The Cantonese
This is going to be a series and what sparked off this topic was a recent meet-up with some friends. Over our durian dessert time after a sumptuous dinner, our conversation turned towards Languages and my dear friend Mary said that Cantonese is not a Language but a dialect! As far as I know, Cantonese is considered a Language!
Later that week I did some research and from Wiki, Cantonese is considered a Language but at the same time depending on view-point, it is also considered a Dialect! So, as far as I am concern, since Wiki labeled it as Language under the ISO 639-3 for Languages, I considered Cantonese a Language under the Sinitic Group. Below is an excerpt from Wiki.
The issue of whether Cantonese in the broader sense (Yue) should be regarded as a language in its own right or as a dialect of a Chinese language depends on conceptions of what a language is. Like the other primary branches of Chinese, Cantonese is considered to be a dialect of a single Chinese language for ethnic and cultural reasons, but is also considered a language in its own right because it is mutually unintelligible with other varieties of Chinese.
Further to the above it is my personal belief that Cantonese (perhaps not in the current modern form) was spoken or used way back to Qin, Yuan, Song, Ming, Qing Dynasties. It was during the Qing Dynasty that Mandarin was popularized and made the National Language in China right up to now!
I am a Cantonese and my parents migrated to Malaya then from Guandong or Kwong Tong in Cantonese. There are indeed quite a bit to share on this and hope to post more of my own research in days ahead.
Related Posts:-
I thing the Hongkies read it in school as a language. I am Hokkien and look at Cantonese as a dialect. ” Ngo hai fukin yan “
Well to each his own Mohlee! Dialect or Language, really no big deal here! haha!