The Cantonese Language : Fast Facts

Cantonese is spoken by approximately 65 million people in the southern China provinces, Hong Kong and Macao as well as other South East Asian countries like Singapore, and in the other large Chinese communities around the world.

Also called Yue, Cantonese is one of the five major languages in China.

Cantonese is from the Sino-Tibetan family of languages.

The word “Cantonese” originates from the former English name of Guangzhou, which is considered as the area where the language was born in its purest form.

The city of Hong Kong is the contemporary hub of Cantonese culture.

Cantonese is the principal language in Chinese communities abroad owing to the fact that most Chinese immigrants came from Hong Kong.

Cantonese is the language predominantly used for business around southeast Asia.

Colloquial Cantonese is a constantly evolving language, with a large amount of fashionable expressions and slang words.

Cantonese grammar is unexpectedly simple, with no verbs conjugations, and no prefixes or suffixes.

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