mandarin will take a more prominent role in the whole world...everyone is agreein on this, including chinese people w ho speaks another dialect (like cantonese in HK) more and more people are learning mandarin (like the daugter of mulitimillionaire Warren Buffet). But i personally think, mandarin won't kill or replace the position of cantonese it has now or in the near term as a the day to day language in Guandong and HK and overseas Chinese. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_(linguistics), there are over 71 million cantonese speakers worldwide and it is the third mayor chinese dialect/language... thus Cantonese is really a mayor language spoken by many people. Mainland china is getting economically getting stronger and more important, thats a mayor reason why mandarin is gaining in importance. And I think thats why more and more (cantonese) people are learning it（including myself)
just because the importance of mandarin is growing doesn't necessarily mean that cantonese will cease. i hardly think ppl will use cantonese any less than before. loves cantonese!
Too bad China is pushing for Simplified Chinese and Mandarin because they're the "official" language/writing system. Cantonese and Traditional Chinese will always be the number one language in my heart!
Acutally....if u dunt know both canto or mando...mando will be easier to learn...cuz mando is proper...and canto has LOTs of slangs...lol...i like both languages...i wanna learn to read and write both....my rents thought im a wierd child...
Cantonese will never cease. So many people still speaking it. Also the language is mainly used in the southern parts. Unless they abolish it, it will never cease.
