the differences between Chinese & Cantonese

What is the difference between Chinese and Cantonese? Great question! Like most things with the Chinese language, it is a complicated answer. Both these words can refer to many things including culture, language, food, and identity.

Chinese of course refers to things connected to China. It is very broad, seeing as China is made up of many different provinces with their own distinct cultures, languages, history, etc. There is no spoken language called Chinese, rather being able to “speak Chinese” refers to a number of different languages - the most prominent ones being Mandarin and Cantonese. If someone says “I speak Chinese”, it might be safe to assume they are referring to Mandarin, or you could ask the follow up question, “which Chinese language do you speak?” My family speaks Hakka and Cantonese, though very few of my generation know how to speak Hakka now.

Map of China

photo from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:China_on_the_globe_%28China_centered%29.svg

However, Chinese can refer to the written language. Despite the fact that there are 7 major language groups and roughly 300 languages in China, there is a standardized writing system across the country. I find this incredible and fascinating. The writing system’s grammar most closely resembles today’s version of Mandarin, because the region where Mandarin was spoken (northern China) was where the nation’s politicians and decision makers lived. Cantonese is starting to be found in writing more and more (i.e. using Cantonese grammar and colloquialisms), though traditionally all written material was to be written in the Standard Written Chinese form. There are even some Chinese characters that are unique to Cantonese, to reflect the fact that there are many words in spoken Cantonese that don’t exist in Mandarin or other Chinese languages. Although Mandarin was not the most widely spoken language in China in the past, it has been the official language of the country for over a century now and is very widespread.

Language map of China

photo from: https://www.thatsmags.com/china/post/14018/this-map-shows-all-languages-spoken-china

If you talk about Chinese food, I’m sure there are some general foods and flavours that you’ll find across the nation, but there are also regional cuisines whose flavours would be very different from one another depending on what could be grown in the area long before the advent of a global economy. Cantonese food is one such type of cuisine.

Cantonese usually refers to things connected to the Canton province located in the southeastern part of China, which was named after a French transliteration of the Chinese name Guangdong. Today, maps are now printed with the name Guangdong. Cantonese has been the spoken language in this region for approx. 2000 years.

Guangdong, China

photo from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:China_Guangdong.svg

People could identify as both Chinese and/or Cantonese. I guess all Cantonese people would be Chinese, but not all Chinese people would be Cantonese! To add another layer on - Cantonese is the main language of Macau and Hong Kong, where my family is from. So I don’t really identify as Cantonese; instead I identify as Hong Kong Chinese. However, I speak Cantonese and grew up eating Cantonese food, so I suppose I could identify as Cantonese on some levels... it's complicated!

Among the global Chinese diaspora, you will likely hear them speaking Cantonese, Taishanese, Hakka or Mandarin (among others that I don’t know, I’m sure!). When Chinese immigration to North America first started (1850 -) , most people came from the Canton/Guangdong province as it is a coastal province, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Many of these folks would have spoken Cantonese, Taishanese (spoken by those from the Toisan region in Guangdong) or Hakka (a large portion of the Hakka population lived in Guangdong and Hong Kong). These were the people that formed the first Chinatowns around the world. More recent Chinese immigrants predominantly speak Mandarin - that may be because they’re coming from other regions in China besides Guangdong, and/or because Mandarin is so widely spread through China now.

Vancouver Chinatown, 1906

photo from: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/chinese-canadians#:~:text=In%201858%2C%20Chinese%20immigrants%20began,was%20estimated%20to%20be%207%2C000.

There are cultural practices that are widespread throughout China, so I think it’s fair to call them Chinese customs. I’m sure there are regional differences, but somehow there seems to be a shared culture that binds, despite the sheer size of the country. I can’t speak to this a whole lot, seeing as I’ve never even been to China, and being a child of immigrants that weren’t too hung up on keeping up traditions.

So all this being said, I often use Chinese/Cantonese interchangeably, but I try to be specific if I can!

---

Random Canto story: I recently pieced it together in my 30’s that “Cantonese” literally means language of Guangdong (廣東話 | gwong2 dung1 waa6). Up until that point, I thought Cantonese was just 東話 (dung1 waa6), meaning “Eastern language”, which would still make sense, at least in my mind. Then the word for “speak” (講 | gong2) sounds a lot like the “Guang” in “Guangdong” (廣 | gwong2) - especially if you use “lazy speech” (懶音 | laan5 jam1). So all throughout my childhood and into adulthood, I thought you would say “我講講東話” and for some weird reason, we had to say “speak” twice. It was quite an ‘aha’ moment to realize what I’m actually saying is “我講廣東話”!