Yue Chinese

This article is an overview of all Yue languages and dialects. For the standard dialect of Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau, see Cantonese. For the people sometimes called Yue Chinese, see Cantonese people.

Yue
Cantonese
粵語/粤语 廣東話/广东话
Yuht Yúh/Jyut6 jyu5 (Yue) written in traditional Chinese (left) and simplified Chinese (right) characters
Native to	China, Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh), Vietnam, Canada, United States, United Kingdom and other countries where Cantonese migrants have settled.
Region	in China: the Pearl River Delta (central Guangdong; Hong Kong, Macau); the eastern and southern Guangxi; parts of Hainan;
Ethnicity	Cantonese people (Han Chinese)
Native speakers	(56 million cited 1984) (no recent data available)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Ping–Yue Yue
Dialects	Yuehai (Cantonese) Siyi (Taishanese) Gao-Yang Yong-Xun Goulou Luo-Guang Qin-Lian Wu-Hua Hainan Yue
Writing system	Traditional Chinese Simplified Chinese
Official status
Official language in	Hong Kong and Macau (de facto, though officially referred to as "Chinese"; Cantonese and occasionally Mandarin are used in government). Recognised regional language in Suriname.
Language codes
ISO 639-3	yue

Yue / Cantonese
Traditional Chinese	粵語
Simplified Chinese	粤语
Jyutping	Jyut6 jyu5
Cantonese Yale	Yuht Yúh
Hanyu Pinyin	Yuè Yǔ
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Yuè Yǔ Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Yuht Yúh Jyutping Jyut6 jyu5
Commonly known as
Traditional Chinese	廣東話
Simplified Chinese	广东话
Jyutping	Gwong2 dung1 waa6
Hanyu Pinyin	Guǎngdōng Huà
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Guǎngdōng Huà Gan Romanization Guong3 dung1 ua5 Yue: Cantonese Jyutping Gwong2 dung1 waa6 Southern Min Hokkien POJ Kńg-tang-ōe

Yue, commonly known as Cantonese, is a primary branch of Chinese spoken in southern China.

The issue of whether Yue is a language in its own right or a dialect of a single Chinese language depends on conceptions of what a language is. Like the other branches of Chinese, Yue is considered a dialect for ethnic, political, and cultural reasons, but it is also considered a distinct language because of linguistic reasons. Spoken Cantonese is mutually unintelligible with other varieties of Chinese, though intelligible to a certain degree in its written form.

The areas of China with the highest concentration of speakers are the provinces of Guangdong and (eastern) Guangxi and the regions of Hong Kong and Macau. There are also substantial Cantonese- and Taishanese-speaking minorities overseas in Southeast Asia, Canada, Australia, and the United States.

Names

The prototypical use of the name "Cantonese" in English is for the Guangzhou (Canton) dialect of Yue, but it is commonly used for Yue as a whole. To avoid confusion, academic texts may call the primary branch of Chinese Yue, following the Mandarin pinyin spelling, and either restrict "Cantonese" to its common usage as the dialect of Guangzhou, or avoid the term "Cantonese" altogether and distinguish Yue from Canton or Guangzhou dialect.

In Chinese, people of Hong Kong, of Macau, and Cantonese immigrants abroad usually call the Yue language Gwóngdùng wá [kʷɔ̌ːŋ tʊ́ŋ wǎː] (廣東話) "speech of Guangdong". People of Guangdong and Guangxi do not use that term, but rather Yuht Yúh [jỳt jy̬ː] (粵語) "Yue language". They also use baahk wá [pàːk wǎː] (白話) on its own to refer to the Guangzhou dialect. It is also used to refer to Yue dialects in Guangxi, as for example in an expression like "南宁白话", which means the baak waa of Nanning.

History

Relation to Classical Chinese

Since the pronunciation of all modern varieties of Chinese is different from Old Chinese or Middle Chinese, characters that once rhymed in poetry may no longer do so today. Some linguists agree to some extent that Cantonese is closer to classical Chinese in its pronunciation and some grammar. Many poems that don't rhyme in Mandarin do so in Cantonese. Cantonese retains a flavor of these archaic and ancient languages, and it has been used to help with linguistic reconstruction.

Qin and Han

In the Qin Dynasty Chinese troops moved southward and conquered the Baiyue territories, and many Han people began settling in the Lingnan area. This migration led to the Chinese language being spoken in the Lingnan area. After Zhao Tuo was made the Duke of Nanyue by the Qin Dynasty and given authority over the Nanyue region, many Han people entered the area and lived together with the Nanyue population, consequently affecting the lifestyle of the Nanyue people as well as stimulating the spread of the Chinese language.

