Hong Kong Cantonese
Encyclopedia
Hong Kong Cantonese is a form of Yue Chinese
commonly spoken in Hong Kong
. Although Hongkongers
largely identify this variant of Chinese with the term "Cantonese
" , a variety of publications in mainland China
describe the variant as Hong Kong speech . There are slight differences between the pronunciation used in Hong Kong Cantonese and that of the Cantonese spoken in the neighbouring Chinese province of Guangdong
, where Cantonese
(based on the Guangzhou
dialect) is a lingua franca
. Over the years, Hong Kong Cantonese has also absorbed foreign vocabularies
and developed a large set of Hong Kong-specific vocabularies. These differences from the Canton norm are the result of British rule
between 1841 and 1997, as well as the closure of the Hong Kong-China border immediately after the establishment of the People's Republic of China
in 1949.
in 1842, the inhabitants of Hong Kong mainly spoke the Dongguan-Bao'an (Tung Kwun-Po On) dialect of Yue, as well as Hakka, Teochew, and Tanka. These dialects are all remarkably different from Cantonese.
After the British acquired Hong Kong Island
, Kowloon Peninsula
and the New Territories
from the Qing in 1841 (officially 1842), 1860 and 1898 respectively, large numbers of merchants and workers came to Hong Kong from the city of Canton
, the centre of Cantonese. Cantonese became the dominant spoken language in Hong Kong. The frequent migration between Hong Kong and other Cantonese-speaking areas did not cease until the 1949 when the Communists took over mainland China. During this period, the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong was very similar to that in Canton.
Around 1949, the year that the People's Republic of China
was established, Hong Kong saw a large influx of refugees from different areas of China. The Hong Kong Government closed the border to halt the influx, but illegal immigration from mainland China
into Hong Kong
continued. Because of this, the correspondence between language and ethnicity may generally be true though not absolute, as many Chinese who speak Hong Kong Cantonese may come from other areas of China, especially Shanghai or non-Cantonese regions of Guangdong where Hakka and Teochiu prevail. Movement, communication, and relations between Hong Kong and mainland China became very limited, and consequently the evolution of Cantonese in Hong Kong diverged from that in the rest of Guangdong. In mainland China, the use of Mandarin
as the language of official use and education was enforced. In British ruled Hong Kong and the Hong Kong SAR, Cantonese was and continues to be the medium of instruction
in schools, along with written English
and written Chinese. And because of the long exposure to English during the colonial period, large number of English words were loaned into Hong Kong Cantonese, e.g. "巴士" (/páːsǐː/), literately, "bus". Hong Kong people even started to calque
English constructions, for example, "咁都唔 make sense" (literately "it still does not make sense."). Therefore, the vocabularies of Cantonese in Mainland China and Hong Kong differed.
Moreover, the pronunciation of Cantonese changed while the change either did not occur in Mainland China or took place much slower. For example, merging of /n/ initial into /l/ initial and /ŋ/ initial into null initial were observed. Due to the limited communication between Hong Kong and Mainland China, these changes only had a limited effect in Mainland China at that time. As a result, the pronunciation of Cantonese between Hong Kong and Mainland China varied, and so native speakers may note the difference when listening to Hong Kong Cantonese and Mainland China Cantonese.
Hong Kong-based Cantonese can be found in Hong Kong popular culture such as Hong Kong films
and Hong Kong pop music (Cantopop
). Hong Kong people who have emigrated to other countries have brought Hong Kong Cantonese to other parts of the world.
Other observed shifts:
Today in Hong Kong, people still make an effort to avoid these sound merges in serious broadcasts and in education. Older people often do not exhibit these shifts in their speech, but some do. With the sound changes, the name of Hong Kong's Hang Seng Bank
, /hœ́ːŋ kɔ̌ːŋ hɐ̏ŋ sɐ́ŋ ŋɐ̏n hɔ̏ːŋ/, becomes /hœ́ːn kɔ̌ːn hɐ̏n sɐ́n ɐ̏n hɔ̏ːn/, sounding like Hon' Kon' itchy body ( /hɐ̏n sɐ́n/) un cold ( /ɐ̏n hɔ̏ːn/) . The name of the Cantonese language itself would be /kʷɔ̌ːŋ tʊ́ŋ wǎː/ without the merger, whereas /kɔ̌ːŋ tʊ́ŋ wǎː/ (sounding like "": "speak eastern speech") and /kɔ̌ːn tʊ́ŋ wǎː/ (sounding like "" : "chase away eastern speech") are overwhelmingly popular.
