Cantonese

Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou (known historically as Canton) in southeastern China. It is the traditional prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese.

In mainland China, it is the main lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi, as well as the majority language of the Pearl River Delta. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages. It is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia (most notably in Vietnam and Malaysia, as well as in Singapore and Cambodia to a lesser extent) and throughout the Western World.

While the term Cantonese refers narrowly to the prestige variety, it is often used in a broader sense for the entire Yue subdivision of Chinese, including related but largely mutually unintelligible languages such as Taishanese. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, there are about 80 million total speakers. Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau.

Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon. Sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. A notable difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is how the spoken word is written; both can be recorded verbatim but very few Cantonese speakers are knowledgeable in the full Cantonese written vocabulary, so a non-verbatim formalised written form is adopted which is more akin to the Mandarin written form. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, but are pronounced differently.

Names
In English, the term "Cantonese" is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton, which is the traditional English name of Guangzhou. This narrow sense may be specified as "Canton language" or "Guangzhou language" in English.

However, "Cantonese" may also refer to the primary branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang; this broader usage may be specified as "Yue" ($s$粤; $t$粵). In this article, "Cantonese" is used for Cantonese proper.

Historically, speakers called this variety "Canton speech" or "Guangzhou speech", although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people also call it "provincial capital speech" or "plain speech"

In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, the language is referred to as "Guangdong speech" or simply "Chinese". In mainland China, the term "Guangdong speech" is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers.

Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Yue branch of Chinese varieties, it is often called "Standard Cantonese".

Hong Kong and Macau
The official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has many different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and tribunals. It is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English.

A similar situation also exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in everyday life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is mutually intelligible with the Cantonese spoken in the mainland city of Guangzhou, although there exists some minor differences in accent, pronunciation and vocabulary.

China
Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China. Due to the city's long standing as an important cultural center, Cantonese emerged as the prestige dialect of the Yue varieties of Chinese in the Southern Song dynasty and its usage spread around most of what is now the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi.

Despite the cession of Macau to Portugal in 1557 and Hong Kong to Britain in 1842, the ethnic Chinese population of the two territories largely originated from the 19th and 20th century immigration from Guangzhou and surrounding areas, making Cantonese the prominent Chinese language in the territories. On the mainland, Cantonese continued to serve as the lingua franca of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces even after Mandarin was made the official language of the government by the Qing Dynasty in the early 1900s. Cantonese remained the dominant and influential language in southeastern China until the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and its promotion of Mandarin as the sole official language of the nation throughout the mid-20th century, although its influence is still strong in the region.

While the Chinese government discourages the use of all forms of Chinese except Standard Mandarin, Cantonese enjoys a relatively higher standing than other Chinese languages, with its own media and usage in public transportations in Guangdong province. Furthermore, it is also a medium of instruction in select academic curricula, including some university elective courses and Chinese as a foreign language programs. The permitted usage of Cantonese in mainland China is largely a countermeasure against Hong Kong's influence, as the autonomous territory has the right to freedom of the press and speech and its Cantonese-language media have a substantial exposure and following in Guangdong.

Nevertheless, the place of local Cantonese language and culture remains contentious. A 2010 proposal to switch some programming on Guangzhou television from Cantonese to Mandarin was abandoned following massive public protests, the largest since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. As a major economic center of China, there have been recent concerns that the use of Cantonese in Guangzhou is diminishing in favour of Mandarin, both through the continual influx of Mandarin-speaking migrants from poorer areas and strict government policies. As a result, Cantonese is being given a more important status by the natives than ever before as a common identity of the local people.

Southeast Asia
Cantonese has historically served as a lingua franca among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, who speak a variety of other forms of Chinese including Hokkien, Teochew and Hakka. Additionally, Cantonese media and pop culture from Hong Kong is popular throughout the region.

Vietnam
In Vietnam, Cantonese is the dominant language of the ethnic Chinese community, usually referred to as Hoa, which numbers about roughly one million people and constitutes one of the largest minority groups in the country. Over half of the ethnic Chinese population in Vietnam speaks Cantonese as a native language and the variety also serves as a lingua franca between the different Chinese dialect groups. However, a large number of speakers have been influenced by Vietnamese, and hence speak with a Vietnamese accent or code-switch between Cantonese and Vietnamese.

