My Hong Kong | Cantonese is far from dead. It lags Mandarin in the Chinese language league table for numbers, but its cult status will see it live on
- Cantonese is a one-of-a-kind linguistic art form that’s quirkier and more edgy than Mandarin, nimble and ever-changing
- Its long-term fate is in the hands of every Cantonese speaker and Cantonese-language enthusiast who is willing to continue to breathe new life into it
Every so often, we hear the “death knell” sounded for the imminent demise of Cantonese, as more and more speakers are trading it in for Mandarin.
Just like Welsh and Hawaiian – both of which were nearing extinction around 30 years ago – Cantonese speakers are currently in decline.
To quote a famous Chinese saying that’s popular among Cantonese people: “There are no never-ending banquets in the world”, which means nothing lasts forever and everything will eventually come to an end.
Cantonese has already been around for 2,000 years and is still spoken by at least 80 million people around the world. If we look at its lifespan up to this point and view it under the concept of forever, it has done impressively well.
I don’t think that with 2,000 years under its belt, Cantonese is in imminent danger of disappearing any time soon. But then again, the definition of “imminent” is relative when we are talking about a language as old as Cantonese. So, is it on the brink of extinction, or is just going through a down period?
