Countries
Hong Kong, Macau
China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan
Total No. Of Countries
25
0
46
👆🏻
National Language
China, Guangdong
China, Taiwan
Second Language
Not spoken in any of the countries
Republic of Brazil
Speaking Continents
Asia
Asia
Minority Language
Hawaii
Indonesia, Malaysia
Regulated By
Civil Service Bureau, Government of Hong Kong, Official Language Division
Chinese Language Standardization Council, National Commission on Language and Script Work, Promote Mandarin Council
Interesting Facts
- Cantonese have lot of slangs, many of them include words that do not make sense at all and some also have English in them.
- Even though Cantonese and Mandarin are dialects of Chinese, Cantonese has 8 tones instead of Mandarin's 4.
- Chinese language is tonal, since meaning of a word changes according to its tone.
- In Chinese language, there is no grammatical distinction between singular or plural, no declination of verbs according to tense, mood and aspect.
Similar To
Chinese Language
Japanese and Korean Languages
Derived From
-
-
Alphabets in
Alphabets
2826
18
247
👆🏻
Phonology
How Many Vowels
824
0
32
👆🏻
How Many Consonants
2023
9
60
👆🏻
Scripts
Chinese Characters and derivatives
Chinese Characters and derivatives
Writing Direction
Left-To-Right, Horizontal, Top-To-Bottom
Left-To-Right, Horizontal, Top-To-Bottom
Hard to Learn
Language Levels
106
2
12
👆🏻
Time Taken to Learn
88 weeks88 weeks
3
88
👆🏻
Hello
您好
您好 (Nín hǎo)
Thank You
谢谢
谢谢 (Xièxiè)
How Are You?
你好吗？
你好吗？ (Nǐ hǎo ma?)
Good Night
晚安
晚安 (Wǎn'ān)
Good Evening
晚上好
晚上好 (Wǎnshàng hǎo)
Good Afternoon
下午好
下午好 (Xiàwǔ hǎo)
Good Morning
早上好
早安 (Zǎo ān)
Please
请
请 (Qǐng)
Sorry
遗憾
遗憾 (Yíhàn)
Bye
再见
再见 (Zàijiàn)
I Love You
我爱你
我爱你 (Wǒ ài nǐ)
Excuse Me
原谅我
劳驾 (Láojià)
Dialect 1
Guangzhou
Mandarin
Where They Speak
outside mainland China
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan
How Many People Speak
71,000,000.00960,000,000.00
1.5
960000000
👆🏻
Dialect 2
Xiguan
Wu
Where They Speak
Hong Kong
China, United States of America
How Many People Speak
71,000,000.0080,000,000.00
700
274000000
👆🏻
Dialect 3
Hong Kong
Yue
Where They Speak
Hong Kong
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam
How Many People Speak
70,000,000.0060,000,000.00
2
230000000
👆🏻
Total No. Of Dialects
310
0
188
👆🏻
How Many People Speak?
60.00 million1,051.00 million
0
1200
👆🏻
Speaking Population
16.00 %16.00 %
0
89
👆🏻
Native Speakers
52.00 million873.00 million
0
873
👆🏻
Second Language Speakers
71.00 million178.00 million
0.01
400
👆🏻
Native Name
Kwang Tung Wa
中文 (zhōngwén)
Alternative Names
Guangfu, Metropolitan Cantonese
Zhongwen, Hanyu
French Name
cantonais
chinois
German Name
Kantonesisch
Chinesisch
Pronunciation
[kʰɐn˧˥tʰœːn˧˥sɨ˧˥]
[ʈʂʰíŋ] [huà]
Ethnicity
Han Chinese
Han
Origin
17th century
1250 BC
Language Family
Sino-Tibetan Family
Sino-Tibetan Family
Subgroup
-
-
Branch
-
-
Language Forms
Early Forms
No early forms
No early forms
Standard Forms
Standard Cantonese
Standard Chinese
Language Position
11
1
120
👆🏻
Signed Forms
Signed Cantonese
Wenfa Shouyu 文法手語 ("Grammatical Sign Language", Signed Mandarin (Taiwan))
Scope
-
Individual
ISO 639 1
No data available
zh
ISO 639 2
ISO 639 2/T
yue
zho
ISO 639 2/B
yue
chi
ISO 639 3
No data available
zho
ISO 639 6
yue
zho
Glottocode
cant1236
sini1245
Linguasphere
No data available
79-AAA
Types of Language
Language Type
-
Living
Language Linguistic Typology
-
Subject-Verb-Object
Language Morphological Typology
-
Analytic, Isolating