Malaysia
In Malaysia, Cantonese is widely spoken amongst the Malaysian Chinese community in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur and the surrounding areas in the Klang Valley (Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam and Subang Jaya). The language is also widely spoken in the state of Perak, especially in the state capital city of Ipoh, as well as in the eastern state of Sabah in which it is spoken in the eastern town of Sandakan. Although Hokkien is the most spoken variety of Chinese and Mandarin is the medium of education at Chinese-language schools, Cantonese is largely influential in the local Chinese-language media and is used as a commercial speech by Chinese Malaysians in and around regions where Cantonese is prominent.

Due to the popularity of Hong Kong popular culture, especially through drama series and popular music, Cantonese is widely understood by the Chinese in all parts of Malaysia, even though a large proportion of the Chinese Malaysian population is non-Cantonese. Television networks in Malaysia regularly broadcast Hong Kong television programmes in their original Cantonese audio and soundtrack. Cantonese radio is also available in the nation and Cantonese is prevalent in locally produced Chinese television.

Singapore
In Singapore, Mandarin is the official variety of the Chinese language used by the government, which has a Speak Mandarin Campaign (SMC) seeking to actively promote the use of Mandarin over other Chinese varieties. Cantonese is spoken by a little over 15% of Chinese households in Singapore. Despite the government's active promotion of SMC, the Cantonese-speaking Chinese community has had relative success in preserving its language against Mandarin compared to other dialect groups.

Notably, all nationally produced non-Mandarin Chinese TV and radio programs were stopped after 1979. The prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, then, also stopped giving speeches in Hokkien to prevent giving conflicting signals to the people. Hong Kong (Cantonese) and Taiwanese dramas are unavailable in their untranslated form on free-to-air television, though drama series in non-Chinese languages are available in their original languages. Cantonese drama series on terrestrial TV channels are instead dubbed in Mandarin and broadcast without the original Cantonese audio and soundtrack. However, originals may be available through other sources such as cable television and internet videos.

Furthermore, an offshoot of SMC is the translation to Hanyu Pinyin of certain terms which originated from southern Chinese varieties. For instance, dim sum is often known as dianxin in Singapore's English-language media, though this is largely a matter of style, and most Singaporeans will refer to dim sum when speaking English.

Nevertheless, since the government restriction on media in non-Mandarin varieties was relaxed in the mid-1990s and 2000s, the presence of Cantonese in Singapore has grown substantially. Forms of popular culture from Hong Kong, such as television dramas, cinema and pop music have become popular in Singaporean society, and non-dubbed original versions of the media are widely available. Consequently, there has been a large of number of non-Cantonese Chinese Singaporeans being able to understand or speak Cantonese, with a number of educational institutes offering Cantonese as an elective language course.

Cambodia
Cantonese is widely used as the inter-communal language among Chinese Cambodians, especially in Phnom Penh and other urban areas. While Teochew speakers form the majority of the Chinese population in Cambodia, Cantonese is often used as a vernacular in commerce and with other Chinese variant groups in the country. Chinese-language schools in Cambodia are conducted in both, Cantonese and Mandarin.

Thailand
Thailand is home to the largest overseas Chinese community in the world, numbering over 9 million individuals. Cantonese is the fourth most-spoken variety of Chinese in Thai Chinese households after Teochew, Hakka and Hainanese. However, within the Thai Chinese commercial sector, it serves as a common language alongside Teochew or Thai. Chinese-language schools in Thailand have also traditionally been conducted in Cantonese. Furthermore, Cantonese serves as the lingua franca with other Chinese communities in the nation.

Indonesia
In Indonesia, Cantonese is locally known as Konghu and is one of the variants spoken by the Chinese Indonesian community, with speakers largely concentrated in major cities such as Jakarta, Medan and Batam. However, it has a relatively minor presence compared to other Southeast Asian nations, being the fourth most spoken Chinese variety after Hokkien, Hakka and Mandarin. There are less than 180,000 Yue Chinese speakers in Indonesia.

