Good morning, fellow toastmasters and honour guests, today I pretend myself as a Chinese teacher introducing some interesting information about Cantonese to you from the view of a real Chinese people. I would like to talk about Cantonese in the aspect of its language and history. 翻
First, language. Chinese is the language of China. But Chinese contains a lot of dialects, which are different from one to another. I guess, there is a misunderstanding about Chinese language for the people living here in Canada. Because when you meet a Chinese people, you may ask, 翻do you speak mandarin or Cantonese? I mean, you can ask like this, it’s correct. But you may think, all Chinese people speak either mandarin or Cantonese. Actually this concept is wrong. 翻Because mandarin and Cantonese are not in the same level. Most Chinese people can speak mandarin, teachers teach mandarin in school, journalist on TV speaks mandarin, and mandarin just likes a common language in China. However, different cities have different dialects. 翻People living in shanghai, speak shanghai language, people living in Beijing, speak Beijing language, people living in Guangdong, speak Guangdong language which is Cantonese, people living in my hometown, Nanjing, speak Nanjing language, etc. Some languages are similar, and others are totally different. For example, I am from Nanjing, so I can speak Nanjing language and mandarin. They are very similar, and the differences between them are just some accents of words and sentences. In addition, Beijing language is also similar to mandarin. So I can understand Beijing language. However, if people speak shanghai language to me, it sounds like they speak French, which I totally do not understand what they are talking about, so does Cantonese. As a result, the relationship between mandarin and Cantonese just likes the relationship between Standard English and American English or British English, mandarin is a standard Chinese language, and Cantonese is a district dialect.
Second, history. China has history of 5000 year. It’s hard for me to summarize the history in 5 minutes, so I decide to start talking about the history by asking a question. 翻Why the owners of most Chinese restaurants here in Brandon are Cantonese? 翻Because they leave China to abroad earlier than other