The quest to save Cantonese in a world dominated by Mandarin
LOS ANGELES — Laura Ng had a dual motive for taking Cantonese classes at Stanford.
As a Ph.D. student in anthropology, she was researching the history of the Inland Empire Chinatowns.
She also wanted to communicate better with her parents, immigrants from China who worked as a seamstress and a cook.
In late 2020, she was stunned to hear that Stanford, citing COVID-related budget problems, was laying off its longtime Cantonese teacher, Sik Lee Dennig.
As efforts began to save Cantonese at Stanford, the language remained under threat worldwide.
It is being swamped by Mandarin, the official language of more than 1 billion people in China and Taiwan — as different from Cantonese as Spanish is from French.
Many Americans are more familiar with Cantonese's singsong cadences than the more clipped tones of Mandarin.
Cantonese is
