Yueyu

Yueyu, also known as Yue Chinese and commonly referred to as Cantonese, is a major variety of the Sinitic language family. It is spoken by tens of millions of people in southern China, particularly in Guangdong and Guangxi, and in the Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions, as well as in overseas communities.

Linguistically, Yueyu belongs to the Yue branch of the Sinitic languages. Cantonese has a rich phonological system, typically described as having six lexical tones in most dialects. The syllable structure allows final consonants such as -p, -t, or -k, as well as nasal endings -m, -n, -ŋ. It features a large inventory of initial consonants and a variety of sentence-final particles that express aspect, mood, and emphasis. While shareable features exist, Cantonese word order is generally subject–verb–object, with considerable use of topic-prominent constructions that can differ from Mandarin in certain contexts.

Writing in Yueyu uses Chinese characters and is closely related to written Mandarin. In Hong Kong and Macau, traditional characters are standard; in Mainland China, simplified characters are widely used in formal writing, and Cantonese colloquialisms are often rendered with Cantonese-specific characters or combinations of standard characters. There is no single standardized Cantonese orthography, but written Cantonese appears in media, literature, and online communication.

Status and culture often reflect Cantonese prominence in daily life and media, particularly in Hong Kong cinema, television, and popular music, as well as in Guangdong province and adjacent regions. Cantonese coexists with Mandarin in many urban settings, where speakers frequently switch between them in conversation and education.