11-06-2026, 11:45 PM
I think you are confusing Standard Chinese with Sinitic languages writ large. I can explain this in more detail if you think that will be fruitful, but the situation in that movie, and the situation under which Cantonese speakers can realize Chinese "in the vernacular" are when the writing is, shuffling some potentially important distinctions to the side, in Mandarin. The standard, written form uses Mandarin syntax and Mandarin vocabulary based specifically on the Beijing standard. This is the language that is taught in schools, and the language most people write in. Depending on where it is being taught, it is sometimes realized with the prescribed standard pronunciation from Beijing, but in Guangdong specifically it is taught using a Guangzhou phonetic standard. Languages that are not Mandarin have different vocabulary, syntax, and particles, so regardless of phonology, it is not the mother tongue of the people reading and writing it. The differences exceed the linguistic diversity in the Romance family, and no one thinks French is Italian with a funny accent.
To be fair, I have seen sources word this in a way that really does imply Standard Chinese with Guangzhou's pronunciation is simply Cantonese. It is sometimes hard to tell if they are glossing over the little hitch that Standard Chinese read this way is not mutually intelligible with Cantonese or genuinely in error, but at any rate the implication is incorrect. This process results in a language that is grammatically correct Beijing Mandarin and only Beijing Mandarin. Cantonese has its own modest literary tradition which Standard/Mandarin speakers cannot read without genuine translation. I cannot do justice to the politics of written Hokkien here, but I can recommend keeping your opinion that Hokkien and Mandarin are interchangeable to yourself in Taiwan unless you are scrappy in a fight. There are other examples, but with an even smaller footprint. Now, as you can imagine, casual writing, especially between speakers of the same language, often deviates from formal Beijing Mandarin in ways that students of Medieval Latin would find familiar, but apart from genuine Cantonese and Hokkien, the aim and expectation is usually to write Standard Chinese.
I've outlined how the fact these are fully realized languages applies to Classical Chinese several times now, and why the differences are so hard on the COT, and can clarify anything I've said now that we've cleared up that most Chinese speakers are bilingual, as historically most literate Chinese people have been. The reason why the popular movements largely agreed to stop using the 2500 year old language of the elite classes was because it was frigging hard to teach. Recitations are hard to understand, it has remote grammar, and a large proportion (like, 80%+) of the lexicon had changed usage and/or meaning. To eggyk's point, I too would assume that the Author was being dictated to in a language he could understand, but I think that assumption does not sit with other assumptions you've made or conclusions you've drawn
To be fair, I have seen sources word this in a way that really does imply Standard Chinese with Guangzhou's pronunciation is simply Cantonese. It is sometimes hard to tell if they are glossing over the little hitch that Standard Chinese read this way is not mutually intelligible with Cantonese or genuinely in error, but at any rate the implication is incorrect. This process results in a language that is grammatically correct Beijing Mandarin and only Beijing Mandarin. Cantonese has its own modest literary tradition which Standard/Mandarin speakers cannot read without genuine translation. I cannot do justice to the politics of written Hokkien here, but I can recommend keeping your opinion that Hokkien and Mandarin are interchangeable to yourself in Taiwan unless you are scrappy in a fight. There are other examples, but with an even smaller footprint. Now, as you can imagine, casual writing, especially between speakers of the same language, often deviates from formal Beijing Mandarin in ways that students of Medieval Latin would find familiar, but apart from genuine Cantonese and Hokkien, the aim and expectation is usually to write Standard Chinese.
I've outlined how the fact these are fully realized languages applies to Classical Chinese several times now, and why the differences are so hard on the COT, and can clarify anything I've said now that we've cleared up that most Chinese speakers are bilingual, as historically most literate Chinese people have been. The reason why the popular movements largely agreed to stop using the 2500 year old language of the elite classes was because it was frigging hard to teach. Recitations are hard to understand, it has remote grammar, and a large proportion (like, 80%+) of the lexicon had changed usage and/or meaning. To eggyk's point, I too would assume that the Author was being dictated to in a language he could understand, but I think that assumption does not sit with other assumptions you've made or conclusions you've drawn