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Generally speaking, Cantonese is a tonal language with six phonetic tones, two more than the four in Standard Chinese Mandarin. This makes Cantonese in general harder to master due to required ability of users to readily be able to process two additional phonetic tones.
The extensive 1987 Language Atlas of China groups Chinese local varieties into the following units: [7] Supergroup (大区 dàqū), of which there are but two: Mandarin and Min; Group (区 qū), corresponding to the varieties of Chinese of the ISO standard; Subgroup (片 piàn), which may be mutually unintelligible with other subgroups [note 3]
Many Americans are more familiar with Cantonese's singsong cadences than the more clipped tones of Mandarin. Cantonese is the language of San Francisco Chinatown’s dim sum restaurants and herbal ...
[citation needed] Donald B. Snow, the author of Cantonese as Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular, wrote that "It is difficult to quantify precisely how different" the two vocabularies are. [5] Snow wrote that the different vocabulary systems are the main difference between written Mandarin and written Cantonese. [5]
It's a language spoken by more than 80 million people worldwide. But some are concerned that Cantonese is at risk, thanks in part to the Chinese govenment push for wider use of Mandarin. (Sept. 26)
Hokkien remains the most prestigious language other than Mandarin and English in Taiwan. Although Hokkien, Hakka, and Taiwan's many Indigenous languages have now been elevated to the status of national languages, it is notable that there is a clear de facto gradient of valuation of these languages.
Cantonese and, more recently, Mandarin have been used in Chinese-language schools and both variants are found in major cities such as Jakarta, Medan, Batam and Surabaya, with Mandarin usage increasing with recent arrivals from China (especially in the North China and Taiwan）, as well as Cantonese speakers originating from Guangdong, Guangxi ...
The following is a list of countries and territories where Chinese is an official language.While those countries or territories that designate any variety of Chinese as an official language, as the term "Chinese" is considered a group of related language varieties rather than a homogeneous language, of which many are not mutually intelligible, in the context of the spoken language such ...