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In English, the term "Cantonese" can be ambiguous. "Cantonese" as used to refer to the language native to the city of Canton, which is the traditional English name of Guangzhou, was popularized by An English and Cantonese Pocket Dictionary (1859), a bestseller by the missionary John Chalmers. [3]
"Cantonese" has been generally used to describe all Chinese people from Guangdong since "Cantonese" is commonly treated as a synonym with "Guangdong" and the Cantonese language is treated as the sole language of the region.
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 dialect of the group.
The Old Yue language (Chinese: ... Robert Bauer (1996) points out twenty nine possible cognates between Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou and Kra–Dai, ...
The Cantonese they speak is substantially different from the Hong Kong version considered standard. In China, people in many regions learn Mandarin in school while speaking another dialect at home.
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.
The Cantonese Wikipedia (Chinese: 粵文維基百科; Jyutping: jyut6 man4 wai4 gei1 baak3 fo1; Cantonese Yale: Yuhtmàhn Wàihgēi Baakfō) is the Cantonese-language edition of Wikipedia, run by the Wikimedia Foundation. It was started on 25 March 2006.
Loanwords have entered written and spoken Chinese from many sources, including ancient peoples whose descendants now speak Chinese. In addition to phonetic differences, varieties of Chinese such as Cantonese and Shanghainese often have distinct words and phrases left from their original languages which they continue to use in daily life and sometimes even in Mandarin.