The Chinese language serves as a means of communication for a huge mass of people. It is spoken by 95% of the Chinese population, as well as representatives of the Chinese people living in other Asian countries: Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia. According to the latest data, this language is considered their native language by more than a billion people on the planet (for English, this figure is half that).
But if in Russia representatives of different regions of the country understand each other perfectly, in China everything is different. The Chinese language has a huge number of dialects, which differ so much that many linguists consider them as separate languages. Residents of different provinces often cannot even keep up a conversation on everyday topics.
To resolve this situation, the authorities introduced an official language in 1955, which was adopted by the northern dialect of Putonghua (Beijing dialect). The choice was due to the fact that speakers of the northern branch of dialects accounted for 70% of the country's population, and among them were residents of the capital. Putonghua was actively introduced into everyday life: it was taught in schools and universities, and it was broadcast on television.
However, due to the fact that most of the country's population is made up of peasants, dialects continue to actively exist. A special mentality played a role here: the cult of ancestors and the cult of history have always flourished in China. Every dialect is part of a centuries-old culture, and to abandon it would be tantamount to death.
Linguists divide the territory of China into two large dialect zones: northern and southern. The north has always been a single whole and was the arena for historical events, while in the south everything was quiet, but at the same time it was a separate isolated area. This can explain the relative similarity of the dialects of the northern branch, the speakers of which, at the very least, can explain themselves to each other, which cannot be said about the southern dialects.
The main reason for the formation of many dialects was the numerous migrations of the Chinese in search of a quiet life and their contacts with neighboring peoples. In the process of communication, there was an active exchange of vocabulary, elements of phonetics and writing. The speakers of ancient dialects communicated with each other and with representatives of other peoples, involuntarily forming new linguistic systems.
Differences in the language systems of different dialects lie in the field of phonetics, vocabulary, and, to some extent, grammar. That's why when oral communication between residents of different parts of the country comes to a dead end, there is a way out - to explain in writing. Why are the speech features that formed different groups dialects not reflected in the written language of the Chinese?
The Chinese language has been written for about 4 millennia. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that all the metamorphoses that it has undergone during its existence have nothing to do with oral speech... The pronunciation of hieroglyphs under the influence of various factors changed, but their style remained unchanged. Due to this, numerous dialects of the territory of China have a single written system.
The earliest source of ancient Chinese writing is the inscriptions on fortune-telling stones, first discovered in Henan province in 1899. They were made with a chisel and represented graphic elements that are images of objects, people, animals. The folding features characteristic of the modern writing of hieroglyphs were absent. The difficulty was that there were a lot of variants of the style of the same hieroglyph.
All subsequent periods of the development of the hieroglyphic system of the Chinese language pursued the goal of simplifying the outline of signs, as well as introducing a single letter throughout China. It was possible to cope with this task during the reign of the Qin dynasty. In 221 BC. Emperor Qin Shihuang unified the country after the internecine wars and began work on the unification of writing. According to the researchers, at the same time the brush was invented, which is used for writing to this day.
At the beginning of the 20th century, it was proposed to simplify the structure of hieroglyphs, citing the fact that an overly complex script is the reason for the weak development of the economy. In 1964, simplified characters became official, and now they are official letters throughout China.
A unified writing system ensured a common literary tradition, and that is why Chinese dialects did not receive the status of separate languages.
Most linguists recognize the traditional classification, according to which there are 7 dialect groups. These include:
In recent years, an increasing number of researchers in the world recognize 3 more groups: pinghua, jin and anhui. There are also dialects that are not included in any classification, they are mixed languages.
This is the largest group in terms of the number of speakers (about 800 million) and the covered territory. It includes the Peking dialect of Putonghua, adopted in the 50-60s. 20th century for the official language of China, Taiwan and Singapore. Western scholars call it Mandarin: guanhua is translated from Chinese as "an official letter", and mandarin officials are called guan. Many scientists refer this name to the entire group.
Guanhua dialects have several branches depending on geographic location... Due to historical factors, they have a lot in common and are mutually understandable.
The Gan dialects are spoken by the inhabitants of the province of the central and northern parts of Jiangxi, as well as the inhabitants of some parts of other provinces: Fujian, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan. This group includes about 2% of the Chinese, which is more than 20 million people.
