Standard Chinese
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Standard Chinese, often colloquially called Mandarin Chinese, is the modern standardized form of Mandarin Chinese, largely based on the Beijing dialect. It is the official lingua franca of the People'
A poster outside a high school in Yangzhou urges people to "Speak Putonghua to welcome guests from all around, use the language of the civilized to give your sincere feelings".
Cantonese
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Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou and its surrounding Pearl River D
Chinese dictionary from the Tang dynasty. Modern Cantonese pronunciation preserves almost all terminal consonants (-m, -n, -ng, -p, -t, -k) from Middle Chinese.
Street in Chinatown, San Francisco. Cantonese has traditionally been the dominant Chinese variant among Chinese populations in the Western world.