Yue () is a group of similar
Sinitic languages spoken in
Southern China, particularly in
Liangguang (the
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...
and
Guangxi
Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam ...
provinces).
The name Cantonese is often used for the whole group, but linguists prefer to reserve that name for the variety used in
Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, sou ...
(Canton),
Wuzhou (Ngchow),
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...
and
Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...
, which is the
prestige dialect
Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.)
Prestige may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Films
* ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnet ...
.
Taishanese, from the coastal area of
Jiangmen
Jiangmen (), alternately romanized in Cantonese as Kongmoon, is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province in southern China. As of the 2020 census, its three urban districts, plus Heshan City being conurbated, with 2,657,662 inhabitant ...
(Kongmoon) located southwest of Guangzhou, was the language of most of the 19th-century emigrants from Guangdong to Southeast Asia and North America. Most later migrants have been speakers of
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding a ...
.
Yue varieties are not
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...
with other
varieties of Chinese
Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of mai ...
. They are among the most
conservative varieties with regard to the final consonants and tonal categories of
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
, but have lost several distinctions in the initial consonants and medial glides that other Chinese varieties have retained.
Naming
The prototypical use of the name ''Cantonese'' in English is for the
Yue variety of Guangzhou (Canton), but it is also used for Yue as a whole. To avoid confusion, academic texts may call the primary branch of Chinese "Yue",
[Ethnologue: "Yue Chinese"; "Yue" or older "Yüeh" in the OED; ISO code ''yue''] following the
Mandarin pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
spelling, and either restrict "Cantonese" to its common usage for the Guangzhou variety, or avoid the term "Cantonese" altogether and distinguish Yue from Guangzhou (Canton) dialect.
In Chinese, people of Hong Kong and Macau, as well as
Cantonese immigrants abroad, usually call their language ''Gwóngdūng wá'' (廣東話) "speech of Guangdong". The people of Guangdong and Guangxi also use the term ''Yuht Yúh'' (粵語) "Yue language" and the term ''baahk wá'' (), as for example in an expression like "南寧白話", which means the "''baak waa'' of Nanning".
History
The area of China south of the
Nanling Mountains, known as the
Lingnan (roughly modern
Guangxi
Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam ...
and
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...
), was originally home to peoples known to the Chinese as the
Hundred Yue (Baiyue). Large-scale Han Chinese migration to the area began after the
Qin conquest of the region in 214 BC. Successive waves of immigration followed at times of upheaval in Northern and Central China, such as the collapse of the
Han,
Tang
Tang or TANG most often refers to:
* Tang dynasty
* Tang (drink mix)
Tang or TANG may also refer to:
Chinese states and dynasties
* Jin (Chinese state) (11th century – 376 BC), a state during the Spring and Autumn period, called Tang (唐) ...
and
Song
A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetiti ...
dynasties. The most popular route was via the
Xiang River
The Xiang River is the chief river of the Lake Dongting drainage system of the middle Yangtze, the largest river in Hunan Province, China. It is the 2nd largest tributary (after Min River) in terms of surface runoff, the 5th largest tribut ...
, which the Qin had connected to the
Li River
The Li River or Li Jiang () is the name for the upper reaches of the Gui River in northwestern Guangxi, China. It is part of the Xijiang River system in the Pearl River Basin. The river flows from Xing'an County to Pingle County, where the ka ...
by the
Lingqu Canal
The Lingqu () is a canal in Xing'an County, near Guilin, in the northwestern corner of Guangxi, China. It connects the Xiang River (which flows north into the Yangtze) with the Li River (which flows south into the Gui River and Xijiang), a ...
, and then into the valley of the
Xi Jiang
The Xi River (; ) or Si-Kiang is the western tributary of the Pearl River in southern China. It is formed by the confluence of the Gui and Xun Rivers in Wuzhou, Guangxi. It originates from the eastern foot of the Maxiong Mountain in Qujing C ...
