HokkienThe Hokkien (ˈhɒkiɛn) is a variety of Chinese language. It is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the southeastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. In Chinese linguistics, these languages are known by their classification under the Quanzhang division () of Min Nan, which comes from the first characters of the two main Hokkien urban centers of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou.
Cantonese peopleThe Cantonese people () or Yue people (), are a Yue-speaking ethnic group or Han Chinese subgroup originating from or residing in the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi (collectively known as Liangguang or, with other regions, Lingnan), in Southern Mainland China. More accurately, "Cantonese" refers only to people with roots from Guangzhou and its satellite cities and towns, rather than simply and generally referring to the people of the Liangguang region.
Varieties of ChineseChinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast part of mainland China. The varieties are typically classified into several groups: Mandarin, Wu, Min, Xiang, Gan, Hakka and Yue, though some varieties remain unclassified. These groups are neither clades nor individual languages defined by mutual intelligibility, but reflect common phonological developments from Middle Chinese.
CantoneseCantonese () is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. It is the traditional prestige variety of the Yue Chinese group, which has over 82.4 million native speakers. While the term Cantonese specifically refers to the prestige variety, it is often used to refer to the entire Yue subgroup of Chinese, including related but partially mutually intelligible varieties like Taishanese.
Chinese charactersChinese characters are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. Chinese characters are the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world. By virtue of their widespread current use throughout East Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as their profound historic use throughout the Sinosphere, Chinese characters are among the most widely adopted writing systems in the world by number of users. The total number of Chinese characters ever to appear in a dictionary is in the tens of thousands, though most are graphic variants, were used historically and passed out of use, or are of a specialized nature.
Classical ChineseClassical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (; or , meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: , meaning "literary language writing"), is the language of the classic literature from the end of the Spring and Autumn period through to either the start of the Qin dynasty or the end of the Han dynasty, a written form of Old Chinese (). Classical Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese that evolved from the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese.
Chinese languageChinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the world's population) speak a variety of Chinese as their first language. Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of a single language.
