Cantonese (Yue)

Yue
Cantonese
粵語/粤语 廣東話/广东话
Yuhtyúh (Yue) written in traditional (left) and simplified (right) Chinese characters
Region	Liangguang (Guangdong and Guangxi), western Hainan, Hong Kong and Macau
Ethnicity	Cantonese people Taishanese people
Native speakers	60 million (2007)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Yue
Dialects	Guangfu (incl. Cantonese) Siyi/Sze Yap (incl. Taishanese) Gao–Yang Yong–Xun Gou–Lou Qin–Lian Wu–Hua
Writing system	Traditional Chinese (Written Cantonese) Cantonese Braille
Official status
Official language in	Hong Kong (as Chinese) Macau (as Chinese)
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	yuec1235
Linguasphere	79-AAA-m
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Yue or Yueh (English pronunciation: /ˈjuːeɪ/ or /juːˈeɪ/; Cantonese pronunciation: [jyːt̚²]) is one of the primary branches of Chinese spoken in southern China, particularly the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, collectively known as Liangguang.

The name Cantonese is often used for the whole branch, but linguists prefer to reserve that name for the variety of Guangzhou (Canton), Hong Kong and Macau, which is the prestige dialect. Taishanese, from the coastal area of Jiangmen located southwest of Guangzhou, was the language of most of the 19th-century emigrants from Guangdong to Southeast Asia and North America. Most later migrants have been speakers of Cantonese.

Yue varieties are not mutually intelligible with other varieties of Chinese. They are among the most conservative varieties with regard to the final consonants and tonal categories of Middle Chinese, but have lost several distinctions in the initial and medial consonants that other Chinese varieties have retained.