(West River). A secondary route followed the
Gan River and then the
Bei Jiang (North River) into eastern Guangdong. Yue-speakers were later joined by
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
-speakers following the North River route, and
Min
Min or MIN may refer to:
Places
* Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China
** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian
* Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China
* Min River (Fujian)
* Min River (Sichuan)
* Mineola (Amtr ...
-speakers arriving by sea.
After the fall of Qin, the Lingnan area was part of the independent state of
Nanyue for about a century, before being incorporated in the Han empire in 111 BC. After the Tang dynasty collapsed, much of the area became part of the state of
Southern Han, one of the longest-lived states of the
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (), from 907 to 979, was an era of political upheaval and division in 10th-century Imperial China. Five dynastic states quickly succeeded one another in the Central Plain, and more than a dozen concu ...
, between 917 and 971.
Large waves of Chinese migration throughout succeeding Chinese dynasties assimilated huge numbers of Yue aborigines, with the result that today's Southern Han Chinese Yue-speaking population is descended from both groups. The colloquial layers of Yue varieties contain elements influenced by the
Tai languages
The Tai or Zhuang–Tai languages ( th, ภาษาไท or , transliteration: or ) are a branch of the Kra–Dai language family. The Tai languages include the most widely spoken of the Tai–Kadai languages, including Standard Thai or S ...
formerly spoken widely in the area and still spoken by people such as the
Zhuang or the
Dong.
Rise of Cantonese
The port city of
Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, sou ...
lies in the middle of
Pearl River Delta, with access to the interior via the West River, North River and
East River
The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Quee ...
, which all converge at the delta. It has been the economic centre of the Lingnan region since Qin times, when it was an important shipbuilding centre. By 660, it was the largest port in China, part of a trade network stretching as far as Arabia. During the
Southern Song
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
, it also became the cultural centre of the region. Like many other Chinese varieties it developed a distinct literary layer associated with the local tradition of reading the classics. The Guangzhou dialect (Cantonese) was used in the popular ''Yuèōu'', ''Mùyú'' and ''Nányīn'' folksong genres, as well as
Cantonese opera.
There was also a small amount of vernacular literature, written with Chinese characters extended with a number of non-traditional characters for Cantonese words.
Guangzhou became the centre of rapidly expanding foreign trade after the
maritime ban was lifted, with the British
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...
establishing a
chamber of commerce
A chamber of commerce, or board of trade, is a form of business network. For example, a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to ...
in the city in 1715.
The ancestors of most of the Han Chinese population of
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...
came from Guangzhou after the territory was ceded to Britain in 1842. As a result,
Hong Kong Cantonese, the most widely spoken language in Hong Kong and Macau, is an offshoot of the Guangzhou dialect. The popularity of Cantonese-language media,
Cantopop and the
Cinema of Hong Kong has since led to substantial exposure of Cantonese to China and the rest of Asia. On the Mainland, the national policy is to promote
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standa ...
, which is also the medium of instruction in schools. The place of local Cantonese language and culture remains contentious. In 2010, a
controversial proposal to switch some programming on Guangzhou local television from Cantonese to Mandarin was abandoned following widespread backlash accompanied by public protests.
Languages and dialects
Yue languages are spoken in the southern provinces of
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...
and
Guangxi
Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam ...
, an area long dominated culturally and economically by the city of
Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, sou ...
(Canton) at the delta of the
Pearl River. The
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding a ...
variety, also spoken in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...
and
Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...
, is the prestige variety of Yue.
The influence of Guangzhou has spread westward along the Pearl River system, so that, for example, the speech of the city of
Wuzhou some upstream in Guangxi is much more similar to that of Guangzhou than dialects of coastal districts that are closer but separated from the city by hilly terrain. One of these coastal languages,
Taishanese, is the most common Yue variety among overseas communities. Yue varieties are not totally mutually intelligible with one another.
Classification
In
Yuan Jiahua
Yuan Jiahua (, ; January 19034 September 1980) was a Chinese linguist and dialectologist from Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu province. He graduated from the English Department of Peking University in 1932, worked as an editor in the North Shanghai New Boo ...
