I am often intrigued by how widespread a lot of extended and even non-extended families are, and it’s fascinating to think of family members coming from different places to visit each other and having family gatherings with a bunch of different accents. What countries do you have known family members in?
I’m in Philly
Some are in NYC, USA
Many are throughout Guangdong Province, PRC
Not sure if this is accents but: Cantonese and Taishanese (台山, not 泰山) are mutually intelligible, but sounds a little different. Cantonese have 6 tones, Taishanese has 9 tones (compare to the 4 in Mandarin).
We don’t use Mandarin unless its with other non-Cantonese that are from China. Mandarin is just something that the government just started forcing. Think of like the Native Americans and the European colonizers forcing to learn a different language. Except this case, the colonizers are just a bit to the north on the same continent.
Similarly, we don’t use English unless its with people that speak none of the above mentioned languages.