[LINK] The decline of Cantonese?

[rfmcdonald]

Over at Foreign Dispatches, Abiola Lapite linked to David Pierson's Los Angeles Times article "Cantonese is Losing Its Voice". According to Pierson, the Cantonese language historically dominant in Chinese-American communities thanks to Cantonese-speaking China's historic dominance of emigration is losing ground, as speakers of other Chinese regional languages arrive in large numbers and Standard Mandarin becomes a lingua franca for all Chinese. Given the similar demographics, I wouldn't be surprised if the Mandarinization described in this article is taking place in other overseas Chinese communities. Singapore, with its Speak Mandarin Campaign, might simply have been ahead of its time.