's dialect manual (1962), Yue dialects were divided into five groups:
*
Yuehai
Yuehai () is the main branch of Yue Chinese, spoken in the Pearl River Delta of the province of Guangdong, as well as Hong Kong and Macau. It is commonly called Cantonese, though that name is more precisely applied to the Guangzhou topolect o ...
, covering the
Pearl River Delta and
Xi River valley.
*
Siyi (''Seiyap'' "four counties"), in the coastal prefecture of
Jiangmen
Jiangmen (), alternately romanized in Cantonese as Kongmoon, is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province in southern China. As of the 2020 census, its three urban districts, plus Heshan City being conurbated, with 2,657,662 inhabitant ...
to the southwest of Guangzhou.
* Gao–Lei, in southwestern Guangdong.
*
Qin–Lian (''Hamlim'') in southern
Guangxi
Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam ...
.
* Guinan, in southwestern Guangxi.
In the ''
Language Atlas of China'', some varieties spoken in western Guangxi formerly classified as Yue are placed in a separate
Pinghua group.
The remaining Yue dialects are divided into seven groups.
Three groups are found in the watershed of the
Pearl River:
* Guangfu () includes
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding a ...
proper, spoken in
Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, sou ...
,
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...
and
Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...
, as well as the dialects of surrounding areas in the
Pearl River Delta such as
Zhongshan,
Foshan
Foshan (, ), alternately romanized as Fatshan, is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, China. The entire prefecture covers and had a population of 9,498,863 as of the 2020 census. The city is part of the western side of the ...
,
Dongguan,
Zhuhai
Zhuhai (, ; Yale: ''Jyūhói''), also known as Chuhai is a prefecture-level city located on the west bank of Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern Guangdong province, People's Republic of China, on the southeastern edge of P ...
and
Shenzhen
Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern provi ...
, and in southern parts of the inland prefectures of
Zhaoqing and
Qingyuan and in parts of Guangxi such as the city of
Wuzhou.
*
Gou–Lou (''Ngau–Lau'') dialects are spoken in inland areas of western Guangdong and eastern Guangxi, and include the dialect of
Yulin (Bobai).
*
Yong–Xun (''Yuhng–Cham'') is spoken mainly in the
Yong–
Yu–
Xun valley in Guangxi, including the provincial capital
Nanning.
The remaining four groups are found in coastal areas:
*
Siyi (Sze Yap) dialects are spoken in the coastal prefecture of
Jiangmen
Jiangmen (), alternately romanized in Cantonese as Kongmoon, is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province in southern China. As of the 2020 census, its three urban districts, plus Heshan City being conurbated, with 2,657,662 inhabitant ...
to the southwest of Guangzhou. They include the
Taishan variety, also known as
Taishanese, which was ubiquitous in American
Chinatowns before the 1970s.
*
Gao–Yang dialects are spoken in areas of southwestern Guangdong such as
Yangjiang and
Lianjiang.
*
Wu–Hua is spoken mainly in western Guangdong around
Wuchuan and
Huazhou.
*
Qin–Lian dialects are spoken in the southern Guangxi areas of
Beihai,
Qinzhou and
Fangcheng.
Anne Yue-Hashimoto has proposed an alternative classification based on a wider sampling of features:
* Pearl River Delta
** Northern
***
Sanyi–Zhaoqing: dialects of
Foshan
Foshan (, ), alternately romanized as Fatshan, is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, China. The entire prefecture covers and had a population of 9,498,863 as of the 2020 census. The city is part of the western side of the ...
and southeast
Zhaoqing
*** Interior: western part of the Pearl River catchment, including the ''Atlass Gou–Lou and southern
Pinghua dialects.
