Concept

Cantonese people

Summary
The 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. Historically centered and predominant in the Pearl River Basin shared between Guangdong and Guangxi, the Cantonese people are also responsible for establishing their native language's usage in Hong Kong and Macau during their 19th century migrations within the times of the British and Portuguese colonial eras respectively. Cantonese remains today as a majority language in Guangdong and Guangxi, despite the increasing influence of Mandarin. Taishanese people may also be considered Cantonese but speak a distinct variety of Yue Chinese, Taishanese. "Cantonese" has been generally used to describe all Chinese people from Guangdong since "Cantonese" is commonly treated as a synonym with "Guangdong" and the Cantonese language is treated as the sole language of the region. This is inaccurate as "Canton" itself technically only refers to Guangdong's capital Guangzhou and the Cantonese language specifically refers to only the Guangzhou dialect of the Yue Chinese languages. David Faure points out that there is no direct Chinese translation of the English term "Cantonese". The English name "Canton" derived from Portuguese Cantão or Cidade de Cantão, a muddling of dialectical pronunciations of "Guangdong" (e.g., Hakka Kóng-tûng). Although it originally and chiefly applied to the walled city of Guangzhou, it was occasionally conflated with Guangdong by some authors. Within Guangdong and Guangxi, Cantonese is considered the prestige dialect and is called baahk wá, pàːk wǎː () which means "vernacular". In historical times, it was known as "Guangzhou speech" or Guangzhounese (廣州話, 广州话, Gwóngjāu wá).
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