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Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While the term ''Cantonese'' specifically refers to the prestige variety, in linguistics it has often been used to refer to the entire Yue subgroup of Chinese, including related but partially mutually intelligible varieties like Taishanese. Cantonese is viewed as a vital and inseparable part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swaths of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as in overseas communities. In mainland China, it is the ''lingua franca'' of the province of Guangdong (being the majority language of the Pearl River Delta) and neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. It is also the dominant and co-official language of Hong Kong and Macau. Furthermore, Cantonese is widely spoken among overseas Chinese in ...
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Written Cantonese
Written Cantonese is the most complete written form of a Chinese language after that for Mandarin Chinese and Classical Chinese. Written Chinese was the main literary language of China until the 19th century. Written vernacular Chinese first appeared in the 17th century, and a written form of Mandarin became standard throughout China in the early 20th century. Cantonese is a common language in places like Hong Kong and Macau. While the Mandarin form can to some extent be read and spoken word for word in other Varieties of Chinese, Chinese varieties, its intelligibility to non-Mandarin speakers is poor to incomprehensible because of differences in idioms, grammar and usage. Modern Cantonese speakers have therefore developed new Chinese character, characters for words that do not have characters for them and have retained others that have been lost in standard Chinese. With the advent of the computer and standardization of character sets specifically for Cantonese, many printed m ...
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Hong Kong Cantonese
Hong Kong Cantonese is a dialect of Cantonese spoken primarily in Hong Kong. As the most commonly spoken language in Hong Kong, it shares a recent and direct lineage with the Guangzhou ( Canton) dialect. Due to the colonial heritage of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Cantonese exhibits distinct differences in vocabulary and certain speech patterns. Over the years, Hong Kong Cantonese has also absorbed foreign terminology and developed a large set of Hong Kong-specific terms. Code-switching with English is also common. As of 2021, 88.2% of Hong Kong's population identified Cantonese as their "usual spoken language," while 93.7% reported being able to speak it. Name Hong Kong Cantonese is predominantly referred to as "Cantonese" in English and ''gwong2 dung1 waa2'' (, Guangdong speech) by its native speakers, while the government also officially refers to it as ''gwong2 zau1 waa2'' (, Guangzhou speech). History Before the arrival of British settlers in 1842, the inhabitants of Ho ...
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Yue Chinese
Yue () is a branch of the Sinitic languages primarily spoken in Northern and southern China, Southern China, particularly in the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi (collectively known as Liangguang). The term Cantonese is often used to refer to the whole branch, but linguists prefer to reserve the name Cantonese for the variety used in Guangzhou (Canton), Wuzhou (Ngchow), Hong Kong and Macau, which is the Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige dialect of the group. Taishanese, from the coastal area of Jiangmen (Kongmoon) located southwest of Guangzhou, was the language of most of the 19th-century emigrants from Guangdong to Southeast Asia and North America. Most later migrants have been speakers of Cantonese. Yue languages are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible with each other or with other varieties of Chinese, Chinese languages outside the branch. They are among the most Linguistic conservatism, conservative varieties with regard to the final consonants and to ...
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Guangzhou
Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about northwest of Hong Kong and north of Macau, Guangzhou has a history of over 2,200 years and was a major terminus of the Silk Road. The port of Guangzhou serves as a transportation hub for China's fourth largest city and surrounding areas, including Hong Kong. Guangzhou was captured by the United Kingdom, British during the First Opium War and no longer enjoyed a monopoly after the war; consequently it lost trade to other ports such as Hong Kong and Shanghai, but continued to serve as a major entrepôt. Following the Second Battle of Chuenpi in 1841, the Treaty of Nanking was signed between Robert Peel, Sir Robert Peel on behalf of Queen Victoria and Lin Zexu on behalf of Daoguang Emperor, Emperor Xuanzong and ceded British Hong Kong, Hong Kon ...
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Malaysian Cantonese
Malaysian Cantonese ( zh, t=馬來西亞廣東話, j= ) is a local variety of Cantonese spoken in Malaysia. It is the ''lingua franca'' among Chinese throughout much of the central portion of Peninsular Malaysia, being spoken in the capital Kuala Lumpur, Perak ( Kinta Valley, Batang Padang, Hulu Perak, Kuala Kangsar, Bagan Datoh, Hilir Perak and Perak Tengah), Pahang, Selangor, Putrajaya and Negeri Sembilan, it is also widely understood to varying degrees by many Chinese people throughout the country, regardless of their ancestral language. Malaysian Cantonese is not uniform throughout the country, with variation between individuals and areas. It is mutually intelligible with Cantonese spoken in both Hong Kong and Guangzhou in mainland China but has distinct differences in vocabulary and pronunciation which make it unique. Geographic spread Cantonese is widely spoken amongst Malaysian Chinese in the capital Kuala Lumpur and throughout much of the surrounding Klang Valle ...
