Reflections | Why Cantonese spoken in Malaysia sounds different to Hong Kong Cantonese, and no it’s not ‘wrong’
Malaysia’s ethnic and linguistic diversity has had an impact on how the Cantonese language has evolved in the country

In Kuala Lumpur and the adjoining city of Petaling Jaya, where I recently spent a week, the default Chinese language among Chinese Malaysians seems to be Cantonese.
The explanations given for the prevalent use of Cantonese among Chinese Malaysians in Kuala Lumpur and its conurbation include the high concentration of people of Cantonese descent; the firm following of Cantonese popular culture among ethnic Chinese residents, in the form of Hong Kong films, television programmes and music; and the perception of Cantonese as trendy or even prestigious.
However, the Cantonese spoken in Malaysia is different from that which is spoken in Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou and so on. Many Chinese Malaysians articulate Cantonese vowels differently. For example, the tricky rounded vowel “œ” in words like “heung” (“fragrant”), pronouncing it as “hee-ong” instead. This may be because Cantonese is not their first language and their pronunciation has been influenced by another language such as Hokkien or Teochew, which are also widely spoken.
Another difference involves vocabulary. In ethnically and linguistically diverse Malaysia, Cantonese has a veritable smorgasbord of languages to borrow from. Examples of words used by Cantonese speakers in Malaysia (as well as neighbouring Singapore) include “bai’ (“number of times”) borrowed from Hokkien; “lui” (“money”), from the Hokkien “looi”, itself a loan from the Malay “duit”; and “soma” (“all”) from the Malay “semua”. Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong would say “ts’i”, “ts’in” and “sor-yau”, respectively.
Misguided purists, and some Hongkongers, might scoff at how Chinese Malaysians speak Cantonese, but this is how languages evolve in the mutable milieu they are in.
In ancient times, southern China was the land of the Baiyue (“a hundred Yue”), a mosaic of related peoples called the Yue, who were ethnically and linguistically distinct to the Chinese in the Central Plains.