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Distribution of Chinese dialect groups within the Greater China Region This video explains the differences in pronunciation and vocabulary among Mandarin Dialects (Std. Mandarin, Sichuan Mandarin and NE Mandarin) and Cantonese. The following is a list of Sinitic languages and their dialects.
For example, a person from Wuxi may claim that he speaks Wuxi dialect, even though it is similar to Shanghainese (another Wu dialect). Likewise, a person from Xiaogan may claim that he speaks Xiaogan dialect. Linguistically, Xiaogan dialect is a dialect of Mandarin, but the pronunciation and diction are quite different from spoken Standard Chinese.
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. [39] For example, the words 將; jiāng and 張; zhāng are distinguished in Mandarin, but in modern Cantonese they are both pronounced as jēung.
Scholars say it is closer to ancient Chinese than Mandarin is — a Tang Dynasty poem would sound more like the original if read in Cantonese. The two languages share a common writing system.
Cantonese was the dominant Chinese language of the Chinese Australian community from the time the first ethnic Chinese settlers arrived in the 1850s until the mid-2000s, when a heavy increase in immigration from Mandarin-speakers largely from mainland China led to Mandarin surpassing Cantonese as the dominant Chinese dialect spoken. Cantonese ...
In terms of dialects, a number of Chinese variants are spoken in Brunei such as Hokkien, Hakka, Mandarin, Foochow and Cantonese. Notably, the Chinese community in the capital city of Bandar Seri Begawan mostly speaks Hokkien and Mandarin. Chinese migrants who speak a dialect can also be found to have been clustered in early settlements.
Standard Chinese, known in China as Putonghua, based on the Mandarin dialect of Beijing, [5] is the official national spoken language for the mainland and serves as a lingua franca within the Mandarin-speaking regions (and, to a lesser extent, across the other regions of mainland China).
Besides Mandarin, Cantonese is the only other Chinese language that is widely taught as a foreign language, largely due to the economic and cultural influence of Hong Kong and its widespread usage among significant Overseas Chinese communities. [81]