United States


Over a period of 150 years, Guangdong has been the place-of-origin for most Chinese emigrants to Western nations; one coastal county, Taishan (or Tóisàn, where the Sìyì or sei yap variety of Yue is spoken), alone may have been the origin of the vast majority of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. before 1965. As a result, Yue languages such as Cantonese and the closely related variety of Taishanese have been the major Chinese varieties traditionally spoken in the United States.

The Zhongshan variant of Cantonese, with origins in the western Pearl River Delta, is spoken by many Chinese immigrants in Hawaii, and some in San Francisco and the Sacramento River Delta (see Locke, California); it is a Yuehai variety much like Guangzhou Cantonese, but has "flatter" tones. Chinese is the third most widely spoken non-English language in the United States when both Cantonese and Mandarin are combined, behind Spanish and French. Many institutes of higher education have traditionally had Chinese programs based on Cantonese, with some continuing to offer these programs despite the rise of Mandarin. The most popular romanization for learning Cantonese in the United States is Yale Romanization.

The majority of Chinese emigrants have traditionally originated from Guangdong and Guangxi, as well as Hong Kong (beginning in the latter half of the 20th century and before the Handover) and Southeast Asia, with Cantonese as their native language. However, more recent immigrants are arriving from the rest of mainland China and Taiwan and most often speak Standard Mandarin (Putonghua) as their native language, although some may also speak their native local variety, such as Shanghainese, Hokkien, Fuzhounese, Hakka, etc. As a result, Mandarin is becoming more common among the Chinese American community.

The increase of Mandarin-speaking communities has resulted in the rise of separate neighborhoods or enclaves segregated by the primary Chinese variety spoken. Socioeconomic statuses are also a factor as well. For example, in New York City, Cantonese still predominates in the city's older, traditional western portion of Chinatown in Manhattan, in Brooklyn's small new Chinatowns in sections of Bensonhurst and in Homecrest. The newly emerged Little Fuzhou eastern portion of Manhattan's Chinatown and Brooklyn's main large Chinatown in and around Sunset Park are mostly populated by Fuzhounese speakers, who often speak Mandarin as well. The Cantonese and Fuzhounese enclaves in New York City are more working class. Flushing's large Chinatown, which now holds the crown as the largest Chinatown of the city and Elmhurst's smaller Chinatown in Queens are very mixed with large numbers of Mandarin speakers from many different parts of China and Taiwan. They comprise the primary cultural center for New York City's Chinese population and are more middle class.

In Northern California, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, Cantonese has historically and continues to predominate in the Chinatowns of San Francisco and Oakland, as well as the surrounding suburbs and metropolitan area, although Mandarin is now also found in Silicon Valley. In contrast, Southern California hosts a much larger Mandarin-speaking population, with Cantonese found in more historical Chinese communities such as that of Chinatown, Los Angeles and older Chinese ethnoburbs such as San Gabriel, Rosemead and Temple City.

While a number of more-established Taiwanese immigrants have learned Cantonese to foster relations with the traditional Cantonese-speaking Chinese American population, more recent arrivals and the larger number of mainland Chinese immigrants have largely continued to use Mandarin as the exclusive variety of Chinese. This has led to a linguistic discrimination that has also contributed to social conflicts between the two sides, with a growing number of Chinese Americans (including American-born Chinese) of Cantonese background defending the historic Chinese American culture against the impacts of increasing Mandarin-speaking new arrivals.

Canada
Cantonese is the most common Chinese variety spoken among Chinese Canadians. According to the Canada 2011 Census, there were nearly 300,000 Canadian residents who reported Cantonese as their native language. The actual number of Cantonese speakers in the nation, however, is thought to be greater as an additional 297,295 people who reported a Chinese native language did not specify the variety spoken.

As in the United States, the Chinese Canadian community traces its roots to early immigrants from Guangdong during the latter half of the 19th century. Later Chinese immigrants came from Hong Kong in two waves, first in the late 1960s to mid 1970s, and again in the 1980s to late 1990s on fears arising from the impending handover to the People's Republic of China. Chinese-speaking immigrants from conflict zones in Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam, arrived as well, beginning in the mid-1970s and were also largely Cantonese-speaking. Unlike the United States, recent immigration from mainland China and Taiwan to Canada has been small, and Cantonese still remains the predominant Chinese variety in the country.