Sui

In the Sui Dynasty, North China was in a period of war and discontent, and many people moved southwards to avoid war, forming the first mass migration of Han people into the South. As the population in the Lingnan area dramatically rose, the Chinese language in the south developed significantly. Thus the Lingnan language began to develop more significant differences with central Chinese.

Tang

Yue pronunciation and vocabulary are quite similar to the official language of the Tang dynasty, and its pronunciation and vocabulary has preserved some features and elements from the Middle Chinese that was spoken during the Tang. Dialectologists believe that migrants and exiled officials from the heart of the Tang brought their dialect to Guangdong. Remoteness and inefficient transport to Guangdong created an environment in which the language remained largely intact after it arrived.

Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing

In the Song Dynasty, the differences between central Chinese and Yue became more significant, and the languages became more independent of one another. This trend continued during the Yuan and Ming dynasties.

Mid to late Qing

In the late Qing, the dynasty had gone through a period of maritime ban under the Hai jin. Guangzhou remained one of the few cities that allowed trading with foreign countries, since the trade chamber of commerce was established there. Therefore, some foreigners learned Cantonese and some Imperial government officials spoke the Cantonese dialect of Yue, making the language very popular in Cantonese-speaking Guangzhou. Also, European control of Macau and Hong Kong had increased the exposure of Cantonese to the world.

20th century

In 1912, shortly after the fall of the Qing dynasty, revolutionary leaders including Sun Yat-sen met to choose a new national language to replace Classical Chinese. Mandarin Putonghua was then a northern dialect spoken by the Manchurian officials. Many perceived it as an 'impure form' of Chinese. Cantonese is said to have lost out by a small margin of the vote to Putonghua, though some historians dispute this.

The popularity of Cantonese-language media, Cantopop and the Hong Kong film industry, has since led to substantial exposure of Cantonese to China and the rest of Asia. On the Mainland, the national policy is to promote Putonghua. While the government does not prevent people from promoting local Cantonese language and culture, it does not support them. Occasionally there are news reports of children being punished for speaking Cantonese in schools.

Dialects

A map of the main Yue dialects in China and Vietnam. Yuehai (Y) is considered a single dialect, commonly called Cantonese. The Guinan varieties (G) are not particularly close.

The Yue language includes several dialects. In the classification of J.M. Campbell, they are:

• Cantonese proper, Guangfu ([廣府話] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help)) or Yuehai ([粵海話] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help)), which includes the language of Guangzhou and the surrounding areas of Zhongshan, Wuzhou, and Foshan, as well as Hong Kong and Macau;
• Sìyì ([四邑話] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help) Seiyap), exemplified by the Taishan dialect ([台山話] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help)), also known as Taishanese, which was ubiquitous in American Chinatowns before ca 1970;
• Gao–Yang ([高陽話] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help)), spoken in Yangjiang;
• Wu–Hua ([吳化話] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help) Ngfaa), spoken mainly in western Guangdong;
• Gou–Lou ([勾漏話] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help) Ngaulau), spoken in western Guangdong and eastern Guangxi, which includes the dialect of Yulin (Bobai);
• Yong–Xun ([邕潯話] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help) Jungcam), spoken mainly in Guangxi and its capital Nanning;
• Qin–Lian ([欽廉話] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help) Jamlim), spoken in southern Guangxi, which includes the Beihai dialect;
• Danzhou ([儋州話] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help)), which includes the dialect of Changjiang
• Haihua ([海話] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help)), the dialect of Lianjiang
• Dongguan ([東莞話] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help)), spoken only by natives of Dongguan
• In parts of Vietnam bordering China, people often speak a Yuexi accent (粤西) called tiếng Nùng or tiếng Hải Phòng in Vietnamese.

Yue (Cantonese)

Yuehai     Guangfu  Cantonese proper (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou, Hong Kong Cantonese) Danjia dialect  Sanyi (Nanpanshun)  Nanhai dialect Jiujiang dialect Xiqiao dialect Panyu dialect Shunde dialect  Zhongshan  Shiqi dialect  Guan–Bao  Dongguan dialect Bao'an (Weitou) dialect  Siyi (Seiyap)  Taishanese Siqian dialect  Luo–Guang   Gao–Yang  Gaozhou dialect Yangjiang dialect  Wu–Hua (Wuzhou)   Yong–Xun (Jungcam)  Nanning dialect Yongning dialect  Gou–Lou (Ngaulau)  Yulin dialect  Qin–Lian (Jamlim)  Qinzhou dialect Lianzhou dialect (Beihai)  Hainan (Hai)  Danzhouhua Mai dialect

The Yue dialects spoken in Guangxi Province are mutually intelligible with the Canton dialect. For instance, Wuzhou is about 120 miles upstream from Guangzhou, but its dialect is more like Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou, than is that of Taishan which is 60 miles southwest of Guangzhou and separated by several rivers from it. Formerly Pinghua ([廣西平話] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help)), which is not mutually intelligible with the Canton dialect spoken in central Guangxi, was classified as Yue in China, but it was designated a separate primary branch of Chinese by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in the 1980s, a classification generally followed in the west.

