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Cantonese: Standard Cantonese
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A main problem for the student of Cantonese is the lack of a widely accepted, standardized transcription system. The second problem are the Chinese characters: Cantonese uses the same system of character as Mandarin, but it often uses different words, which have to be written with different characters. At least this is the case in Hongkong, but in mainland China, Cantonese is written with the exact same characters as Mandarin, though the characters stand for words not actually used in Cantonese. An example may help to clarify this:
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The Cantonese accent in Guangzhou and Hong Kong is considered to be the standard. There are some regional subdialects which share varying degrees of intelligibility with standard Cantonese. Toisanese is one of the more famous of these subdialects.
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Like any dialect, the phonology of Standard Cantonese varies among speakers. Unlike Standard Mandarin, there is no official agency to regulate Standard Cantonese. Below is the phonology accepted by most scholars and educators, the one usually heard on TV or radio in formal broadcast like news reports. Common variations are ... described.
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The objectives of the course are to teach students to speak Standard Cantonese in the locales where Cantonese is spoken, to speak it fluently and grammatically, with acceptable pronunciation, within the scope of topics of daily life. The course was not designed to lay the groundwork for learning the written language. At the end of the course students will be able to buy things; talk on the telephone; ask and give directions; handle money; discuss events past, present, and future; make comparisons; talk about themselves and their families; tell time; order simple meals; talk with the landlord, doctor, servant, bellboy, cabdriver, waiter, sales-clerk; discuss what, when, where, why, who, how, how much. They will not be able to discuss politics or their jobs or other topics of a specialized nature.
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The origins of Cantonese can only be guessed at due to the lack of historical records. Dialectal differences in ancient China were noted as early as the Chunqiu (770-476 BC) period. Some sources speculate that Cantonese, along with the Wu and Xiang variants, took shape as early as the Qin dynasty (221-206 BC). Toward the end of the Qin Dynasty, the Linnan (now Guangdong and Fujian) area was colonized by the Han people, who brought the Han language. Han, which is ... referred to in the literature as the Northern dialect, was used as the standard language during the Qin Dynasty. A long period of political turmoil and geographical separation after the Han Dynasty (202 BC to 220 AD) was responsible for the drift of the local variety away from the Northern dialect.
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Cantonese courses can be found at some U.S. universities such as Harvard University, Yale University, Stanford University, the University of Hawaii, Brigham Young University, San Jose State University, New York University, Duke University and Cornell University. In Canada, Cantonese courses can be taken at various universities such as the University of Toronto. The language is ... commonly taught in 'heritage language' programs in the public schools in areas where many children have parents who speak the language. It can be easier for a Cantonese-speaker who does not speak Mandarin to learn Mandarin than vice-versa. This is because Cantonese speakers who do not speak Mandarin are educated to read and write in standard modern written Chinese but with Cantonese pronunciation when read aloud; they are already familiar with Mandarin grammar and vocabulary because the grammar and vocabulary of standard modern written Chinese is more similar to Mandarin than Cantonese.
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Standard Cantonese