United Kingdom
The overwhelming majority of Chinese speakers in the United Kingdom use Cantonese, with about 300,000 British people claiming it as their first language. This is largely due to the presence of British Hong Kongers and the fact that many British Chinese also have origins from the former British colonies in Southeast Asia of Singapore and Malaysia.

France
Among the Chinese community in France, Cantonese is spoken by immigrants who fled the former French Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) following the conflicts and communist takeovers in the region during the 1970s. While a slight majority of ethnic Chinese from Indochina speak Teochew at home, knowledge of Cantonese is prevalent due to its historic prestige status in the region and is used for commercial and community purposes between the different Chinese variety groups. As in the United States, there is a divide between Cantonese-speakers and those speaking other mainland Chinese varieties.

Portugal
Cantonese is spoken by ethnic Chinese in Portugal who originate from Macau, the most established Chinese community in the nation with a presence dating back to the 16th century and Portuguese colonialism. Since the late-20th century however, Mandarin and Wu-speaking migrants from mainland China have outnumbered those from Macau, although Cantonese is still retained among mainstream Chinese community associations.

Australia
Cantonese has traditionally been the dominant Chinese language of the Chinese Australian community since the first ethnic Chinese settlers arrived in the 1850s. It maintained this status until the mid-2000s, when a heavy increase in immigration from Mandarin-speakers largely from Mainland China led to Mandarin surpassing Cantonese as the dominant Chinese variety spoken. Cantonese is the third most spoken in Australia. Based on the 2011 census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics lists 336,410 speakers of Mandarin followed by Cantonese at 263,673.

History


During the Southern Song period, Guangzhou became the cultural center of the region. Cantonese emerged as the prestige variety of Yue Chinese when the port city of Guangzhou on the Pearl River Delta became the largest port in China, with a trade network stretching as far as Arabia. Cantonese was also used in the popular Yuè'ōu, Mùyú and Nányīn folksong genres, as well as Cantonese opera. Additionally, a distinct classical literature was developed in Cantonese, with Middle Chinese texts sounding more similar to modern Cantonese than other present-day Chinese varieties, including Mandarin.

As Guangzhou became China's key commercial center for foreign trade and exchange in the 1700s, Cantonese became the variety of Chinese interacting with most with the Western World. Around this period and continuing into the 1900s, the ancestors of most of the population of Hong Kong and Macau arrived from Guangzhou and surrounding areas after they were ceded to Britain and Portugal, respectively. A popular urban legend claims that after the Xinhai Revolution of 1912, Cantonese almost became the official language of the Republic of China but lost by just one vote.

In Mainland China, Standard Chinese (based on Mandarin) has been heavily promoted as the medium of instruction in schools and as the official language, especially after the communist takeover in 1949. Meanwhile, Cantonese has remained the official variety of Chinese in Hong Kong and Macau, both during and after the colonial period.

Cultural role
Spoken Chinese has numerous regional and local varieties, many of which are mutually unintelligible. Most of these are rare outside their native areas, though they may be spoken outside of China. Since a 1909 Qing Dynasty decree, China has promoted Mandarin for use in education, the media and official communications. The proclamation of Mandarin as the official national language however, was not fully accepted by the Cantonese authorities in the early 20th century, who argued for the "regional uniqueness" of their own local language and commercial importance of the region. The use of Cantonese in mainland China is unique relative to non-Mandarin Chinese varieties in that it continues to persist in a few state television and radio broadcasts today.

Nevertheless, there have been recent attempts to minimize the use of Cantonese in China. The most notable has been the 2010 proposal that Guangzhou Television increase its broadcast in Mandarin at the expense of Cantonese programs. This however led to mass protests in Guangzhou, which eventually dissuaded authorities from enforcing the linguistic switch. Additionally, there have been reports of students being punished for speaking other Chinese languages at school, resulting in a reluctance of younger children to communicate in their native languages, including Cantonese. Such actions have further strengthened the role of Cantonese in their local culture, with the variety being seen as an identity of the region's native people, in contrast to migrants who have generally arrived from poorer areas of China and largely speak Mandarin or any different Chinese language.

