Ahhhhh, thank you for the insight. I kind of get it more now, I can understand several similar village dialects to my parents' ("Teochew") despite not speaking the "Hakka" or "Hokkien" dialects, which always confused me because I didn't actively speak either.

Fascinating. I wish that such similarities between dialects could be seen more and more of a wonderful handy thing that connects cultures in being able to communicate instead of being used in the name of xenophobia. All dialects should be held as equal, not just the simpler colonizer one that we've adapted into communicating internationally.