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The earliest known dictionary of Chinese was 爾雅, meaning "Near refinement". It is common for languages to use "near" and "far" to indicate "this" and "that". Of course it would take somebody literate to know this, which most internet junkies today are unfortunately not.

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It might be unfortunate that I'm illiterate in classical Chinese, but I thank you, who are literate, for proving my point that all of these dialects have common underpinnings.

I don't think anybody is arguing that Cantonese and Mandarin doesn't have common underpinnings, but rather that they are not mutually intelligible.

French and Spanish, as romance languages, have a lot in common but they are separate languages. Writing Cantonese in standard written Chinese is similar to asking Spanish speakers not to write phonetically, but to rather write in French.

> internet junkies today

The American Mandarin Society has courses for Professionals. I guess they make quality judgement on what to keep or throwout in use of the Chinese language in their curated walled garden for snooty State official use.

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