The Canton/Guangzhou dialect of Yuehai is the prestige dialect and social standard of Yue, and historically the word "Cantonese" has referred specifically to this dialect.

Mandarin is the medium of instruction in the state education system in Mainland China but in Chinese schools in Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese is the oral language of instruction. It is used extensively in Cantonese-speaking households, Cantonese-language media (Hong Kong films, television serials, and Cantopop), isolation from the other regions of China, local identity, and the non-Mandarin speaking Cantonese diaspora in Hong Kong and abroad give the language a unique identity. Most wuxia films from Canton are filmed originally in Yue and then dubbed or subtitled in Mandarin, English, or both.

Cantonese dialect

Main article: Cantonese

The Cantonese dialect is the prestige dialect of Guangdong province, and along with English as the official language of Hong Kong. It is the most widely spoken dialect of Yue, spoken in Canton (Guangzhou), Hong Kong, and Macau, and is the lingua franca of not only Guangdong province, but of overseas Cantonese emigrants, though in many areas abroad it is numerically second to the Taishanese dialect of Yue.

Phonology

See Cantonese phonology for the sounds of the Guangzhou–Hong Kong dialect, and Taishanese for the phonology of that dialect.

Yue development and usage

The area coloured in red shows the Cantonese-speaking region in areas claimed by the People's Republic of China.

Usage

By law, Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua 普通话 or guoyu 国语) is the standard language of mainland China and Taiwan and is taught nearly universally as a supplement to local languages such as Cantonese in Guangdong. Yue is the de facto official language of Hong Kong (along with English) and Macau (along with Portuguese), though legally the official language is just "Chinese". Yue is also one of the main languages in many overseas Chinese communities including Australia, Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe. Many of these emigrants or their ancestors originated from Guangdong. In addition, these immigrant communities formed before the widespread use of Mandarin, or they are from Hong Kong where Mandarin is not commonly used. The prestige dialect of Yue is the Guangzhou dialect. In Hong Kong, colloquial Cantonese often incorporates English words due to historical British influences.

Development

Yue is in some respects a more conservative language than Mandarin. For example, Yue has retained ancestral consonant endings that have been lost in Mandarin. Putonghua has 23 syllable rimes, while Cantonese has 59, leading Putonghua to rely heavily on compounding and context for meaning. For example, because of the larger number of syllable finals, the Cantonese Yue transcription of David Beckham's family name uses two characters (碧咸 bik1haam4), while Putonghua's uses four (貝克漢姆 bèikèhànmǔ). On the other hand, Yue has lost distinctions in the initial and medial consonants which Mandarin has retained, and Wu Chinese has preserved the three series of plosive initials from Middle Chinese that both Mandarin and Yue have reduced to two.

Variations

The Taishan dialect, which in the U.S. nowadays is heard mostly spoken by Chinese actors in old American TV shows and movies (e.g. Hop Sing on Bonanza), is more conservative than Cantonese. It has preserved the initial /n/ sound of words, whereas many post-World War II-born Hong Kong Cantonese speakers have changed this to an /l/ sound ("ngàuh lām" instead of "ngàuh nām" for "beef brisket" [牛腩] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hani (help)) and more recently drop the "ng-" initial (so that it changes further to "àuh lām"); this seems to have arisen from some kind of street affectation as opposed to systematic phonological change. The common word for "who" in Taishan is "sŭe" ([誰] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hant (help)), which is the same character used in Mandarin, whereas Cantonese uses the classical word "bīn go" ([邊個] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language tag: zh-yue-Hant (help)), meaning which one.

Sound

Yue sounds quite different from Mandarin, mainly because it has a different set of syllables. The rules for syllable formation are different; for example, there are syllables ending in non-nasal consonants (e.g. "lak"). It also has different tones and more of them than Mandarin. Canton dialect is generally considered to have 6 romanization tones, as reflected in most romanization schemes such as Jyutping, Yale, Cantonese Pinyin. According to other analyses, the number of tones may also be 7 or 8. The choice mainly depends on whether a traditional distinction between a high-level and a high-falling tone is observed; the two tones in question have largely merged into a single, high-level tone, especially in Hong Kong Cantonese, which has tended to simplify traditional Chinese tones. Many (especially older) descriptions of the Cantonese sound system record a higher number of tones, 9. However, the extra tones differ only in that they end in p, t, or k; otherwise they can be modeled identically.

