Yue, commonly known as Cantonese, is a primary branch of Chinese spoken in southern China.

The issue of whether Yue is a language in its own right or a dialect of a single Chinese language depends on conceptions of what a language is. Like the other branches of Chinese, Yue is considered a dialect for ethnic, political, and cultural reasons, but it is also considered a distinct language because of linguistic reasons. Spoken Cantonese is mutually unintelligible with other varieties of Chinese, though intelligible to a certain degree in its written form.

The areas of China with the highest concentration of speakers are the provinces of Guangdong and (eastern) Guangxi and the regions of Hong Kong and Macau. There are also substantial Cantonese- and Taishanese-speaking minorities overseas in Southeast Asia, Canada, Australia, and the United States.

The prototypical use of the name "Cantonese" in English is for the Guangzhou (Canton) dialect of Yue, but it is commonly used for Yue as a whole. To avoid confusion, academic texts may call the primary branch of Chinese Yue, following the Mandarin pinyin spelling, and either restrict "Cantonese" to its common usage as the dialect of Guangzhou, or avoid the term "Cantonese" altogether and distinguish Yue from Canton or Guangzhou dialect.

Ma Yue was born in 1959 to a Muslim Hui family in Hebei whose association with martial arts goes back six generations.^{[citation needed]}

As a five year old, his father Ma Xianda took him to train with his grandfather, Ma Fengtu where he learned his family styles Tongbeiquan, Piguaquan, Fanziquan, Bajiquan, and Cuojiao. At the age of 11, Ma Yue won the Xian city and Shaanxi province all-around championships and beat renowned International Wushu champ Zhao Changjun.

In 1983, he won a four gold awards, placing firsts in fanzi, pigua, short weapon and straight sword. Ma Yue has since had a long career in the martial arts. He is a Chinese National Wushu Champion,^{[citation needed]} two-time gold medallist^{[citation needed]} and a graduate of Wushu University of China.^{[citation needed]}