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Q: Is Cantonese a Dialect or a Language?
Why would anyone classify it as a dialect? Cantonese, Min, Wu, and so on, they are all Sinitic languages. Even languages within the Min group can be differentiated as separate languages since mutual intelligibility is limited.
Good question, it is far too different from mandarin to be classed as a dialect so I'd go with language.
My answer is it's a language.
The point is the written system of Cantonese is very mature and complete now.This is very important when you define it as a language.Other dialects,such as Min,it sounds like a very different language from the mandarin,but it doesn't have a separate written version which means the people who speaks Min still have to use the standard Chinese based on mandarin to write.
It's neither, it's a goddam, three in the morning, loud-arse drunkards, pain in the neck: "SEI HONG SEI!!! YAO DIN YAO!!! TOU MING JIAO!!! BI YUN TAO!!!!"
The mainlanders think its just a dialect, Cantonese is its own language with its own culture. 
