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Cantonese

About Me and My Language

malaysia flagipoh sam po tongipoh sar hor fun

(left-right) Flag of Malaysia, Buddhist Temple at Sam Po Tong Limestone Caves, Ipoh Saa1 Ho4 Fan2 Noodles

Orthography        Morphology        Nursery Rhyme        Word List        Language Use        Dictionary        

你 好! 我 係 Andrew. (nei5 hou2! ngo5 hai6 Andrew ~ Hi! I am Andrew.)andrew

I am from Malaysia. My hometown is Ipoh, a city in the state of Perak in the north of Peninsular Malaysia. I am documenting my mother tongue, Cantonese. I realize that Cantonese is not an endangered language, what with more than 1 million speakers in Malaysia (2000 census) and more than 55 million speakers worldwide (source: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=yue).

My interest in documenting my mother tongue stems from my connection to the language. I am interested to learn more about my mother tongue because although I grew up speaking Cantonese, I have not had much opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of it. Also, having lived away from home for the past fifteen years (the last 12 spent in Manila, Philippines), I have not had much opportunity to speak it. This language documentation workshop is a great opportunity for me to learn more about my mother tongue and to preserve and to use it.

Through this project, I have relearned some things about my first language and have also made some very interesting discoveries about the language, and about my cultural heritage. I hope to expand on this and continue this work of language documentation - to enter more deeply into the lifeworld of my Cantonese culture.

Photo credits:
http://graafix.blogspot.com/2011/05/wallpapers-flag-of-malaysia.html
http://www.peraktourism.com/content.cfm?ID=DC452BBB-188B-76AA-004A84C605C9D80A#photo
http://steamykitchen.com/4128-malaysian-chicken-noodle-soup-ipoh-sar-hor-fun.html

Your name (first, last)
 Andrew Soh
Contact Email aklsoh at hawaii dot edu
Preferred name(s) of your language Cantonese
Alternative names Yue
Language classification Sino-Tibetan, Chinese
Geographical areas where spoken Malaysia (Peninsular)
Approximate number of monolingual speakers 1,070,000 in Malaysia (2000 census)
Other languages spoken in the area/country Bahasa Malaysia, English, Tamil, Sikh, Malayalam, Mandarin Chinese, Hakka Chinese, Min Nan Chinese
Official language(s) in your country Bahasa Malaysia
Does your language have a widely accepted writing system?
 Yes, Han Script
If yes, what materials are written?
 Newspapers, Books, School texts, Magazines (most of the Chinese texts are in Mandarin Chinese though)
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Background of the Language

Cantonese is a member of macrolanguage Chinese. In terms of language use, it is reportedly second only to Mandarin. The language traces its origin to Guangdong, China (see map below). It was brought to Malaysia by immigrants from southern China (my grandfather was one such immigrant who left his village in Panyu, Guangzhou, China for Malaya). Like other Chinese Languages, Cantonese is a tonal language.
chinese languages china map
Map retrieved from: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_map.asp?name=CN&seq=50

Cantonese is spoken in various parts in Malaysia, mostly in Peninsular Malaysia. There is a large population of Cantonese speakers in my hometown of Ipoh, a city in the state of Perak in the northern part of Peninsula Malaysia.
ipoh map

Map retrieved from:  http://www.malaysian-explorer.com/ipohMap.html

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