Yuehai Yue

Yuehai (Chinese: 粵海方言; pinyin: Yuèhái fāngyán; Jyutping: jyut6 hoi2 fong1 jin4) is the main branch of Yue Chinese, spoken in the Pearl River Delta of the province of Guangdong, as well as Hong Kong and Macau. It is commonly called Cantonese, though that name is more precisely applied to the Guangzhou dialect of Yuehai.

Yuehai
粵海方言
Native to	China
Region	Pearl River Delta, Guangdong
Native speakers	13 million? (1998)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Yue Yuehai
Dialects	Guangfu Sanyi Xiangshan Guanbao
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	yueh1236[2]
Linguasphere	79-AAA-ma
The four main Yuehai dialects, at right, are shaded in pink

Dialects

Yuehai is divided into four principal dialects, each of which contains various subdialects. Cantonese is the prestige form.

• Guangfu dialects
  • Guangzhou dialect
  • Hong Kong dialect
  • Macau dialect
  • Xiguan dialect
  • Wuzhou dialect
  • Tanka dialect
• Sanyi / Nanpanshun dialects
  • Nanhai dialect
  • Jiujiang dialect
  • Xiqiao dialect
  • Shunde dialect
• Xiangshan dialect
  • Shiqi dialect
  • Sanjiao dialect
• Guanbao dialect
  • Dongguan dialect
  • Bao'an dialect (Waitau)

References

1. "Guangfu" (apparently = all of Yuehai) in Olson, An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of China
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Yuehai". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.