Sounds like a massive underestimation than relative size. Here in Australia, mandarin only last year overtook cantonese as the dominant chinese language. Cantonese has been the dominant language for chinese here since the gold rush.
honestly even 200 million sounds like an underestimation, as all that is being counted is those in the region, internationally Cantonese has had a much wider reach for a long time.
Its only been since the economic growth of the mainland has the bridge language started to become dominant. The chinese government also likes to seriously inflate the importance of mandarin as a world language. Most chinese I have met speak their own dialect, and mandarin as their bridge. ranging from de zou, hokkien, shanghainese, cantonese, and various other ones.
Malaysian chinese are the trippiest ones of all, one of my friends speaks hokkien, canto, mandarin, malay, english, and spanish. The reason for having three dialects is due to his parents, aunts and uncles, and chinese that live in the community there. According to him, he had to flip between languages constant just to understand what everyone was saying.
honestly even 200 million sounds like an underestimation, as all that is being counted is those in the region, internationally Cantonese has had a much wider reach for a long time.
Its only been since the economic growth of the mainland has the bridge language started to become dominant. The chinese government also likes to seriously inflate the importance of mandarin as a world language. Most chinese I have met speak their own dialect, and mandarin as their bridge. ranging from de zou, hokkien, shanghainese, cantonese, and various other ones.
Malaysian chinese are the trippiest ones of all, one of my friends speaks hokkien, canto, mandarin, malay, english, and spanish. The reason for having three dialects is due to his parents, aunts and uncles, and chinese that live in the community there. According to him, he had to flip between languages constant just to understand what everyone was saying.