Guangdong chief speaks up for Cantonese

Guangdong's top political leader has reached out to Cantonese speakers in an apparent attempt to placate the public after hundreds took to Guangzhou's streets to defend the dialect.

Communist Party chief Wang Yang told a meeting on Wednesday to mark the 100-day countdown to the Asian Games that there was no question of Cantonese being banned, the semi-official China News Service reported yesterday.

'Even I am learning Cantonese. Who would dare do away with it?' he reportedly told an applauding crowd at the meeting.

In defiance of government orders, hundreds attended rallies in Guangzhou over the past two Sundays against an official proposal early last month to switch prime-time programming on the main channels of Guangdong TV from Cantonese to Putonghua. There was a parallel march in Hong Kong on Sunday.

The rare joint campaign was the first to bring Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong and Guangdong together in defence of the dialect, which they say has been increasingly marginalised on the mainland.

Wang said up to 40 per cent of the protesters were students who did not understand the real situation and were therefore easily misled.

'We hope [everybody] could be vigilant about being used,' Wang was quoted by the Dongguan Times as saying. 'Before the Asian Games, some people who have ulterior motives ... want to stir up trouble, so we must guard against that. The world is not a peaceful place.'