Due to the linguistic history of Hong Kong and Macau, and the use of Cantonese in most established overseas Chinese communities, international usage of Cantonese is relatively widespread compared to its proportion of speakers who make up the population in China. Cantonese is the predominant Chinese variety spoken in Hong Kong and Macau. In these areas, political discourse takes place almost exclusively in Cantonese, making it the only variety of Chinese other than Mandarin to be used as the primary language for official state functions. Because of their use by non-Mandarin-speaking Yue speakers overseas, Cantonese and Taishanese are the primary forms of Chinese that many Westerners encounter.

Increasingly since the 1997 Handover, Cantonese has been used as a symbol of local identity in Hong Kong, largely through the development of democracy in the territory and desinicization practices to emphasise a separate Hong Kong identity.

A similar identity situation exists in the United States, where social conflicts have arisen within the Chinese American community due to a large recent influx of Mandarin-speakers from Taiwan and China. While many established Taiwanese immigrants have learned Cantonese to foster relations with the traditional Cantonese-speaking Chinese American populations, more recent arrivals and the larger number of mainland Chinese immigrants have largely continued to use Mandarin, sometimes as their exclusive language as well rather than attempting to use English. This has contributed to a segregation of communities based on variety of Chinese spoken, as well as a growing number of Chinese Americans (including American-born Chinese) of Cantonese background defending the historic Chinese American culture before the recent arrival of Mandarin-speakers, including dis-identification with China itself in favor of their families' nations of origin (e.g. Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, etc.) if not from the mainland.

Along with Mandarin and Hokkien, Cantonese has its own popular music, Cantopop. In Hong Kong, Cantonese lyrics predominate within popular music, and many artists from Beijing and Taiwan have learned Cantonese to make Cantonese versions of their recordings. Popular native Mandarin-speaking singers, including Faye Wong, Eric Moo, and singers from Taiwan, have been trained in Cantonese to add "Hong Kong-ness" to their performances.

Films were also made in Cantonese from the early days of Chinese cinema, and the first Cantonese talkie, White Gold Dragon (白金龍), was made in 1932 by the Tianyi Film Company. Despite a ban on Cantonese films by the Nanjing authority in the 1930s, Cantonese film production continued in Hong Kong which was then under British colonial rule. From the mid-1970s to the 1990s, Cantonese films made in Hong Kong were very popular among overseas Chinese communities.

Initials and finals
The de facto standard pronunciation of Cantonese is that of Canton (Guangzhou), which is described in the Cantonese phonology article. Hong Kong Cantonese has some minor variations in phonology, but is largely identical to standard Guangzhou Cantonese.

In Hong Kong and Macau, certain phoneme pairs have caused one sound to merge into another. Although termed as "lazy sound" (懶音) and considered substandard to Guangzhou pronunciation, the phenomenon has been widespread in the territories since the early 20th century. The most notable difference between Hong Kong and Guangzhou pronunciation is the substitution of the liquid nasal for the nasal initial  in many words. An example of this is manifested in the word for you (你), pronounced as néih in Guangzhou and as léih in Hong Kong.

Another key feature of Hong Kong Cantonese is the merging of the two syllabic nasals and. This can be exemplified in the elimination of the contrast of sounds between 吳 (Ng, a surname) (ng 4 /ǹgh in Guangzhou pronunciation) and 唔 (not) (mh 4 /m̀h in Guangzhou pronunciation). In Hong Kong, both words are pronounced as the latter.

Lastly, the initials and  can be merged into  and  when followed by. An example is in the word for country (國), pronounced in standard Guangzhou as gwok but as gok with the merge. Unlike the above two differences, this merge is found alongside the standard pronunciation in Hong Kong rather than being replaced. Educated speakers often stick to the standard pronunciation but can exemplify the merged pronunciation in casual speech. In contrast, less educated speakers pronounce the merge more frequently.

Less prevalent, but still notable differences found among a number of Hong Kong speakers include:
 * Merging of initial into null initial.
 * Merging of and  codas into  and  codas respectively, eliminating contrast between these pairs of finals (except after  and ): -, -, -, -, - and -.
 * Merging of the rising tones (陰上 2nd and 陽上 5th).