Yue preserves many syllable-final sounds that Mandarin has lost or merged. For example, the characters 裔, 屹, 藝, 憶, 譯, 懿, 誼, 肄, 翳, 邑, and 佚 are all pronounced "yì" in Mandarin, but they are all different in Yue (Cantonese jeoih, ngaht, ngaih/ngaaih, yìk, yihk, yi, yìh, yih, ai, yap, and yaht, respectively). Like Hakka and Min Nan, Yue has preserved the final consonants [-m, -n, -ŋ -p, -t, -k] from Middle Chinese, while the Mandarin final consonants have been reduced to [-n, -ŋ]. The final consonants of Yue match those of Middle Chinese with very few exceptions. For example, lacking the syllable-final sound "m"; the final "m" and final "n" from older varieties of Chinese have merged into "n" in Mandarin, e.g. Cantonese "taahm" (譚) and "tàahn" (壇) versus Mandarin tán; "yìhm" (鹽) and "yìhn" (言) versus Mandarin yán; "tìm" (添) and "tìn" (天) versus Mandarin tiān; "hàhm" (含) and "hòhn" (寒) versus Mandarin hán. The examples are too numerous to list. Nasals can be independent syllables in Yue words, e.g. Cantonese "ńgh" (五) "five", and "m̀h" (唔) "not", even though such type of syllables did not exist in Middle Chinese.

Differences also arise from Mandarin's relatively recent sound changes. One change, for example, palatalized [kʲ] with [tsʲ] to [tɕ], and is reflected in historical Mandarin romanizations, such as Peking (Beijing), Kiangsi (Jiangxi), and Fukien (Fujian). This distinction is still preserved in Yue. For example, 晶, 精, 經 and 京 are all pronounced as "jīng" in Mandarin, but in Yue, the first pair is pronounced "jīng", and the second pair "gīng".

A more drastic example, displaying both the loss of coda plosives and the palatization of onset consonants, is the character 學 ("learn"), pronounced *ɣæwk in Middle Chinese. Its modern pronunciations in Yue, Hakka, Hokkien, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese are "hohk", "hók" (pinjim), "ha̍k" (Pe̍h-ōe-jī), học (although a Sino-Vietnamese word, it is used in daily vocabulary), 학 hak (Sino-Korean), and gaku (Sino-Japanese), respectively, while the pronunciation in Mandarin is xué [ɕɥɛ̌].

However, the Mandarin vowel system is somewhat more conservative than that of Yue, or at least the Cantonese dialect of Yue, in that many diphthongs preserved in Mandarin have merged or been lost in Yue. Also, Mandarin makes a three-way distinction among alveolar, alveolo-palatal, and retroflex fricative consonants, distinctions that are not made by modern Cantonese. For example, jiang (將) and zhang (張) are two distinct syllables in Mandarin or old Yue, but in modern Cantonese Yue they have the same sound, "jeung1". The loss of distinction between the alveolar and the alveolopalatal sibilants in Cantonese occurred in the mid-19th centuries and was documented in many Cantonese dictionaries and pronunciation guides published prior to the 1950s. A Tonic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialect by Williams (1856), writes: “The initials "ch" and "ts" are constantly confounded, and some persons are absolutely unable to detect the difference, more frequently calling the words under "ts" as "ch", than contrariwise.” A Pocket Dictionary of Cantonese by Cowles (1914) adds: “s initial may be heard for sh initial and vice versa.”

There are clear sound correspondences in the tones. For example, a fourth-tone (low falling tone) word in Yue is usually second tone (rising tone) in Mandarin. This can be partly explained by their common descent from Middle Chinese, still with its different dialects. One way of counting tones gives Cantonese nine tones, Mandarin four, and Late Middle Chinese eight. Within this system, Mandarin merged the so-called "yin" and "yang" tones except for the Ping (平, flat) category, while Yue not only preserved these, but split one of them into two over time. Also, within this system, Yue and Wu are the only Chinese languages known to have split a tone, rather than merge two or more of them, since the time of Late Middle Chinese.

See also

• Sidney Lau romanisation
• Hong Kong Government Cantonese Romanisation
• Cantonese Pinyin
• Jyutping (LSHK)
• Yale Romanization
• Written Cantonese
• Cantonese grammar
• Written Chinese
• Chinese input methods for computers

Further reading

• Oi-Kan Yue Hashimoto (2011). Studies in Yue Dialects 1: Phonology of Cantonese. Princeton/Cambridge Studies in Chinese Linguistics. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press. p. 780. ISBN 0-521-18982-9. Retrieved 1st of March, 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
• Oi-kan Yue Hashimoto (1972). Phonology of Cantonese. Princeton/Cambridge Studies in Chinese Linguistics. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press. p. 755. ISBN 0-521-08442-3. Retrieved 1st of March, 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

External links

• Profile and Linguistic Map of Cantonese