** Guangfu
*** Core:
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding a ...
proper (Guangzhou,
Hong Kong Cantonese)
*** Interior: Gao–Yang dialects of
Maoming
Maoming, alternately romanized as Mowming, is a prefecture-level city located in southwestern Guangdong province, China. Facing the South China Sea to the city's south, Maoming city borders Zhanjiang to the west, Yangjiang to the east, and Y ...
and the Yong–Xun dialects of
Nanning and
Guiping
Guiping () is a county-level city in eastern Guangxi, China. It is under the administration of Guigang City, located at the confluence of the Qian and Yu rivers, which are the Xi River's primary north and south tributaries, respectively.
Nam ...
.
** Southern
*** Zhongshan, including
Shiqi dialect
*** Guan–Lian: dialects of the east delta region (
Dongguan and the
New Territories
The New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of Hong Kong. Historically, it ...
) as well as the coastal Guangxi dialects classified as Qin–Lian in the ''Atlas''.
*** Interior: Huazhou, Wuchuan, Yulin
* Wuyi–Liangyang
** Wuyi
*** Xin–En: Xinhui, Taishan, Enping and the neighbouring
Doumen District.
*** Kai-He: Kaiping and Heshan.
** Liangyang:
Yangjiang and
Yangchun (the eastern part of the ''Atlass Gao–Yang area)
The
Dapeng dialect is a Cantonese-Hakka mixed language spoken by 3,000 to 5,500 people in Dapeng, Shenzhen.
Cantonese
The Guangzhou (Canton) dialect of ''Yuehai'', usually called "Cantonese", is the
prestige dialect
Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.)
Prestige may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Films
* ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnet ...
of Guangdong province and social standard of Yue. It is the most widely spoken dialect of Yue and is an
official language of Hong Kong and of Macau, alongside English and Portuguese respectively. It is the ''
lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' of not only
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...
province but also of overseas Cantonese emigrants, though in many areas abroad it is numerically second to the
Taishanese dialect of Yue.
By law,
Mandarin (''Putonghua'' or ''guoyu'') is the standard language of mainland China and
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...
and is taught nearly universally as a supplement to local languages such as Cantonese in Guangdong and Guangxi. In Guangzhou, many distinctively Yue vocabulary items have been replaced with Cantonese pronunciations of corresponding ''Putonghua'' terms.
Cantonese 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".
It is the oral language of instruction in Chinese schools in Hong Kong and Macau, and is used extensively in Cantonese-speaking households. Cantonese-language media (Hong Kong films, television serials, and
Cantopop), which exist in 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. Colloquial Hong Kong Cantonese often incorporates English words due to historical British influences.
Most ''
wuxia
( ), which literally means "martial heroes", is a genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists in ancient China. Although is traditionally a form of historical fiction, its popularity has caused it to be adapted ...
'' films from Canton are filmed originally in Cantonese and then dubbed or subtitled in Mandarin,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
, or both.
Taishanese
When the Chinese government removed the prohibition on emigration in the mid-19th century, many people from rural areas in the coastal regions of Fujian and Guangdong emigrated to Southeast Asia and North America. Until the late 20th century, the vast majority of Chinese immigrants to North America came from the
Siyi (four counties) to the southwest of Guangzhou.
The speech of this region, particularly the Taishan dialect, is thus the most common Yue variety in these areas.
It is only partially understood by speakers of Cantonese.
Phonology
Yue varieties are among the most
conservative of Chinese varieties regarding the final consonants and tonal categories of
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
, so that the rhymes of Tang poetry are clearer in Yue dialects than elsewhere. However they have lost several distinctions in the initial consonants and medial vowels that other Chinese varieties have retained.
Initials and medials
In addition to aspirated and unaspirated voiceless initials, Middle Chinese had a series of voiced initials, but voicing has been lost in Yue and most other modern Chinese varieties apart from
Wu and
Old Xiang
Old Xiang, also known as Lou-Shao (娄邵片 / 婁邵片), is a conservative Xiang Chinese language. It is spoken in the central areas of Hunan where it has been to some extent isolated from the neighboring Chinese languages, Southwestern Manda ...
.
In the Guangfu, Siyi and Gao–Yang subgroups, these initials have yielded aspirated consonants in the level and rising tones, and unaspirated consonants in the departing and entering tones.
