The name of Cantonese comes from the "Nanyue State" in the ancient Lingnan area of China (Hanshu as "Nanyue State"), which is a general term. Folks are also called "vernacular" and "cantonese", and in Chinatown in the United States it is called "Tang dialect" The two common names "Guangfu dialect" and "provincial dialect" specifically refer to Cantonese in old guangzhou fu (now Guangzhou and its surrounding Nanfanshun area), Hong Kong, Macao, Wuzhou and Hezhou, which are smaller than the concept of "vernacular" and are generally called "Cantonese".

In ancient times, "Yue" and "Yue" were interchangeable words, referring to Baiyue area in the south of China. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the meanings of these two words have begun to differ. The former is mostly used in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Wu-speaking areas, while the latter is mostly used in Lingnan and Guangdong, which has long been a general term for Lingnan areas. Historically, Guangdong and Guangxi were called "Guangdong", "East Guangdong" and "West Guangdong" in Guangxi. It was not until the Republic of China that "Guangdong" gradually narrowed its scope and became the abbreviation of Guangdong Province. Therefore, in different historical periods, "Guangdong" can be divided into broad sense (Lingnan) and narrow sense (only Guangdong Province). "East Guangdong" and "West Guangdong" have different reference ranges in different historical periods. The origin and maturity of Cantonese were far before the early division of Guangdong and Guangxi in the Song Dynasty. Therefore, as far as history and culture are concerned, "Cantonese" is actually "Lingnan language" in a broad sense, not "Cantonese" in particular. Just like English, it's not particularly British. Cantonese is written in English and written in Japanese, which is commonly known as "Cantonese".

Characteristics of Guangzhou dialect: On the one hand, it inherits and retains the characteristics of ancient Chinese, on the other hand, it absorbs some non-Chinese elements from the south, which is quite different from Mandarin and other dialects and has its own unique phonetic characteristics.

(1) has no voiced consonants, and retains the pronunciation of the ancient micro vowel M-, which integrates ancient essence, knowledge and clarity. Gu Xiao and Xi Mu read F-, such as "Huan [fun55]", "Fu N35]", Gu -m, -n, -p, -t, and so on. A group of vowels

(2) There are as many as nine tones: Yin and Yang are divided horizontally, and Yin tones (consonants from ancient voiceless sounds) and Yang tones (voiced sounds from ancient times) are well matched. There are three tones, including entering Yin (upper entering Yin), entering Zhongyin (lower entering Yin) and entering Yang, with long vowels entering in the middle and short vowels entering Yin, such as "ba [pat3]" and ".

(3) Tone sandhi is not obvious, but it is rich in semantic sandhi, such as "Mao": Mao [mou2 1] Mao → Mao [mou55] (moldy) and "pian" [p? in33]→[p？ (stool tablet)

(4) There are many monosyllabic ancient words, such as "neck" and "hope"; Some words may come from the ancient Chu language (such as "Kan Kan") and the ancient Zhuang and Dong language family (such as "Aquilaria sinensis"); The word order of some disyllabic words is different from that of Mandarin, such as "neat"; There are many foreign words, such as "ball" and "peptide (iron)"; There are some unique words, such as "elegance" (things) and? ? "(dinner dishes)," bang "(take) and" beauty "(beautiful)

(5) Grammatically, quantifiers can form quantifier phrases with nouns alone, such as "what beautiful clothes"; Some adverbials can be postpositioned, such as "go first"; The word order of the comparative sentence "I am older than you (I am older than you)" and the double-object sentence "Give him a pen (give him a pen)" is different from that of Mandarin, and some aspects (such as reply and continuation) are also very special.