This branch also spreads in Jiangxi province, but only in its southern part, as well as in the central and northwestern regions of Guangdong province and in western Fujiang. There are speakers of this group in Taiwan and Hainan. In the west, this branch is recognized as a separate language.
Phonetically, the Hakka dialects have much in common with the Middle Chinese language. The standard among them is the Meixian dialect, common in Guangdong province, whose authorities in 1960 proposed a system for transliterating it using the Latin alphabet. Hakka speakers make up 2.5% of the total Chinese speakers.
This group is considered one of the oldest among Sinologists. Min is the second name of Fujian province, it is still used today. The Ming languages cover southeastern China (mostly Fujian, as well as eastern parts of Guangdong), including the islands of Hainan and Taiwan. Geographically, this group is divided into southern and northern. The Taiwanese dialect has the largest number of speakers.
One of the largest groups in the Chinese language, in terms of the number of speakers, second only to Mandarin (8% of the population), some researchers assign it the status of a language. This branch is sometimes referred to as the Shanghai dialect. Scope of distribution: most of the territory of Zhejiang province, Shanghai city, southern regions of Jiangsu province. There are speakers of the Wu group in some areas of Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces.
The phonetics of this branch of dialects is characterized by softness and lightness. Of the dialects, Suzhou and Shanghai are considered the most popular.
The Xiang Branch covers about 5% of the country's Chinese-speaking population. It is divided into Novossian and Oldosian dialects. The latter is of great interest to Sinologists. The New Xian language has undergone changes under the influence of Mandarin, whose speakers surround the area of its distribution from three sides. Of the sub-dialects, the dialect of the city of Changsha is the most typical.
The group also bears the name of one of the dialects - Cantonese. The word "canton" comes from French, so the British in the era of colonization called Guangzhou. The distribution area of the Yue languages is the Guangdong province and some regions adjacent to it. The main one among the dialects is Guangzhou.
These branches do not receive a separate status for all researchers; they are usually included in the groups of the traditional classification. The Pinghua dialects are part of the Cantonese dialect and are represented by the Nanning dialect.
As for the Anhui group, the opinions of the researchers differ. Some attribute it to the Gan group, others are of the opinion that it belongs to the northern dialects, and still others include it in the U. Sometimes Anhui dialects are combined with the Hakka group.
Jin or Shanxi are usually referred to as northern dialects. Researcher Li Rong proposed to separate them into a separate group in 1985, citing the presence of features uncharacteristic for Guanhua. This concept has found both supporters and opponents; there is no consensus on this issue yet.
The division of the Chinese language into dialectal groups is mainly due to geographical or historical factors; the names for them were often chosen according to the same principle, which sometimes differed from the classification of researchers.
Dialect groups have all the criteria to have the status of separate languages, but a single script for the whole of China ensures the integrity of the Chinese language. With the introduction of Mandarin as an official means of communication, many began to consider it a real language, and all other groups - dialects, which, being a huge layer of historical and cultural heritage, are carefully preserved by their carriers.
The Wenzhou dialect (Chinese. Ex. ‰ It is spoken in the city of Wenzhou, located in the southern part of Zhejiang province in southeastern China. In its phonetics, vocabulary and grammar, the dialect differs significantly from the official Mandarin Chinese and is incomprehensible to other Chinese. At the same time, within the dialect itself, there are quite strong phonetic differences between the dialects of individual counties and cities, the Ruyan dialect, the Yueqing dialect, etc. are distinguished. counties that are part of it. The Wenzhou dialect in the broadest sense has about 5 million speakers.
Due to its complexity, the Wenzhou dialect is considered one of the most difficult to learn in China.
The place of the dialect in the linguistic picture of China The Wenzhou dialect is the representative idiom of the South Wu dialects. In China, it is called a "linguistic fossil" because a lot of the ancient Chinese language has been preserved in it. While Mandarin Chinese was greatly influenced by the languages of the northern nomadic peoples, and the North Wu dialects, in turn, were influenced by the official northern Guanhua, it is in the South Wu dialects, due to geographical reasons, that ancient Chinese phonetic and other norms are best preserved.
The Wenzhou dialect is closely related to the Old Ming, Old Chu, and Old Jiangdong languages, and is of particular importance to researchers of the historical phonetics and historical linguistics of the Chinese language. In addition, Wenzhou is the birthplace of South China opera nanxi, and its plays contain many Wenzhouisms. Since Nanxi opera has had a huge impact on Yuan plays, Yuan and Ming novels, researchers of these works also have to resort to the help of the Wenzhou dialect.
Wenzhou dialect tones:
Dialect history
The peoples who inhabited the present territory of Wenzhou before the unification of China under the rule of the Qin dynasty were part of the group that the Chinese called the one hundred Yue peoples. They spoke the ancient Yue language (refers to the Dong-Thai (or Tai-Kadai languages), which was also widespread in the kingdom of U. , Shan, Lao and Thai.There are still many Thai Kadai traces in modern Wenzhou.
In 333 BC. NS. the kingdom of Chu defeated Yue and strengthened its power over the lands of Wu and Yue, until in 221 BC. NS. China under its rule was not united by the Qin dynasty, whose rule lasted 112 years. Since the Chus held a dominant position in Wu and Yue, the East Chu dialect soon merged with the Uyue language and turned into a new kind of Chinese language - the Jiangdong dialect (Jiangdong Ќ]? - literally "east of the river", meaning the Yangtze River) , which is the direct ancestor of the Wu dialect. In the work “Sounds and Interpretations from Huilin” (Chinese Њd-Ф ‰ №?) Of the Tang era, Jiangdong dialects are combined under the name “sounds of Wu and Chu” (Chinese? ‘^” V ‰ №). The more ancient vocabulary of Wenzhou originates precisely in the Jiangdong dialect. The latter also serves as the main source of "vernacular readings" of hieroglyphs in the Wenzhou dialect.
During the Qin and Han dynasties, the Han began to officially develop the territory of Wu and Yue, but the south of the modern Zhejiang province and the modern Fujian province were still under the rule of the Yue people, who founded the kingdoms of Eastern Ou and Mingyue there, which retained their independent position. Despite the fact that during the time of the Han Wudi, the Eastern Ou "moved their inheritance and their people to the Middle Kingdom and they settled between the Yangtze and Huaihe", however, among the settlers there were mainly the princely family and nobility. At this time, more and more Sinicisms penetrated the East Ou dialect, however, the main vocabulary of the Ou-Yue dialects is still the Tai-Kadai vocabulary.
During the Six Dynasties (3rd - 6th centuries AD), the Jiangdong dialect begins to split into Wu and Min. According to the records of the East Jin historian Guo Pu, at this time the inhabitants of Ou and Yue were already speaking an ancient dialect. Since Wenzhou borders on the Ming area, Wenzhou has preserved quite a lot of the characteristic features of the Old Ming.
During the Tang and Song dynasties, the region experienced several major population migrations, especially during the transfer of the capital of the Southern Song, after which the Han population sharply increased in Wenzhou, who arrived from the Middle Plain, brought Chinese culture to Ou and Yue and assimilated the local dialect. Under the influence of the middle-level dialect in Wenzhou, the phenomenon of distinguishing between vernacular and literary readings hieroglyphs. The Song Dynasty Wenzhou dialect was already very close to modern. While the northern dialects of Chinese have undergone multiple changes, Wenzhou has retained many of the characteristics of ancient Chinese, so if you read Tang verses and Sung stanzas in Wenzhou, it will sound much more natural than in modern Mandarin.
Features of the dialect
The phonetics and sentence structure of the Wenzhou dialect are closer to the ancient language. Wenzhou is misunderstood with Mandarin and other Wu dialects. It is very difficult for non-Wenzhou people to understand and study.
Accentuated words and syllables can become breathless and sound voiced.
Nouns are placed before definitions, and verbs are placed before adverbs, that is, directly opposite to the rules of modern Chinese.
For some common words and names, it is impossible to find references in Chinese written sources.
There are still quite a few lexical and grammatical Wenyanisms in the dialect.
Interesting facts Wenzhou dialect phonetic adverb
The complexity of the Wenzhou dialect led to the emergence of a saying in China: "I am not afraid of either heaven or earth, I am only afraid of a Wenzhous who speaks Wenzhouski."
It is believed that during World War II, the Chinese army used the Wenzhou people as "living encryption machines."
According to legend, Mao Zedong tried in every possible way to emphasize his Hunan origin and therefore spoke with his colleagues in the local dialect. It was sometimes difficult, but, in the end, this is not a completely different language, the colleagues reasoned, linguistically adjusting to the leader. A whole science is engaged in dialects, which has already been fairly overgrown with legends and theories, one more colorful than the other, and therefore one should speak about them carefully and carefully, and on them - confidently and more often.