Cantonese vowels tend to be traced further back to Middle Chinese back than their Mandarin analogues, such as M. /aɪ/ vs. C. /ɔːi/; M. /i/ vs. C. /ɐi/; M. /ɤ/ vs. C. /ɔː/; M. /ɑʊ/ vs. C. /ou/ etc. For consonants, some differences include M. /ɕ, tɕ, tɕʰ/ vs. C. /h, k, kʰ/; M. /ʐ/ vs. C. /j/; and a greater syllable coda diversity in Cantonese (such as syllables ending in -t, -p, or -k).

Tones
Generally speaking, Cantonese is a tonal language with six phonetic tones.

Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered as "checked tones" and treated separately by diachronic convention, identifying Cantonese with nine tones. However, phonetically these are now considered a conflation of tone and final consonant and are seldom counted as individual tones in modern linguistics.

Written Cantonese
As Cantonese is used primarily in Hong Kong, Macau, and other overseas Chinese communities, it is usually written with traditional Chinese characters. However, it includes extra characters as well as characters with different meanings from written vernacular Chinese due to the presence of words that either do not exist in standard Chinese or correspond with spoken Cantonese. This system of written Cantonese is often found in colloquial contexts such as entertainment magazines and social media, as well as on advertisements.

In contrast, standard written Chinese continues to be used in formal literature, professional and government documents, and news media. Nevertheless, colloquial characters may be present in formal written communications such as legal testimonies and newspapers when an individual is being quoted, rather than paraphrasing spoken Cantonese into standard written Chinese.

Romanization
Cantonese romanization systems are based on the accent of Canton and Hong Kong, and have helped define the concept of Standard Cantonese. The major systems are Meyer–Wempe, the Chinese government's Guangdong Romanization, Yale and Jyutping. While they do not differ greatly, Yale is the one most commonly seen in the west today. The Hong Kong linguist Sidney Lau modified the Yale system for his popular Cantonese-as-a-second-language course and is still widely in use today. The Cantonese romanization systems of Macau are slightly different from Hong Kong's, the spellings are basically influenced by the Portuguese language. However, some words under the Macau's romanization systems are same as Hong Kong's (e.g. Lam 林, Chan 陳). Words with the alphabet "u" under Hong Kong's romanization systems are often replaced by "o" under Macao's romanization systems (e.g. Chau vs Chao 周, Leung vs Leong 梁). Both the spellings of Hong Kong and Macao Cantonese romanization systems do not look similar to the mainland China's pinyin system. Generally, plain stops are written with voiced consonants (/p/, /t/, /ts/, and /k/ as b, d, z/j, and g respectively), and aspirated stops with unvoiced ones, as in pinyin and Icelandic.

Early Western effort
Systematic efforts to develop an alphabetic representation of Cantonese began with the arrival of Protestant missionaries in China early in the nineteenth century. Romanization was considered both a tool to help new missionaries learn the variety more easily and a quick route for the unlettered to achieve gospel literacy. Earlier Catholic missionaries, mostly Portuguese, had developed romanization schemes for the pronunciation current in the court and capital city of China but made few efforts to romanize other varieties.

Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary in China published a "Vocabulary of the Canton Dialect" (1828) with a rather unsystematic romanized pronunciation. Elijah Coleman Bridgman and Samuel Wells Williams in their "Chinese Chrestomathy in the Canton Dialect" (1841) were the progenitors of a long-lived lineage of related romanizations with minor variations embodied in the works of James Dyer Ball, Ernst Johann Eitel, and Immanuel Gottlieb Genăhr (1910). Bridgman and Williams based their system on the phonetic alphabet and diacritics proposed by Sir William Jones for South Asian languages.

Their romanization system embodied the phonological system in a local dialect rhyme dictionary, the Fenyun cuoyao, which was widely used and easily available at the time and is still available today. Samuel Wells Willams' Tonic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Canton Dialect (Yinghua fenyun cuoyao 1856), is an alphabetic rearrangement, translation and annotation of the Fenyun. To adapt the system to the needs of users at a time when there were only local variants and no standard—although the speech of the western suburbs, Xiguan, of Guangzhou was the prestige variety at the time—Williams suggested that users learn and follow their teacher's pronunciation of his chart of Cantonese syllables. It was apparently Bridgman's innovation to mark the tones with an open circle (upper register tones) or an underlined open circle (lower register tones) at the four corners of the romanized word in analogy with the traditional Chinese system of marking the tone of a character with a circle (lower left for "even," upper left for "rising," upper right for "going," and lower right for "entering" tones).

