Hundreds of people have staged a protest in Hong Kong against what they claim is a bid to replace the widely-used Cantonese with Mandarin, China's national language.
Protesters say protecting the dialect is crucial to the survival of Cantonese culture.
Cantonese is one of 14 Chinese dialects and the third most popular with over 70 million speakers. Other dialects include Wu, Min and Hakka.
Cantonese is used officially in Hong Kong and Macau, alongside Mandarin, which has 1.3 billion speakers.
Al Jazeera's Rob McBride reports. (Aug 02, 2010)
