect **

Shiqi dialect The Shiqi dialect is a dialect of Yue Chinese. It is spoken by roughly 160,000 people in Zhongshan, Guangdong's Shiqi District, Shiqi urban district. It differs slightly from Standard Cantonese, mainly in its pronunciation and lexicon. Shiqi ...

Sanjiao dialect Sanjiao may refer to: *San Jiao, term in traditional Chinese medicine *Sanjiao, Meizhou, town Meizhou, Guangdong, China *Sanjiao, Zhongshan, town in Zhongshan, Guangdong, China *Three teachings In Chinese philosophy, the ''three teachings'' (; ...

*Guanbao dialect **

Dongguan dialect Dongguan (; ) is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, China. An important industrial city in the Pearl River Delta, Dongguan borders the provincial capital of Guangzhou to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, Shenzhen to the s ...

** Bao'an dialect (Waitau)

References

Cantonese language {{St-lang-stub