These initials are uniformly unaspirated in Gou–Lou varieties and uniformly aspirated in Wu–Hua.
In many Yue varieties, including Cantonese, Middle Chinese has become or in most words; in Taishanese, has also changed to , for example, in the native name of the dialect, "Hoisan".
In Siyi and eastern Gao–Yang, Middle Chinese has become a
voiceless lateral fricative .
Most Yue varieties have merged the Middle Chinese
retroflex sibilants with the
alveolar sibilants, in contrast with
Mandarin dialects, which have generally maintained the distinction. For example, the words ''jiāng'' and ''zhāng'' are distinguished in Mandarin, but in modern Cantonese they have the same sound, ''jeung1''.
Many Mandarin varieties, including
Beijing dialect
The Beijing dialect (), also known as Pekingese and Beijingese, is the prestige dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. It is the phonological basis of Standard Chinese, the official language in the People's Republic of ...
, have a third sibilant series, formed through a merger of palatalized alveolar sibilants and velars, but this is a recent innovation, which has not affected Yue and other Chinese varieties. For example, 晶, 精, 經 and 京 are all pronounced as ''jīng'' in Mandarin, but in Cantonese the first pair is pronounced ''jīng'', and the second pair ''gīng''. The earlier pronunciation is reflected in historical Mandarin romanizations, such as "Peking" (
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...
), "Kiangsi" (
Jiangxi
Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...
) and "Tientsin" (
Tianjin
Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...
).
Some Yue speakers, such as many Hong Kong Cantonese speakers born after World War II, merge with , but Taishanese and most other Yue varieties preserve the distinction.
Younger Cantonese speakers also tend not to distinguish between and the zero initial, though this distinction is retained in most Yue dialects.
Yue varieties retain the initial in words where Late Middle Chinese shows a shift to a labiodental consonant, realized in most Northern varieties of Chinese as .
Nasals can be independent syllables in Yue words, e.g. Cantonese ''ńgh'' (五) "five", and ''m̀h'' (唔) "not", although Middle Chinese did not have syllables of this type.
In most Yue varieties (except for
Tengxian
Teng County or Tengxian (; za, Dwngz Yen) is a county of eastern Guangxi, China. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Wuzhou. , it had a population of 1,125,264 residing in an area of . The county is divided into a nort ...
), the rounded medial has merged with the following vowel to form a
monophthong, except after velar initials.
In most analyses velars followed by are treated as
labio-velars.
Most Yue varieties have retained the Middle Chinese palatal medial, but in Cantonese it has also been lost to monophthongization, yielding a variety of vowels.
Final consonants and tones
Middle Chinese syllables could end with glides or , nasals , or , or stops , or . Syllables with vocalic or nasal endings could occur with one of three tonal contours, called level (''píng'' 平), rising (''shàng'' 上) or departing (''qù'' 去). Syllables with final stops were traditionally treated as a fourth tone category, the
entering tone (''rù'' 入), because the stops were distributed in the same way as the corresponding final nasals.
While northern and central varieties have lost some of the Middle Chinese final consonants, they are retained by most southern Chinese varieties, though sometimes affected by sound shifts. They are most faithfully preserved in Yue dialects.
Final stops have disappeared entirely in most Mandarin dialects, including the Beijing-based standard, with the syllables distributed across the other tones.
For example, the characters , , , , , , , , , and are all pronounced ''yì'' in Mandarin, but they are all different in Yue (Cantonese ''jeoi6'', ''ngat6'', ''ngai6'', ''jik1'', ''jik6'', ''ji3'', ''ji6'', ''ai3'', ''jap1'', and ''jat6'', respectively).
Similarly, in Mandarin dialects the Middle Chinese final has merged with , but the distinction is maintained in southern varieties of Chinese such as
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
,
Min
Min or MIN may refer to:
Places
* Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China
** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian
* Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China
* Min River (Fujian)
* Min River (Sichuan)
* Mineola (Amtr ...
and Yue.
