Regional varieties of Cantonese
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We have regional varieties of English: Australian, American (with many subvarieties), Indian (South Asian), and so forth. Cantonese is spread all around the world, especially in Southeast Asia, so it is not surprising that it has also developed its own regional variants. In this post, we will concentrate on a comparison of Hong Kong and Malaysian Cantonese.
"Lost in communication: Just because we speak Cantonese doesn’t mean we can understand each other", by Mandy Li, The Hong Konger (16 October 2024)
Mandy Li remembers the first time she worked with a Malaysian colleague:
In Malaysia, a sizeable portion of the population have Cantonese heritage so can speak the language. They also enjoy watching Cantonese dramas. So, when my colleague learned I was from Hong Kong, she naturally switched to Cantonese when speaking to me. I was astonished to find that I could not understand everything she said.
Some terms, such as “做工” (zou6 gung1), which translates to “do work”, I was unsure about, but could guess from the context. Other words completely baffled me.
After we finished lunch one day she asked me, “幾多溝” (gei2 do1 kau1), meaning “how much” in Malaysian Cantonese. In response to my puzzled look, she rephrased it as “幾多囡” (gei2 do1 naam4, with the last word commonly pronounced as leoi3), another common way to ask about the cost of something in Malaysian Cantonese.
This only confused me more. It was only when we clarified in English that she realised that in Hong Kong Cantonese, we say, “幾多錢” (gei2 do1 cin4) [VHM: this is the only one of the three versions mentioned here that I would understand] when asking “how much”. After a few years – and much shared amusement at our mutual incomprehension – we could finally chat extensively without having to repeatedly ask, “咩話” (what?).
——
me1 waa6-2
—–
Realizing the significant differences that exist between other varieties of Cantonese and her own Hong Kong Cantonese, the author preemptively tones down the more patently Hong Kong aspect of her own speech:
While I sometimes struggle to understand other people’s Cantonese, I also try to avoid certain things when speaking to Cantonese speakers without a Hong Kong background. Firstly, I try not to mix English and Cantonese, despite it being so ingrained in the Hong Kong way of speaking that many of us no longer notice when we do it. Some argue that it is a bad habit, but I actively avoid it as I worry it might confuse other Cantonese speakers.
Secondly, I refrain from using Hong Kong slang, such as “麥記” (mak6 gei3), which refers to McDonald’s, where “mak6” sounds like “Mc” and “gei3” is an affectionate term for shops in Cantonese.
Now, if we throw Taishanese / Toishanese / Toisanese / Hoisanese / Hoisan-wa (the dominant variety of Cantonese, hence Sinitic, spoken in North American Chinatowns), the level of mutual intelligibility goes down to next to nil.
Selected readings
- "Mutual Intelligibility of Sinitic Languages" (3/6/09)
- "Taishan and Chinatown" (2/5/22) — has a nice photograph of New York's Chinatown in 1899
[Thanks to Don Keyser]
Gene Anderson said,
October 27, 2024 @ 2:26 pm
Many dialects of Cantonese exist. Toisan and the neighboring Sei Yap (four districts) speak what is very close to being a different language. I found that the boat people (the floating population of Hong Kong) speak their own dialect, apparently close to that of some upriver towns on the way to Guangzhou. Hong Kong itself reveals a boat people pronunciation: "proper" local Cantonese is Heung Kong–turning eu to o is standard boat dialect. There are several other markers.
Malaysian Cantonese has a fair number of loanwords from Bahasa Malaysia, and from Hokkien, the most widely spoken Chinese language in Malaysia.
David Marjanović said,
October 27, 2024 @ 2:34 pm
I wonder to what extent the diversity of diaspora Cantonese continues the diversity of Cantonese in the old country. With English and French, that simply isn't so – their overseas varieties are mostly based on the prestige varieties spoken in the capitals at the times in question, plus later local innovations that are not terribly numerous. Quebec French is basically 17th-century aristocratic Parisian plus a bit of influence from western (i.e. coastal) dialects and later local innovations, for example. Most of the dialect diversity has not spread overseas. This is why I've been told that "you can learn to tell a Texan from a Montanan, but it's like two villages in Norfolk twenty miles apart." Overseas Cantonese has a number of separate origins (in space and time), right?
Julian said,
October 27, 2024 @ 9:21 pm
@david marjanovic
They say that the Australian accent arose from a blend of the regional varieties spoken by the the settlers who rubbed shoulders in early 19th century new south wales.
People were commenting on it within 50 years of the 1788 settlement.
I can't think of anything about it that you would call "preserved old country features" like the example of Quebec vs 17th century Paris French.
Except, on second thoughts, maybe? –
– general retention of initial 'h' – contrast with British varieties that have lost it completely.
– general non-use of glottal stops replacing intervocalic and word final stops – contrast with British varieties that use them.
But I don't know what the position was in the British isles in 1800 on those points.
