Do Mandarin speakers look down on Cantonese?

No, they are completely different languages. Although Cantonese and Mandarin have many similarities, they are not mutually intelligible. This means that, presuming one has no significant exposure or training, a speaker of Mandarin will understand little to nothing of Cantonese and vice-versa.

Is Mandarin more popular than Cantonese?

Worldwide, there are about 66 million Cantonese speakers. Compare this with Mandarin, which is spoken by about 1 billion people worldwide. Of all languages, Mandarin is the most widely-spoken.

Is Mandarin and Cantonese mutually intelligible?

They are both tonal languages, though the tones are different and they are not mutually intelligible. As such, they cannot really be referred to as dialects because a Cantonese speaker cannot understand a Mandarin speaker and vice versa. In fact, this is the case with many of China’s “dialects”.

What’s better to learn Mandarin or Cantonese?

Mandarin is easier to learn Cantonese is seen to be more difficult because it has from 6 to 9 tones, each of which signify different things (while Mandarin only has 4 tones). In addition, because of its greater prevalence, it is easier to find Mandarin study materials than Cantonese study materials.

What percentage of China speaks Cantonese?

There are an estimated 84 million [2020] native Cantonese speakers in China (4.5\% of China’s population) compared with 933 million Mandarin first-language speakers (61.2\% of people in China).

Where is Cantonese spoken vs Mandarin?

Mandarin is spoken widely in Singapore and Taiwan. Cantonese, however, is spoken largely in Hong Kong, as well as in Macau and the Guangdong province, including Guangzhou.

Is there any animosity between Cantonese speakers and Mandarin-speakers?

Therefore, no — there is no animosity between Cantonese-speakers and Mandarin-speakers, but there are debates and to term it as ” animosity ” is a stretch and stereotyping the North-South divide. However, there is a cultural divide between Northern and Southern China, from ancient history to today. Ironically, people in Taiwan speak Mandarin.

How many people speak Mandarin in the world?

The People’s Republic of China is the home of the vast majority of Mandarin speakers in the world. In 2010, 955 million Chinese spoke some variant of Mandarin as their first language, making it the mother tongue of 71\% of the country’s population. Around 200.000 people world-wide speak Mandarin as a second language,

Why is Mandarin so popular in northern China?

The prevalence of Mandarin throughout northern China is largely the result of geography, namely the plains of north China. By contrast, the mountains and rivers of southern China have promoted linguistic diversity.

What is the capital of the Cantonese-speaking world?

Guangzhou (formerly Canton) is the capital of the Cantonese-speaking world. The characters used for Mandarin and Cantonese share the same roots in ancient China, but Mandarin uses simplified characters, which were set as the standard by the Chinese government in 1950s, while Cantonese still uses the traditional characters.