The Chinese language belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family, which, in turn, includes hundreds of local variants of the language, dialects, adverbs and dialects, sometimes phonetically completely different from each other. All this wealth differs, first of all, phonologically, and also to a small extent lexically and syntactically. Even speaking standard putonghua, representatives of different regions use sandhi tones unevenly. For example, matching or matching tones in the official putonghua is most clearly seen in the speech of residents of the southern provinces, especially in the east of Guangdong, which greatly interferes with communication between speakers of different dialectal norms.
Often we say “Chinese” and mean “mandarin”, and when we say “mandarin” we mean “ putonghua ", which, however, is not identical. And this is not accidental, because a group of so-called Peking dialects or Peking dialect, often called Mandarin or Mandarin (66.2% of those using it), is the most widespread of all seven official groups of Chinese dialects, forming the basis of the state language.
Other major branches of dialects such as at(Shanghai, 6.1%), min(Taiwanese, 6.2%) and yue(Cantonese, 4.9%), although they did not become the basis for the generally accepted state Chinese language, they still play a significant role in understanding the history and culture of the Chinese people as multinational, representing a combination of beliefs and traditions of different generations and communities of geographically different regions. It's hard to just close your eyes and imagine that they don't exist.
The reason for the emergence of different linguistic norms in the same territory is simple. The language that spread to the east of the North Chinese plain, thousands of years ago, introduced a linguistic imbalance in the life of the tribes inhabiting the territories that belong to China today: sedentary communities had to switch to the economically more profitable language of neighboring and nomadic tribes and merchants.
Dialects are truly ancient and highly familiar to Chinese society. The first mentions of dialectical variations were found in the text of the treatise "Spring and Autumn", which was compiled in 722-479 BC. NS. In those days, the Zhou dynasty insisted on standardizing the speech of its subjects. A little later, a difference in vocabulary in the regions was noticed, and discussions on the topic of regional variants of pronunciation were recorded in the texts.
In some works, attempts were made to fix the standard pronunciation in order to bring folk speech to a common denominator, which, however, did not seem to be of any importance for the Chinese until the middle of the 20th century, because knowledge of a unified language was important mainly for careers of officials, and they already used their own special language guanhua(官 话, guānhuà).
Since the 1930s, the official language of mainland China, Taiwan, and also one of the four official languages of Singapore has become putonghua... But dialects have not disappeared, moreover, modern scholars, for example, dialectologist Jerry Norman, claim that in modern China there are still hundreds of "mutually incomprehensible" variants of the Chinese language.
Scientific research of dialects of the Chinese language actively developed in the second half of the 20th century, and took place in waves in the 30s, 60s and 80s, when funds were found and the need arose. However, until now, scientists cannot agree on how many dialect groups exist in the Chinese language. In different studies, you can find numbers from 3 to 15 groups, within which local languages are also divided according to various criteria.
In 2007, scientists compared 15 major dialects by objective lexical and phonological criteria, taking into account the interpenetration of adverbs. Thus, they managed to find out that at the global level, there is a strong split between the northern, Hunan and Jiangxi dialect groups on the one hand and the Taiwanese, Hakka and Cantonese groups on the other. An exception was the southern Nanchang version of the Jiangxi dialect, which turned out to be incredibly similar to the northern Hakka. Most of all, the southernmost version of the Shanghai dialect, which is spoken in the city of Wenzhou, turned out to be unlike other dialects. The Sichuan version of the Chinese language was very slightly different from others phonetically, but the word usage was very different.
Today, signs can be seen in public places that read “please express yourself at putonghua; please use standard hieroglyphs ", which have arisen throughout the spread of the official language putonghua(大力 推广 普通话; dàlì tuīguǎng Pǔtōnghuà). However, in everyday life, for example, in Fujian province, it is preferable to use local dialects.
“I don’t think that spreading the ideas of communism really worked that hard through putonghua... My family lived in a small village in Fujian province, and, as my grandmother recalled, everything was retold in the local dialect, because the villagers still could not read, and anyone who spoke to them in putonghua, was perceived as hostile, like a stranger, sorry, ”notes Li Feifei, a saleswoman in a small fruit shop.