Chas Belov said,
October 28, 2024 @ 12:31 am
With full disclosure that my Cantonese is minimal and dreadful,and that I learned Yale Cantonese transcriptions – Jyutping mystifies me – I was surprised to read:
In my Cantonese classes, I was taught mēyeh wá as well as mātyeh wá.
As for Toisan being "the dominant variety of Cantonese, hence Sinitic, spoken in North American Chinatowns", after learning Cantonese, I think I've only encountered Toisan in Toisanese restaurants. I've been able to use Hong Kong Cantonese (such as I am minimally able to speak it) in San Francisco, Oakland, and Philly Chinatowns. Flushing, of course, is a whole 'nother matter – well, one bakery which I correctly identified by their Hong Kong style product line. I did know someone who spoke Toisan, but I believe I've heard more Shanghainese in my lifetime than Toisan.
Chas Belov said,
October 28, 2024 @ 12:47 am
More relevant, I was able to use those versions with my Hong-Kong- Cantonese-speaking co-workers at the time.
Jonathan Smith said,
October 28, 2024 @ 11:13 am
Yeah Toisan-etc.-ese speakers wouldn't regard their language(s) as "Cantonese" — instead the latter seems to be a lingua franca in Seiyap, super familiar due to HK media among other factors. Speaking of which, it actually feels about right to apply the European ausbau/dependent framework to GZ/Cantonese as it relates to the outlying regions including Seiyap… with Mandarin the distance involves becomes to great for this terminology to make much sense.
If anything the parallel for English/French abroad is Cantonese in *Hong Kong* — where it spread from the Pearl delta during the colonial period, partly replacing the Yue/Hakka/Min languages of HK's earlier rural/seaboard communities. Parallel to Julian's comment, the latter-day relative uniformity is probably in part an effect of this resettlement/mixture process rather than necessarily a signal of uniformity among the seeding populations.
Whereas in the West, Cantonese etc. exist in tenuous enclaves such that language maintanence over even a couple generations is a challenge.
Jongseong Park said,
October 28, 2024 @ 6:55 pm
@David Marjanović:
From what I understand, overseas Cantonese-speaking communities have ancestral origins that can be traced to different parts of Guangdong Province and different migration events in time, but also include speakers of highly divergent Yue varieties such as Hoisanese/Toishanese/Taishanese as well as non-Yue speakers in the region (e.g. Hakka, Teochew) who adopted Cantonese as a lingua franca due to the prestige of the speech of Guangzhou.
Many Malaysian Cantonese speakers would be from non-Yue-speaking background (e.g. Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew) who took up Cantonese due to its status as the lingua franca in Kuala Lumpur.
During the rapid growth of Hong Kong under colonial rule, Guangzhou-style Cantonese mostly displaced local Yue varieties such as the boat people speech that Gene Anderson refers to or the walled town speech (waitau/weitou dialect), as well as non-Yue varieties such as Hakka.
I would expect some degree of dialect levelling (or language levelling in many cases) to have taken place in most overseas Cantonese-speaking communities, but differences in the original mix would have contributed to the diversity among the Cantonese spoken in such communities.
Guy said,
October 28, 2024 @ 8:40 pm
I don't find Malaysian Cantonese particularly hard to understand – there are a few loanwords or vocab differences, but the pronunciation is a lot closer to standard Cantonese than many mainland Yue varieties.
However, I find Hong Kongers usually aren't exposed to hearing any Cantonese accent other than their own. In contrast, in Guangzhou, its perfectly normal to hear every type of Cantonese accent imaginable from across the Pearl River Delta, regional Guangdong and even Guangxi. Personally, I find the Yangjiang accent (陽江話) virtually incomprehensible.
KIRINPUTRA said,
November 1, 2024 @ 9:52 am
@ David Marjanović
I had this question in mind for many years as well…. With "Cantonese" Cantonese, the situation is more like with English or French.
Hoisan et al would have to be left out of the analogy. They're "Cantonese" in a broad sense, but they're not close to being mutually intelligible.
In intensive language contact situations, Canton (廣州) Cantonese always seems to pull more than its own weight. And non-Canton (but mutually intelligible) dialects of "Cantonese" Cantonese never seem to survive the encounter. Even entrenched local dialects (of the same) give way if heavy migration is a factor — as in Hong Kong & Macau. (Canton) Cantonese also heavily cannibalizes Hoisan (& the other broadly Cantonese languages) & Hakka, and other socially Chinese languages to a lesser extent.
And so Cantonese is widely spoken as a second, third, or fourth language in southern Vietnam (Saigon esp.), Cambodia, Singapore, & throughout Malaysia (incl. Borneo; it is esp. dominant in Sandakan). I've never met a young Hokkien-speaking local in Saigon, but I have met locals of Hokkienese descent who spoke perfect Cantonese. And much of the diversity of diaspora Cantonese stems from contact with other languages (Vietnamese, Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka, etc.; incl. via shift), incl. just being spoken non-natively.
Somewhat of a disappointing reality, but maybe fascinating in its own way.