• inspxtr@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    I’m out of the loop here. I thought Cantonese is popularly spoken in China (and other parts of the world with Chinese immigrants/descendants). So even in China (like Guangdong), is Cantonese used very limitedly?

    • Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Most of mainland China speaks Mandarin. More than 70% of Chinese speakers in mainland China speak Mandarin.

      Cantonese is regional and only widely spoken around Guangdong, but very culturally tied to Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangxi which are all autonomous regions that the CCP has heavily wanted to completely pull into control. Eliminating their language is important to that aspect. Only around 6% of Chinese speakers in China speak the Yue family of dialects as a whole, of which Cantonese is an even more regional dialect of.

    • Tb0n3@sh.itjust.works
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      2 years ago

      In written language at least I believe the CCP forced the development and adoption of Simplified Chinese, so it’s not particularly out of character for them to force a one language system on all their territories. They will continue their authoritarianism until everyone looks, sounds, and thinks the same in their country.

      • Pat12@lemmy.worldOP
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        2 years ago

        Tb0n3 English 4 • 29 minutes ago In written language at least I believe the CCP forced the development and adoption of Simplified Chinese in writing,

        it’s bad enough we don’t have written cantonese, they also simplified the traditional characters for our writing? damn

        • Tb0n3@sh.itjust.works
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          2 years ago

          I kind of lost track of my sentence there and double referenced the fact that I was talking about written language. There’s a theory that it was to keep the people from being able to read older Chinese manuscripts and books which might make people question the communist party. Taiwan as far as I’m aware didn’t adopt Simplified Chinese and the literacy rate is high, so at least the goals of the CCP (literacy) were achieved through better education instead of changing the language.

    • Pat12@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 years ago

      I’m out of the loop here. I thought Cantonese is popularly spoken in China (and other parts of the world with Chinese immigrants/descendants). So even in China (like Guangdong), is Cantonese used very limitedly?

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      in the last few years the CCP has been trying to erase HK culture and language and replace it with theirs, it’s all to create “cohesiveness”

      it is a language spoken in southern china (guangdong province, hong kong, macau). Most of china (mainland china) speaks mandarin, it’s the largest of the chinese dialect groups. it’s ‘standard’ chinese.

      • Chickenstalker@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Not just HK but all over the world. The CCP claim ownership of all Chinese, regardless of citizenship. They even open illegal “police stations” in Western countries to harrass Chinese emigrants.