Due to its proximity to Hong Kong, where putonghua is used by locals today with great reluctance and only when necessary, the issue of using Cantonese in Guangdong province is most acute. On the one hand, the region seeks to preserve its unique culture, but on the other hand, the ruling top is pursuing a policy of strengthening national identity, which does not fit the use of a language that is not understandable to fellow citizens and party members, say, in the north of the country.
A long-term program for the introduction of a standardized language, as well as the use of a new standard system of romanization of the Chinese language since the 50s of the last century, could not but affect the elimination of illiteracy in the country, the unification of requirements for workers in different fields, and therefore create new opportunities for workers. Research in recent years shows that, for example, only 49% of indigenous Beijing people born after 1980 prefer putonghua local dialect, while 85% of visitors would like their children to learn exactly putonghua.
“I speak poorly putonghua so I couldn't find Good work... Young people are lucky, now putonghua everywhere - and from kindergarten children are surrounded by a useful [language], they can travel around the country without any special obstacles, do business, and with knowledge of only the local dialect, they can only do business at home, ”continues Li Feifei.
Despite the assertions that the listed large dialects and other variants of the Chinese language do not have their own written language, which means they cannot be perceived as full-fledged languages, according to the dialect speakers, on the contrary, such variants deserve not only preservation in a “museum” format, but and learning by young people today.
“We are proud of the Cantonese dialect and try our best to support its use. At home with my son, I speak Cantonese. I hope that he will find a wife for himself, also from “ours,” because a common language is a common culture, "Miss Wang, a high school teacher from Guangzhou, told us.
Modern schools sometimes choose to teach in local dialects. This approach causes a heated discussion in society, which, as a rule, ends with a parent's decision about the need to study and putonghua, and the local dialect, and in some regions also other dialects, but in an informal format.
Managing a multinational state is not easy, you have to look for the golden mean... Indeed, along with widespread and self-supporting popular dialects, there are also endangered ones, the number of speakers of which is about 100 people, or, as “15 households”.
“The Chinese government is now supporting research [aimed at] strengthening the country's position with grants. putonghua although the news constantly shows activities [aimed at] the preservation of dialects. This is all for show. In China, what is not profitable will not be kept. If you are going to publish a dictionary of a dialect, then you have to do it for your own money. In the scientific world, it is customary to write about dialects politely, but slightly detached. I think this is a relic of society, because sooner or later everything ceases to exist, "our interlocutor, Professor W.
We, as outside observers, can only guess how the situation with widespread implementation putonghua and the possible disappearance of local dialects. Considering that a huge number of Chinese citizens and huaqiao live in communities outside China and actively use regional versions of the Chinese language, and the country does not give up hope for their return, then the complete disappearance of such wide layers of language and, accordingly, culture, even in conditions of restrained funding, seems unlikely.
Photo by Jojolantern2000 used for the title illustration.
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Da jia hao, 大家 好! This article will focus on the Chinese dialects. A lot of them. No, there are a lot of them. It is difficult to understand these Chinese noodles, but we will try to understand in general terms where it comes from and what. In this whole situation with a population of 1.5 billion and several dozen dialects, there is one ray of hope for Chinese language learners. This is Mandarin (普通话).
To our linguistic happiness, about 100 years ago, the Chinese realized that it was better for them to speak or at least understand one dialect. The fact is that the dialects of the Chinese language are so different that a southerner and a northerner could not even discuss the weather, let alone more serious things. The statesmen decided to take the Peking dialect (北京 话) from the group of northern dialects as a basis, nevertheless, the capital, the population is large around, many speak Peking. No sooner said than done, and already in 1955 the word "putonghua" acquired an official status and a clear definition. Of course, in all honesty, there is little similarity in the northern dialects, although there is logic in choosing the basis, about 70% of the Chinese population speaks northern dialects.
The Chinese authorities have done everything to introduce Mandarin into everyday life. Now Mandarin is the official language of the state, it is taught in schools and universities in the country, it is used in literature, on television, and is spoken in government circles. And still…
When I watched the central Chinese television for the first time, I realized that the teachers at the university were not cunning at all, explaining the abundance of Chinese dialects. The fact is that during the broadcast of the programs, the characters in Mandarin are creeping, and the announcer also speaks in Putuhua, it would seem, why? And then, that in China there were, are and will be dialects. There is no getting away from it, it is part of the centuries-old Chinese culture, they are as important as boiling water for green tea. And let a peasant who speaks Min Nan Hua (闽南话) from birth in a small southern village of 2 million, after harvesting rice, relax in front of the TV and watch the news, and if he doesn’t understand it by ear, he will surely read the Mandarin Chinese characters from school. ...