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Tanka People
The Boat Dwellers, also known as Shuishangren (; "people living on the water") or Boat People, or the derogatory Tankas, are a sinicised ethnic group in Southern China who traditionally lived on junks in coastal parts of Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hainan, Shanghai, Zhejiang and along the Yangtze river, as well as Hong Kong, and Macau. The Boat Dwellers are referred to with other names outside of Guangdong. Though many now live onshore, some from the older generations still live on their boats and pursue their traditional livelihood of fishing. The origins of the Boat Dwellers can be traced back to the native ethnic minorities of southern China known historically as the Baiyue, who may have taken refuge on the sea and gradually assimilated into Han Chinese culture. However, they have preserved many of their native traditions not found in Han culture. A small number of Boat Dwellers also live in parts of Vietnam. There they are called Dan () and are classified as a subgrou ...
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Guangdong
) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty near modern Wuzhou, whose name is a reference to an order by Emperor Wu of Han to "widely bestow favors and sow trust". Together, Guangdong and Guangxi are called ''Liangguang, Loeng gwong'' ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t=兩廣, s=两广 , p=liǎng guǎng) During the Song dynasty, the Two Guangs were formally separated as ''Guǎngnán Dōnglù'' ( zh, first=t, t=廣南東路, s=广南东路, l=East Circuit (administrative division), Circuit in Southern Guang , labels=no) and ''Guǎngnán Xīlù'' ( zh, first=t, t=廣南西路, s=广南西路, l=West Circuit (administrative division), Circuit in Southern Guang , labels=no), which became abbreviated as ''Guǎngdōng Lù'' ( zh, first=t, t=廣東路, s=广东路 , labels=no) and ''Guǎngxī Lù ...
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Cantonese Braille
Cantonese Braille () is a braille script used to write Cantonese in Hong Kong and Macau. It is locally referred to as ''tim chi'' (點字, ''dim2zi6'') 'dot characters' or more commonly but ambiguously ''tuk chi'' (凸字, ''dat6zi6'') 'raised characters'. Although Cantonese is written in Chinese characters, Cantonese Braille is purely phonetic, with punctuation, digits and Latin letters from the original Braille. It can be mixed with English text. Charts Each syllable is divided into three parts: the initial consonant, the rime (vowel and any final consonant), and the tone. For example, 盤, ''pun4'' is written , with initial ''p'', final ''un'' and tone ''4''.Jennie Lam Suk Yin, 2003Confusion of tones in visually-impaired children using Cantonese brailleArchived by WebCite® at (See Cantonese phonology.) Among initials, aspirated consonants (''p t ts k kw = p' t' ts' k' kw) are derived by adding dots to the unaspirated consonants (''b d dz g gw = p t ts k kw''): *''M'' and ...
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Hong Kong
Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the world. Hong Kong was established as a colony of the British Empire after the Qing dynasty ceded Hong Kong Island in 1841–1842 as a consequence of losing the First Opium War. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and was further extended when the United Kingdom obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898. Hong Kong was occupied by Japan from 1941 to 1945 during World War II. The territory was handed over from the United Kingdom to China in 1997. Hong Kong maintains separate governing and economic systems from that of mainland China under the principle of one country, two systems. Originally a sparsely populated area of farming and fishing villages,. the territory is now one of the world's most signific ...
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Macau
Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by population density, densely populated region in the world. Formerly a Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colony, the territory of Portuguese Macau was first leased to Portugal by the Ming dynasty as a trading post in 1557. Portugal paid an annual rent and administered the territory under Chinese sovereignty until 1887, when Portugal gained perpetual colonial rights with the signing of the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Peking. The colony remained under Portuguese rule until the 1999 handover to China. Macau is a Special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of China, which maintains separate governing and economic systems from those of mainland China under the principle of "one country, two systems".. The unique blend of Port ...
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Varieties Of Chinese
There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast part of mainland China. The varieties are typically classified into several groups: Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin, Wu Chinese, Wu, Min Chinese, Min, Xiang Chinese, Xiang, Gan Chinese, Gan, Jin Chinese, Jin, Hakka Chinese, Hakka and Yue Chinese, Yue, though some varieties remain unclassified. These groups are neither clades nor individual languages defined by mutual intelligibility, but reflect common phonological developments from Middle Chinese. Chinese varieties have the greatest differences in their phonology, and to a lesser extent in vocabulary and syntax. Southern varieties tend to have fewer initial consonants than northern and central varieties, but more often preserve the Middle Chinese final consonants. All ...
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Guangxi
Guangxi,; officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam (Hà Giang Province, Hà Giang, Cao Bằng Province, Cao Bằng, Lạng Sơn Province, Lạng Sơn, and Quảng Ninh Provinces) and the Gulf of Tonkin. Formerly a Provinces of China, province, Guangxi became an autonomous region in 1958. Its current capital is Nanning. Guangxi's location, in mountainous terrain in the far south of China, has placed it on the frontier of Chinese civilization throughout much of History of China, Chinese history. The current name "Guang" means "expanse" and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in 226 AD. It was given Administrative divisions of the Yuan dynasty, provincial level status during the Yuan dynasty, but even into the 20th century, it was considered an open, wild territory. The abbreviation of the regi ...
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