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Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese (, ; originally known as , ),〔()〕〔() Cantonese program at Chinese University of Hong Kong, designating standard Cantonese as 廣東話〕 is the dialect of Yue Chinese spoken in the vicinity of ''Canton'' (Guangzhou) in southern China. It is the traditional prestige dialect of Yue. Cantonese is the language of the Cantonese people. Inside mainland China, it is a ''lingua franca'' in Guangdong Province and some neighbouring areas, such as the eastern part of Guangxi Province. It is the majority language of Hong Kong, Macau and the Pearl River Delta region of China. It is also traditionally the most spoken variety of Chinese among overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia (most notably in Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore) and the Western world, especially Canada, Australia, Western Europe, and the United States. While the term ''Cantonese'' refers narrowly to the prestige variety described in this article, it is often used in a broader sense for the entire Yue branch of Chinese, including related dialects such as Taishanese. When standard Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified as one variant, there are about 80 million total speakers.〔Grasso, J.F. ''The Everything Speaking Mandarin Book''. Foreign Language Study, 2009.〕 Cantonese is viewed as part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares much vocabulary with Mandarin Chinese, the two varieties are not mutually intelligible because of pronunciation, grammatical, and also lexical differences. Sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. The use of vocabulary in Cantonese also tends to have more historic roots. One of the most notable differences between Cantonese and Mandarin is how the spoken word is written; with Mandarin the spoken word is written as such, whereas with Cantonese there may not be a direct written word matching what was said.〔(Cantonese: a comprehensive grammar, p.5 ), Stephen Matthews and Virginia Yip, Routledge, 1994〕〔(Cantonese as written language: the growth of a written Chinese vernacular, p. 48 ), Donald B. Snow, Hong Kong University Press, 2004〕 This results in the situation in which a Mandarin and Cantonese text look almost the same, but are pronounced differently. ==Names== In English, the term "Cantonese" is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton, which is the traditional English name of Guangzhou. This narrow sense may be specified as "Canton language" or "Guangzhou language" in English.〔Ramsey and Ethnologue, respectively〕 However, "Cantonese" may also refer to the primary branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang; this broader usage may be specified as "Yue" (; ). In this article, "Cantonese" is used for Cantonese proper. Historically, speakers called this variety "Canton speech" or "Guangzhou speech" (; ,〔Jyutping: gwong2 zau1 waa2; Yale: Gwóngjàu Wah〕), although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people also call it "provincial capital speech" (; )〔Jyutping: saang2 sing4 waa2〕 or "plain speech" (; ).〔Jyutping: baak6 waa2〕 In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, the language is referred to as "Guangdong speech" (; ,〔Jyutping: gwong2 dung1 waa2; Yale: Gwóngdūng Wah〕) or simply "Chinese" (,〔Jyutping: zung1 man2; Yale: Jūngmán〕).〔The Hong Kong Observatory is one of the examples of the Hong Kong Government officially adopting the name "廣東話": (Hong Kong Observatory - Audio Web Page )〕 In mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, it is often called "Standard Cantonese" (; ).〔Jyutping: biu1zeon2 jyut6jyu5; Guangdong Romanization: biu1 zên2 yud6 yu5〕 It has also been called Guangfu and Metropolitan Cantonese.〔Luk, Bernard H. K. "The Chinese Communities of Toronto: Their Languages and Mass Media." In: ''(The Chinese in Ontario )''. Polyphony: The Bulletin of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario. Volume 15, 2000. Start p. (46 ). CITED: p. (48 ) ((Archive )).〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cantonese」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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