Now more about dialects. Most linguists and Sinologists first divide dialects into dialect groups. There are only 7 of them.
But many also distinguish a group of Anhui dialects, Jin and Pinghua.
There are several more dialects in each group, they are mainly divided historically and geographically, for example, in the northern group of dialects there is our favorite Mandarin, Dalian, Dungan (北京 话 ， 普通话, 大连 语 ， 东 干 语) dialects, in the group "Wu "There are, for example, Shanghai, Suzhou dialect, in the group" Yue "(Cantonese) there are dialects of Guangzhou and Hong Kong, in" Ming "there is a Fuzhou dialect. Where they live on the map of China is clear from the name. And don't forget about mixed languages like Linghua, Tanwan, Xianghua, etc.
It is because of such an abundance of dialects that Chinese from different provinces speak Mandarin with an accent, that is, the pronunciation of Mandarin in Beijing is very different from Mandarin, for example, in Fuzhou.
It is difficult to overestimate the need for a good Mandarin tutor. He is important as a speech therapist. Often, the Chinese send their Chinese children to the teachers of the Chinese language (butter !!!) from the age of 3, so that they put the correct pronunciation of the language to the Chinese himself, which once again emphasizes the devilish difficulty of this language. Many young Chinese, going to study at universities, choose exactly those universities where you can polish Mandarin to shine. In China, being a Chinese language teacher is incredibly prestigious and honorable. The language is complicated, but this is a special charm for connoisseurs. A good level of language will help to understand what the Chinese are discussing among themselves during negotiations, and this, in turn, promises to conclude a deal for more favorable terms... Speaking good Mandarin to a foreigner means having unlimited respect from your Chinese colleagues and partners!
According to there are 10 main dialects of the Chinese language in total. I will not rewrite the article here, you yourself can read it on Wikipedia.
Official Chinese, or 普通话 - is the so-called Standard, Common, or “Simple” Chinese. The same dialect of Chinese that, according to the Chinese government, every person with Chinese citizenship should know. Books are published in this dialect, TV announcers speak it, it is taught in all schools in China.
The Mandarin dialect is the Beijing dialect spoken by the people of Beijing. In principle, we can say that pǔtōnghuà is a Mandarin dialect, but there are still several striking differences between Mandarin and pǔtōnghuà.
At first this is the so-called "erization" - 儿 化, érhuà. Beijing residents add the ending 儿 "-er" wherever possible. For example, the adverb "a little", which sounds like "idyen" in pǔtōnghuà, will sound like "idyar" in mandarin. And it will be written in different ways:
idien 一点 yídiǎn on pǔtōnghuà
with the addition of 儿 -er in mandarin - idyar 一点儿 yídiǎnr.
Therefore, if you are not going to live or study in Beijing, you do not need this erization.
Secondly. The tones in tangerine are much more pronounced. Peking people tone the syllables very carefully. But this is rather a plus for language learners.
Thirdly. Mandarin has a lot of different slang expressions that are not used anywhere except in Beijing. And yes, there is erisization in almost all of this slang.
What is the bottom line. If you are not going to go to Beijing, learn the standard pǔtōnghuà. Don't memorize words with erysisation. Knowing pǔtōnghuà, you will be able to communicate with any more or less literate Chinese. Books that promise to teach you how to speak the Mandarin dialect are good for learning, just take the erisis out of there.
In my translated lessons and exercises, I remove erization everywhere, as I consider it unnecessary. Adding it to speech is much easier than retraining what has already been learned.
There is also a dialect that is worth considering - this is the Cantonese dialect. This dialect is spoken in Hong Kong and China, in Guangdong province (southern China). This dialect is also spoken by the majority of Chinese people living overseas in China - in the United States, Great Britain, Australia and Canada. Cantonese is completely different from Mandarin or pǔtōnghuà. It has 6 basic tones (not 4 as in mandarin), a lot of slang and fixed expressions, and much less hissing sounds. So if you are interested in Chinese while living among English speakers, learn Cantonese.
