Countries
Hong Kong, Macau
China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan
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
Alphabets in
Cantonese-Alphabets.jpg#200
Chinese.jpg#200
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
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)
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
Where They Speak
Hong Kong
China, United States of America
Where They Speak
Hong Kong
China, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam
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
Early Forms
No early forms
No early forms
Standard Forms
Standard Cantonese
Standard Chinese
Signed Forms
Signed Cantonese
Wenfa Shouyu 文法手語 ("Grammatical Sign Language", Signed Mandarin (Taiwan))
ISO 639 1
No data available
zh
ISO 639 3
No data available
zho
Glottocode
cant1236
sini1245
Linguasphere
No data available
79-AAA
Language Linguistic Typology
-
Subject-Verb-Object
Language Morphological Typology
-
Analytic, Isolating
All Cantonese and Chinese Dialects
Most languages have dialects where each dialect differ from other dialect with respect to grammar and vocabulary. Here you will get to know all Cantonese and Chinese dialects. Various dialects of Cantonese and Chinese language differ in their pronunciations and words. Dialects of Cantonese are spoken in different Cantonese Speaking Countries whereas Chinese Dialects are spoken in different Chinese speaking countries. Also the number of people speaking Cantonese vs Chinese Dialects varies from few thousands to many millions. Some of the Cantonese dialects include: Guangzhou, Xiguan. Chinese dialects include: Mandarin , Wu. Also learn about dialects in South American Languages and North American Languages.
Cantonese and Chinese Speaking population
Cantonese and Chinese speaking population is one of the factors based on which Cantonese and Chinese languages can be compared. The total count of Cantonese and Chinese Speaking population in percentage is also given. The percentage of people speaking Cantonese language is 16.00 % whereas the percentage of people speaking Chinese language is 16.00 %. When we compare the speaking population of any two languages we get to know which of two languages is more popular. Find more details about how many people speak Cantonese and Chinese on Cantonese vs Chinese where you will get native speakers, speaking population in percentage and native names.
Cantonese and Chinese Language Codes
Cantonese and Chinese language codes are used in those applications where using language names are tedious. Cantonese and Chinese Language Codes include all the international language codes, glottocodes and linguasphere.