1. Preserve a lot of ancient Chinese elements
There are many ancient pronunciations in standard Cantonese/Cantonese Cantonese Cantonese dialect, and there are many ancient words and ancient meanings in Cantonese, with quaint wording, and many words in Cantonese, including mood particles, can be directly found in ancient Chinese classics. In Chinese northern dialect, these ancient words have been abandoned or rarely used.
Grammatical items such as postposition and inversion of modifiers are reserved in Cantonese. Moreover, modern Cantonese still has a high tendency to use monosyllabic words which are dominant in ancient Chinese. Some words which are regarded as popular by Cantonese speakers can be found in ancient books. Guangdong, which is in a corner, has been rarely in war and has not been affected by much war, so it has always retained the language and culture of the Han and Tang Dynasties.
Second, there are elements of ancient South Vietnamese left behind
During the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Central Plains people and the ancient Vietnamese people who settled in the border areas of Lingnan lived together for a long time, and their languages, cultures, customs and other aspects infiltrated each other. Modern Cantonese still contains South Vietnamese elements, which are manifested in vocabulary and some remains in grammar. There are many common words that are close to or the same as modern Zhuang language in daily life.
Whether these words are the source of ancient Chinese, or the remains of ancient Vietnamese vocabulary, or simply because other minority languages borrowed these inherent words of ancient Chinese, which led people to think that these words in Cantonese are the source of ancient Baiyue, which has been impossible to verify. At present, there are about 2% of these words in Cantonese that have not been recorded in ancient Chinese documents, and the proportion is not large but they are used frequently.
Third, absorb loanwords
Cantonese loanwords mainly come from English. Loanwords have appeared in Guangzhou since the Qing Dynasty, but in the colonial history of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Cantonese (Hong Kong Cantonese) absorbed a lot of loanwords, which affected the Cantonese area in Guangdong. Many of these loanwords have not been absorbed in Mandarin (Northern dialect).
such as "store, si? 22 t? 55), namely "canteen"; Some of them have been absorbed, but the translation is different. For example, "salad" is "salad" in Cantonese.
Extended materials
Modern Cantonese generally adopts the modern vernacular writing system which rose at the beginning of the 2th century in formal occasions, and can be used in all Chinese, that is, written in all Chinese. Because Cantonese is a part of Chinese, the written expression itself can go hand in hand with the general written expression.
The grammar, vocabulary and expressions of this common written language are quite different from those of Cantonese written language, but people seem to have basically got used to this difference, and they don't feel great inconvenience. However, when people read the general written language in Cantonese, they generally don't read it completely literally. Readers will habitually adjust literal sentences according to Cantonese grammar, vocabulary and usage, and repeat them in Cantonese.
In order to be close to the people, the mass media will add a lot of Cantonese vocabulary from time to time. Some magazines will adopt another set of their own Cantonese writing system, and a large number of them will be written according to Cantonese grammar and terms. It is difficult for Chinese users who do not know Cantonese to understand this Cantonese vernacular. Newspapers will take a compromise approach, and the main text will be written in general, but in the dialogue and introduction, Cantonese will be used. These Cantonese dialogues make the article more vivid, vivid and direct, and avoid distortion when translated into common writing.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Cantonese (Sino-Tibetan language belongs to the Chinese family)