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Due to its predominance in the capital city, Cantonese is highly influential in local Chinese-language media and is used in commerce by Malaysian Chinese. [ 9 ] [ 10 ] As a result, Cantonese is widely understood and spoken with varying fluency by Chinese throughout Malaysia, regardless of their language group.
The official language of Malaysia is the "Malay language" [5] (Bahasa Melayu) which is sometimes interchangeable with "Malaysian language" (Bahasa Malaysia). [6] The standard language is promoted as a unifying symbol for the nation across all ethnicities, linked to the concept of Bangsa Malaysia (lit. 'Malaysian Nation').
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]
Generally, Hokkien became a contact language among ethnic Chinese of different linguistic background in most parts of Malaysia. [230] The Malaysian Cantonese became the contact language in the Malaysia's capital of Kuala Lumpur albeit with a distinct phonology and grammar from standard Cantonese spoken in Pearl River Delta region of China ...
Also, most Chinese Malaysians can speak both Malay (the national language) and English, which is widely used in business and at tertiary level. Furthermore, Cantonese is understood by most Malaysian Chinese as it is the prevalent language used in local Chinese-language media, although many are unable to speak it fluently. [10]
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 ...
Cantonese is the language of San Francisco Chinatown’s dim sum restaurants and herbal shops, of Northern California towns such as Marysville, where Chinese gold miners settled in the 1850s.
The Chinese language enjoys the status as official language in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Taiwan. It is recognized as a minority language in Malaysia . However, the language shows a high degree of regional variation among these territories.