廣東話 or 廣府話 (广州话 / 廣州話)
Outside of Guangzhou, people also call it "Baak Waa" (plain speech) (白話).
All the Kwans from the town of ChiKan are Cantonese and speaks the dialect SeiYap (四邑話).... well, at least for some years before the chinese government enforce the wider usage of PuTongHua. Many of our 1st generation elders who came to Singapore never learnt to speak any other dialect or language except Seiyap throughout their stay in Singapore. It would be extremely rare to hear anyone speaking Seiyap in Singapore since the 1990s, it is certainly an extinct dialect in Singapore, what a great lost of a unique language culture.
Below is a brief description extracted from Wikipedia about the Cantonese language and its other variants.
Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a language that originated in the vicinity of Canton (i.e. Guangzhou) in southern China, and is often regarded as the prestige dialect of Yue Chinese(粵語/粤语) .
In mainland China, it is a lingua-franca in Guangdong Province and some neighbouring areas, such as the eastern part of Guangxi Province. Outside mainland China, it is spoken by the majority population of Hong Kong and Macau in everyday life. It is also spoken by overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, the United States, Canada, Peru, Cuba, Panama, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as part of Europe, and is the most widely spoken Chinese dialect in the world.
While the term "Cantonese" refers narrowly to the prestige dialect 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.
The Cantonese language is also viewed as part of the cultural identity for the native speakers across large swathes of southern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares much vocabulary with Mandarin Chinese, the two languages are not mutually intelligible largely because of pronunciation . Sentence structure, in particular the placement of the verb, sometimes differs between the two languages. The use of vocabulary in Cantonese also tends to have more historic roots.
Hong Kong Cantonese
The official languages of Hong Kong are English and Chinese, as defined in the Basic Law of Hong Kong. The Chinese language has many different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. In Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominantly spoken variety in everyday life. It is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Government. It is also used as the medium of instruction in many schools, alongside English.
The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong is mutually intelligible with the Cantonese spoken in the Chinese city of Canton (Guangzhou), although there exists some differences in pronunciation, accent and vocabulary. The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong is known as Hong Kong Cantonese.
Siyi (四邑方言, in Cantonese is Seiyap) is a coastal branch of Yue Chinese spoken in Guangdong province. It includes Taishanese, one of the most important Chinese dialects in American Chinese communities.
Outside of Guangzhou, people also call it "Baak Waa" (plain speech) (白話).
All the Kwans from the town of ChiKan are Cantonese and speaks the dialect SeiYap (四邑話).... well, at least for some years before the chinese government enforce the wider usage of PuTongHua. Many of our 1st generation elders who came to Singapore never learnt to speak any other dialect or language except Seiyap throughout their stay in Singapore. It would be extremely rare to hear anyone speaking Seiyap in Singapore since the 1990s, it is certainly an extinct dialect in Singapore, what a great lost of a unique language culture.
Below is a brief description extracted from Wikipedia about the Cantonese language and its other variants.
Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a language that originated in the vicinity of Canton (i.e. Guangzhou) in southern China, and is often regarded as the prestige dialect of Yue Chinese(粵語/粤语) .
In mainland China, it is a lingua-franca in Guangdong Province and some neighbouring areas, such as the eastern part of Guangxi Province. Outside mainland China, it is spoken by the majority population of Hong Kong and Macau in everyday life. It is also spoken by overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, the United States, Canada, Peru, Cuba, Panama, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as part of Europe, and is the most widely spoken Chinese dialect in the world.
While the term "Cantonese" refers narrowly to the prestige dialect 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.
The Cantonese language is also viewed as part of the cultural identity for the native speakers across large swathes of southern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares much vocabulary with Mandarin Chinese, the two languages are not mutually intelligible largely because of pronunciation . Sentence structure, in particular the placement of the verb, sometimes differs between the two languages. The use of vocabulary in Cantonese also tends to have more historic roots.
Hong Kong Cantonese
The official languages of Hong Kong are English and Chinese, as defined in the Basic Law of Hong Kong. The Chinese language has many different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. In Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominantly spoken variety in everyday life. It is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Government. It is also used as the medium of instruction in many schools, alongside English.
The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong is mutually intelligible with the Cantonese spoken in the Chinese city of Canton (Guangzhou), although there exists some differences in pronunciation, accent and vocabulary. The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong is known as Hong Kong Cantonese.
Siyi (四邑方言, in Cantonese is Seiyap) is a coastal branch of Yue Chinese spoken in Guangdong province. It includes Taishanese, one of the most important Chinese dialects in American Chinese communities.
For the last 150 years, Guangdong Province has been the place of origin of most Chinese emigrants to Western countries; one coastal county, Taishan (or Tóisàn, where the Sìyì or sei yap dialect of Yue is spoken), alone may have been the home to more than 60% of Chinese immigrants to the US before 1965. As a result, Yue dialects such as Siyi (the dialects of Taishan, Enping, Kaiping and Xinhui Districts) and Cantonese (with a heavy Hong Kong influence) have been the major Yue dialects spoken abroad, particularly in the United States.
20th century
In 1912, shortly after the fall of the Qing dynasty, the revolutionary leaders including Sun Yat-sen met to choose a new national language to replace Classical Chinese. Mandarin Putonghua was then a northern dialect spoken by the Manchurian officials. Many perceived it as an 'impure form' of Chinese. Cantonese is said to have lost out by a small margin of the vote to Putonghua, though some historians dispute this.
Download :
1) Hear some daily conversational SeiYap (... coming soon)