Cantonese dialect
- noun
:
dialecto cantonés
- In the past, all Chinese people spoke Toisanese, a Cantonese dialect, because a majority of members of the association were from Toisan or Hoi Ping.
Examples
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During the festival, many families gathered to celebrate and speak in their native Cantonese dialect.
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As a student of linguistics, he became fascinated by the Cantonese dialect and its unique tonal variations.
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The women have entered! He spoke excitedly in Chinese, a Cantonese dialect to be exact.
Fiction book (1991) -
Some people, like Chinese Indonesian doctor E. T. Tjan, who did not speak any Cantonese dialects, were forced to learn the common language in order to be recognized as "Chinese" (Tjan 2012).
Academic text (2018) -
She often converses with her grandparents in a traditional Cantonese dialect that they have passed down through generations.
Synonyms
1
5.2
A form of Chinese spoken in Guangdong, Hong Kong and many communities around the world
A type of Chinese like Cantonese spoken in Guangdong and Hong Kong
A group of Chinese dialects, including Cantonese, spoken in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and nearby areas
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from combining 'Cantonese' (the named Sinitic variety) with 'dialect' (a regional or social variety of a language). This straightforward compositional noun+noun phrase follows common cross-linguistic patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily understand the phrase.
Etymology
The name Cantonese dialect may come from the old English place name Canton for the city Guangzhou and the word dialect, meaning a local way of speaking. So Cantonese dialect simply means the form of Chinese spoken by people from Canton (Guangdong), Hong Kong, and many overseas communities.