Cantonese isn’t merely a different “style” of language. Cantonese and Mandarin are different dialects, and aren’t even mutually intelligible. They’re related, but less similar than say Italian and Spanish.

The old saying goes “A language is a dialect with an army” … if Guang Dong (sometimes Anglicized as Canton) were a separate country, Cantonese would definitely be considered a distinct language. Cantonese and Mandarin are dialects of Chinese in the same way that English and Dutch are dialects of the Germanic language.

A friend of mine grew up in Hong Kong speaking Cantonese fluently, but he only speaks a few words of Mandarin. He was in Shanghai and thought that maybe he could try speaking Cantonese slowly and with a Mandarin accent and hoped there were enough cognates to get the message across. Unfortunately, he got a grand total of about zero words across.

However, owing to their logographic/ideographic rather than phonetic writing system, Cantonese speakers and Mandarin speakers can write each other notes. The central Chinese government requires all students to learn Mandarin these days. I guess that’s why such a complicated writing system managed to survive for so long when much simpler alternatives exist.