The Cantonese (Yue Chinese) language
and how it is written

Where Cantonese (Yue Chinese) ranks

Cantonese (Yue Chinese) is the 25th most-spoken language in the world by total speakers ^[1,2]. Here it is among its neighbours in the ranking, on one scale.

“How are you?” in Cantonese (Yue Chinese)

The design of Chinese characters

The fuller character forms used before the 1950s simplification and still standard in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan^[4,5]. Written Cantonese adds characters of its own for words standard Chinese does not have.

Logographic. Each character writes a word or meaningful part of one.

Kind

Logographic

Direction

Left to right

Took shape

Regular script took shape by about the 3rd–4th century CE

Line of descent

Oracle-bone script → Bronze script → Seal script → Clerical script → Regular script → Traditional

Traditional surface

Scrolls

Own digits

〇 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九

Also writes

普通话 Mandarin Chinese

• More strokes, older shapes

  Traditional characters keep components that simplified forms reduced: 龍 (dragon) against simplified 龙, 學 (study) against 学^[5].

• Written for speech

  Written Cantonese uses characters such as 冇 (don't have), 嘅 (possessive) and 咗 (completed action) for colloquial speech; Hong Kong's supplementary character set, now in Unicode, covers many of them^[5].

• Two words for thank you

  Cantonese splits 'thank you' by situation: 多謝 for a gift or a compliment, 唔該 for a service, like a waiter refilling tea^[6].

• Writing speech down

  Formal Cantonese writing follows standard written Chinese, but ads, chat and comics write the spoken language, using characters like 冇 (don't have) that standard Chinese lacks^[5].

Explore the letters

Numbers in Chinese characters

Cantonese (Yue Chinese)'s relatives among the 38

Cantonese (Yue Chinese) belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family (Sinitic). These are the other languages with 50 million or more speakers in the same family; the closest — in the same branch — come first.

• 普通话Mandarin ChineseSame branch: Sinitic · 1.2B
• 吴语Wu ChineseSame branch: Sinitic · 83M

Cantonese (Yue Chinese) across the hub

The main page compares all 38 languages. Each link opens it on Cantonese (Yue Chinese).

• Preview it in the explorer →with all 38 side by side
• Hear it in the voice tour →“How are you?” in every language, spoken in turn
• Trace its script's family tree →from the first alphabets and Chinese oracle bones
• Compare its digits →ten ways to write 0–9
• See its share of speakers →an interactive breakdown by script, family and region

Sources

1. Ethnologue — What are the top 200 most spoken languages? (2026)
2. Wikipedia — List of languages by total number of speakers (Ethnologue 2026 figures, retrieved October 2026)
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica — Cantonese language
4. Encyclopaedia Britannica — Chinese languages
5. The Unicode Standard 17.0, chapter 18: East Asia (Han, Hiragana, Katakana, Hangul)
6. Omniglot — Useful phrases in Cantonese

Checked October 25, 2026. Speaker numbers are Ethnologue's 2026 estimates, which count each language separately (Arabic and Chinese varieties are listed one by one). Maps shade whole countries, not regions within them. Found an error? Tell us.