NZCLW 2025: 183 years of Cantonese in NZ

by Nessie Chan-Sharpe

Cantonese is the 7th most spoken language in New Zealand after English and yet most people don’t realise it’s been here since the 1840s, carried over by gold miners from southern China. Nearly two centuries later, it’s still woven into our country’s story.

The very first Chinese New Zealander, Appo Hocton, arrived in Nelson in 1842 during the Otago gold rush. He came from the Guangzhou region - previously known as “Canton”. When Chinese gold miners were officially invited to move to Otago during the 1850s, most of the miners who arrived were also from Guangzhou and they brought with them the Cantonese language, food and culture, solidifying the long history of Cantonese in Aotearoa. 

Many of the New Zealand Chinese families that trace their ancestry back to those original gold miners and market gardeners still carry Cantonese as the language of their heart.

During the 1980s, immigration from Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, fellow former British colonies, brought a new community of Cantonese speakers to our shores. Cantonese food and culture has become an inherent part of New Zealand Chinese identity: think yum cha, BBQ pork, Jackie Chan movies. It’s the language of my family and the language I have now taught to my little ones. 

According to the 2023 census, there are 54,417 Cantonese speakers in New Zealand and it is the 7th most commonly spoken non-English language. Worldwide, it is the most spoken dialect of Chinese after Mandarin with an estimated 80 million speakers across the globe. 

Cantonese and Mandarin are often thought of interchangeably as “Chinese,” but linguistically they are distinct. Mandarin has four tones, while Cantonese has nine. Cantonese is also considered the older of the two, preserving features from ancient forms of Chinese. While Mandarin became the official language of China in the early 20th century, Cantonese has remained deeply tied to diaspora communities, especially in places like New Zealand, where it arrived with early Chinese settlers.

It is truly remarkable how Cantonese has endured. Despite waves of migration, assimilation pressures, and language shift across generations, Cantonese continues to thrive in New Zealand. It is spoken in homes, in restaurants, and at weekend Chinese classes - proof that heritage languages can adapt and flourish far from their place of origin. It continues to bring identity, meaning, and history to our families today. 

So this week during New Zealand Chinese Language Week, if you find yourself biting into a siu mai dumpling at yum cha or tucking into bbq pork fried rice takeaways and hear the lilting tones of Cantonese spoken around you, you can join in celebrating a Kiwi-Chinese story more than 180 years in the making.