John Chalmers, in his "English and Cantonese pocket-dictionary" (1859) simplified the marking of tones using the acute accent to mark "rising" tones and the grave to mark "going" tones and no diacritic for "even" tones and marking upper register tones by italics (or underlining in handwritten work). "Entering" tones could be distinguished by their consonantal ending. Nicholas Belfeld Dennys used Chalmers romanization in his primer. This method of marking tones was adopted in the Yale romanization (with low register tones marked with an 'h'). A new romanization was developed in the first decade of the twentieth century which eliminated the diacritics on vowels by distinguishing vowel quality by spelling differences (e.g. a/aa, o/oh). Diacritics were used only for marking tones.

The name of Tipson is associated with this new romanization which still embodied the phonology of the Fenyun to some extent. It is the system used in Meyer-Wempe and Cowles' dictionaries and O'Melia's textbook and many other works in the first half of the twentieth century. It was the standard romanization until the Yale system supplanted it. The distinguished linguist Y. R. Chao developed a Cantonese adaptation of his Gwoyeu Romatzyh system. The Barnett-Chao romanization system was first used in Chao's Cantonese Primer, published in 1947 by Harvard University Press (The Cantonese Primer was adapted for Mandarin teaching and published by Harvard University Press in 1948 as Mandarin Primer). The BC system was also used in textbooks published by the Hong Kong government.

Cantonese romanization in Hong Kong
An influential work on Cantonese, A Chinese Syllabary Pronounced According to the Dialect of Canton, written by Wong Shik Ling, was published in 1941. He derived an IPA-based transcription system, the S. L. Wong system, used by many Chinese dictionaries later published in Hong Kong. Although Wong also derived a romanization scheme, also known as the S. L. Wong system, it is not widely used as his transcription scheme. This system was preceded by the Barnett–Chao system used by the Hong Government Language School.

The romanization advocated by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK) is called Jyutping. The phonetic values of some consonants are closer to the approximate equivalents in IPA than in other systems. Some effort has been undertaken to promote Jyutping, but the success of its proliferation within the region has yet to be examined.

Another popular scheme is Cantonese Pinyin, which is the only romanization system accepted by Hong Kong Education and Manpower Bureau and Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority. Books and studies for teachers and students in primary and secondary schools usually use this scheme. But there are teachers and students who use the transcription system of S.L. Wong.

Despite the efforts to standardize Cantonese romanization, those learning the language may feel frustrated that most native Cantonese speakers, regardless of their level of education, are unfamiliar with any romanization system. Because Cantonese is primarily a spoken language and does not carry its own writing system (written Cantonese, despite having some Chinese characters unique to it, primarily follows modern standard Chinese, which is closely tied to Mandarin), it is not taught in schools. As a result, locals do not learn any of these systems. In contrast with Mandarin-speaking areas of China, Cantonese romanization systems are excluded in the education systems of both Hong Kong and the Guangdong province. In practice, Hong Kong follows a loose, unnamed romanization scheme used by the Government of Hong Kong.

Google Cantonese input uses Yale, Jyutping or Cantonese Pinyin, Yale being the first standard.

Comparison
Differences between the three main standards are in bold.

Loanwords
Life in Hong Kong is characterized by the blending of Asian (mainly south Chinese) and Western influences, as well as the status of the city as a major international business center. Influences from this territory are widespread in foreign cultures. As a result, many loanwords are created and exported to China, Taiwan, and Singapore. Some of the loanwords are even more popular than their Chinese counterparts. At the same time, some new words created are vividly borrowed by other languages as well.

Many Mandarin words originally of foreign origin come from varieties which borrowed them from the original foreign language. The Mandarin word "ningmeng" (檸檬), meaning "Lemon", originated from Cantonese, in which the characters are pronounced as "lìng mung".