Fight for Cantonese

I was born in China, however my mother language isn’t Mandarin but Cantonese. Cantonese originated in Guangdong Province in the south of China. It is a language spoken by people mainly in Canton (my hometown), Hong Kong, and Macau. Also, it is widely used in overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, the United States, Canada, Peru, Cuba, Panama, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as part of European ^[1]. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese)

Mandarin is known as the standard language of Chinese. It is spoken in most of the area of China. Cantonese shares most of the vocabulary with Mandarin. But the two languages are distinguishable because of the pronunciation and grammar. The most apparent difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is how the spoken word is written. With Mandarin the spoken words are written as such, while with Cantonese there may not be direct written words matching what was said. For example, in Mandarin “晚安” means “Good night.” While in Cantonese, we said “早抖”. That sounds quite different.

Cantonese and Mandarin, as languages, have their own characteristics and share the respect. However, Chinese government somehow wants to resist the languages that are used by indigenous peoples and promote Mandarin. It seems to combine politics with language and culture. Cantonese’s existence is threatened by some regulation published by Chinese government. It says that dialect cannot be used in local TV and radio programs without permit of the state administration of radio film and television. It implies that dialect (especially Cantonese) will be strictly resisted and gradually disappear from the mass media. Also, some primary and middle schools began to limit student from using Cantonese in daily life.

I have spoken Cantonese for more than 20 years, but I cannot find the conflict between Cantonese and Mandarin. Teachers use Mandarin during the class and we students speak Cantonese unless there is someone who cannot understand it. At home, I definitely use Cantonese because my grandparents only know a little bit of Mandarin. So I should take the responsibility to protect our local culture and language since it means a lot to my life. I participated in a demonstration in Jiangnanxi Road, which is a popular shopping street in Guangzhou in July 25^th, 2010. We were shouting our slogan “Cantonese is mine! Get out government!” and singing Cantonese songs. I still remembered the time I was standing in a square with lots of people who came to support the leaders and keep them away from the cops. An old man in the crowd kept telling us Cantonese’s stories and encouraged us young people to inherit our language. This demonstration is defined as illegal by government so police took measures to separate us. They established a wall with their bodies and tried to disperse the crowd. To fight for our rights, we kept everyone close enough and waited for the journalists to record and publish our appeal.

I am not trying to resist Mandarin because I am also a Mandarin speaker and I have learned it for more than 10 years. What I want to say is that we need to show our respect to others. We just want to speak our language. No politics.

[1] From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese