I am often intrigued by how widespread a lot of extended and even non-extended families are, and it’s fascinating to think of family members coming from different places to visit each other and having family gatherings with a bunch of different accents. What countries do you have known family members in?
You’re right in saying 汉语 and 粤语 are different.
But then, when I lived in China I had teachers tell me Japanese and Korean were really dialects of Chinese because they used to be written with 汉字… 🙄 Imperialism gonna imperial…
Though due to that cultural imperialism lots of Cantonese’s unique vocabulary is being replaced by the Chinese equivalent, and even the grammar is changing to fit more closely. =(
Various 粤语 speech is still just about the norm in the UK amongst the Chinese diaspora, though more the 粤海 variant of Hong Kong, due to our own imperialist history. But that is changing with more recent waves of PRC migrants.