Early vocabulary development in Mandarin (Putonghua) and Cantonese

TLDR

The study used parent‑report CDI instruments to assess vocabulary growth and noun classifier acquisition in Mandarin and Cantonese children aged 0.8–2.6 years, comparing overall scores and classifier use relative to age and vocabulary size. Mandarin‑speaking children scored higher than Cantonese peers from about 1.4 years onward, with differences linked to only‑child status, monolingual households, and caregiver education; although age trajectories favored Beijing children, Hong Kong children acquired classifiers at smaller vocabularies, underscoring that vocabulary size, not just age, is a key metric for cross‑linguistic acquisition.

Abstract

ABSTRACT Parent report instruments adapted from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) examined vocabulary development in children aged 0 ; 8 to 2 ; 6 for two Chinese languages, Mandarin ( n =1694) and Cantonese ( n =1625). Parental reports suggested higher overall scores for Mandarin- than for Cantonese-speaking children from approximately 1 ; 4 onward. Factors relevant to the difference were only-child status, monolingual households and caregiver education. In addition to the comparison of vocabulary scores overall, the development of noun classifiers, grammatical function words common to the two languages, was assessed both in terms of the age and the vocabulary size at which these terms are acquired. Whereas age-based developmental trajectories again showed an advantage for Beijing children, Hong Kong children used classifiers when they had smaller vocabularies, reflecting the higher frequencies and greater precision of classifier use in adult Cantonese. The data speak to the importance of using not just age, but also vocabulary size, as a metric by which the acquisition of particular linguistic elements can be examined across languages.