The ethnic Chinese in Malaysia belong to several Chinese dialect groups. There are four major dialect groups: Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese and Teochew. Other dialects include Hainanese, Hokchiu and Hinghwa. Hokkien, Hinghwa and Hokchiu are also known as Min Nan language. It is evident that people belonging to certain dialect groups are populated in different parts of communities in Malaysia.
The Hokkien is the largest group in Malaysia. It forms the largest dialect group in Penang, Malacca, Kedah, Terengganu, Kelantan, Selangor — mostly in Klang and coastal region of Selangor and western Johor. The Hokkien dialect is also commonly spoken in East Malaysia.
The Hakka form the most populous dialect group in East Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak), parts of Johor notably Kulai, Selangor-Kuala Lumpur and Pahang. Hakkas are also found in large numbers in Johor Bahru and Perak, of which they possibly constitute the largest dialect group. It is the main dialect in Kuching, Sarawak.
Cantonese constitutes the most populous Chinese dialect group in the state of Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Pahang, Negeri Sembilan and Perak where the Cantonese forms a large percentage of the population. The Cantonese also forms the largest dialect group in eastern Johor and Sandakan, Sabah. Sandakan used to be called “Little Hong Kong” since it was the second homeland for many settlers from Guangdong, where the sceneries resembles Hong Kong in the 1970s and the 1980s. Local Cantonese media is frequently broadcasted by Malaysian television channels, notably RTM2, TV3, NTV7, TV9 and 8TV.
The Teochews are concentrated in parts of Penang, many islands of Sabah and Southern Johor, principally Johor Bahru and Pontian.
There are, in general, three sub-linguistic groups of Malaysian Chinese with three metropolitan centers. The Penang, Klang and Malacca groups are predominantly Hokkien-speaking and the Kuala Lumpur, Seremban & Ipoh group is predominantly Cantonese and Hakka-speaking. To the south of Peninsular Malaysia, in Johor, Mandarin is predominantly spoken among the Chinese communities there, which is a result of the Mandarin media influence from Singapore, and the use of Mandarin in formal education. This has resulted in many people, especially the younger generation, to discard and neglect the usage of Chinese dialects, especially Teochew and Cantonese. Whereas in East Malaysia (Malaysian Borneo), Hakka and Mandarin is widely spoken, except in Sibu, Fuzhou and in Sandakan, Cantonese.
Modern movements to unify and organize Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian Chinese communities introduced Standard Mandarin as the language of diaspora ethnic nationalism.