For example, Cantonese has ''taahm'' (譚) and ''tàahn'' (壇) versus Mandarin ''tán'', ''yìhm'' (鹽) and ''yìhn'' (言) versus Mandarin ''yán'', ''tìm'' (添) and ''tìn'' (天) versus Mandarin ''tiān'', and ''hàhm'' (含) and ''hòhn'' (寒) versus Mandarin ''hán''.
Middle Chinese is described in contemporary dictionaries as having
four tones
This article summarizes the phonology (the sound system, or in more general terms, the pronunciation) of Standard Chinese (Standard Mandarin).
Standard Chinese phonology is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. Actual production varies w ...
, where the fourth category, the entering tone, consists of syllables with final stops.
Many modern Chinese varieties contain traces of a split of each of these four tones into two registers, an upper or ''yīn'' register from voiceless initials and a lower or ''yáng'' register from voiced initials.
Mandarin dialects retain the register distinction only in the level tone, yielding the first and second tones of the standard language (corresponding to the first and fourth tones in Cantonese), but have merged several of the other categories.
Most Yue dialects have retained all eight categories, with a further split of the upper entering tone conditioned by vowel length, as also found in neighbouring Tai dialects.
A few dialects spoken in Guangxi, such as the
Bobai dialect, have also split the lower entering tone.
Vocabulary
While most Chinese varieties form compounds consisting of a qualifier followed by a qualified element, Yue dialects use the reverse order. For example, the Standard Chinese word for "guest" is 客人 ''kèrén'' "guest-person", but the same morphemes are interchanged in Cantonese ''jɐn ha:k'', Taishanese ''ŋin hak'' and
Tengxian
Teng County or Tengxian (; za, Dwngz Yen) is a county of eastern Guangxi, China. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Wuzhou. , it had a population of 1,125,264 residing in an area of . The county is divided into a nort ...
''jən hɪk''. This is generally attributed to the influence of
Tai languages
The Tai or Zhuang–Tai languages ( th, ภาษาไท or , transliteration: or ) are a branch of the Kra–Dai language family. The Tai languages include the most widely spoken of the Tai–Kadai languages, including Standard Thai or S ...
, in which modifiers normally follow nouns.
Gender markers for nouns are also suffixed, as in other southern varieties.
Some Yue dialects, including Cantonese, can use the same word ''bīn-go'' (), meaning "which one", for both "who" and "which".
Other dialects, including Taishanese, use ''sŭe'' (, cognate with the word used in Mandarin) for "who", and words meaning "which one" for "which".
See also
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Cantonese grammar
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Chinese input methods for computers
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Lingnan culture
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Written Cantonese
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Written Chinese
Written Chinese () comprises Chinese characters used to represent the Chinese language. Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary. Rather, the writing system is roughly logosyllabic; that is, a character generally r ...
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Languages of China
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List of varieties of Chinese
The following is a list of Sinitic languages and their dialects. For a traditional dialectological overview, see also varieties of Chinese.
Classification
'Chinese' is a blanket term covering the many different varieties spoken across China. ...
References
Citations
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Further reading
*詹伯慧 & 张日昇 (1987). 珠江三角洲方言字音对照. Guangzhou: 广东人民出版社. .
*詹伯慧 & 张日昇 (1988). 珠江三角洲方言词汇对照. Guangzhou: 广东人民出版社. .
*詹伯慧 & 张日昇 (1990). 珠江三角洲方言综述. Guangzhou: 广东人民出版社. .
*詹伯慧 & 张日昇 (1994). 粤北十县市粤方言调查报告. Guangzhou: 暨南大学出版社. .
*詹伯慧 & 张日昇 (1998). 粤西十县市粤方言调查报告. Guangzhou: 暨南大学出版社. .
*谢建猷 (2007). 广西汉语方言研究. Nanning: 广西人民出版社. .
*广西壮族自治区地方志编纂委员会 (1998). 广西通志: 汉语方言志(2册). Nanning: 广西人民出版社. , .
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External links
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Chinese languages in Singapore
Subject–verb–object languages
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