Cantonese is regarded as a modern variation of the ancient Han language, said Roxana Fung, an assistant professor at Polytechnic University's department of Chinese and bilingual studies. The Cantonese system - pronunciations, vocabulary and usage - is very similar to the official language used during the Tang dynasty (618-907).
"Every dynasty had its official language to help the emperors rule. The official language of the Tang dynasty has left plenty of its traits in Cantonese," she said... "Remoteness and inefficient transport created an environment for the language to remain largely intact after it arrived..."
Putonghua, meanwhile, only came into being after the Communist Party took power in 1949. Beijing dialect - a mixture of Manchu, the language of the ethnic group that ruled during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), and the indigenous Beijing language - forms the backbone of Putonghua.
"To standardise Putonghua, officials decided to eliminate the unpopular indigenous usage and vocabularies of the Beijing dialect. Meanwhile, they included the popular terms spoken in the bigger northern China area, making the northern dialects the basis of Putonghua," Fung said.
"As a result, Putonghua is not the native tongue of anyone. We call it a linguistic artefact."