The shift affects the way some Hong Kong people speak other languages as well. This is especially evident in the pronunciation of certain English names: "Nicole" becomes leg ko, and "Leonardo" becomes lee on la doh. A very common example of the mixing of (/n/) and (/l/) is that of the word , , meaning "you." Even though the standard pronunciation should be (/nei/) , the word is often pronounced (/lei/) ,which is a surname,, or the word , meaning theory. The merger of (/n/) and (/l/) also affects the choice of characters when the Cantonese media transliterate
foreign names.
Prescriptivists who try to correct these "lazy sounds"
often end up introducing hypercorrection
s. For instance, while attempting to ensure that people pronounce the initial /ŋ/, they may introduce it into words which have historically had a null-initial. One common example is that of the word , meaning "love." Even though the standard pronunciation would be /ɔ̄ːi/, the word is often pronounced /ŋɔ̄ːi/.
In recent years, a number of Hong Kong secondary schools have tried to reverse this change by making the learning of Cantonese Pinyin part of the school Chinese curriculum.
Here are a few examples:
n (southern Chinese
in particular) and Western cultures, as well as the city's position as a major international business centre. In turn, Hong Kong influences have also spread widely into other cultures. As a result, a large number of loanword
s are created in Hong Kong and then exported to China
, Taiwan
and Singapore
. Some of the loanwords have become even more popular than their Chinese counterparts, in Hong Kong as well as in their destination cultures.
into an adjective
. In some examples, some new meanings of English words are even created. For example, "至yeah", literally "the most yeah", means "the trendiest". Originally, "yeah" means "yes" in English, but it means "trendy" when being incorporated into Hong Kong Cantonese. However, semantic change is common in loanwords. When foreign words are borrowed into Cantonese, polysyllabic words and monosyllabic words tend to become disyllabic, and the second syllable is in the Upper Rising tone (the second tone). For example, "kon1 si2" (coins), "sat6 kiu1" (security) and "ka1 si2" (class). A few polysyllabic words become monosyllabic though, like "mon1" (monitor), literally means computer monitor. And some new Cantonese lexical items
are created according to the morphology
of Cantonese. For example, "laai1 記" from the word "library". Most of the disyllabic words and some of the monosyllabic words are incorporated as their original pronunciation, with some minor changes according to the Cantonese phonotactics
.
Incorporating words from foreign languages into Cantonese is also acceptable by most Cantonese speakers. Hong Kong Cantonese speakers frequently code-mix although they can distinguish foreign words from Cantonese ones. For instance, "咁都唔 make sense", literally means "it doesn't make sense". After a Cantonese speaker decides to code-mix a foreign word in a Cantonese sentence, syntactical rules
of Cantonese will be followed. For instance, "sure" (肯定) can be used like "你 su1 唔 su1 aa4?" (are you sure?) as if it were its Cantonese counterpart "你肯唔肯定?", using the A-not-A question construction.
In some circumstances, code-mixing is preferable because it can simplify sentences. In the case of some technological terms, code-mixing becomes very hard to avoid. For example, Hong Kong people find it difficult to say “你用個 mau1-si2 right-click嚟highlight啲字” (“You use the right-click of the mouse to highlight the words”) in pure Cantonese. It is actually not surprising if a Hong Konger does not know how to express "mouse", "right-click" and "highlight" in Chinese. Code-mixing is almost unavoidable for some technical terms like "trial balance" in accounting and "benzene" in chemistry because of the use of English as the medium of instruction at the tertiary level and oftentimes the secondary level. Many people in Hong Kong do not know the Chinese names of many technical terms and as a result, it is expected that English names of the terms be used. This is also a headache of prescriptive linguists and Chinese teachers who advocate the use of pure Cantonese. Code-mixing is in general not a problem but it could impose a language barrier between Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese as the former do not know the Chinese names of the terms while the latter, the English of the terms.
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
commonly spoken in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. Although Hongkongers
Hong Kong people
Hong Kong people refer to people who originate from Hong Kong. The term has no legal definition in Hong Kong. Rather, terms such as Hong Kong permanent resident and Hong Kong resident are used...
largely identify this variant of Chinese with the term "Cantonese
Standard Cantonese
Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a language that originated in the vicinity of Canton in southern China, and is often regarded as the prestige dialect of Yue Chinese....
" , a variety of publications in mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
describe the variant as Hong Kong speech . There are slight differences between the pronunciation used in Hong Kong Cantonese and that of the Cantonese spoken in the neighbouring Chinese province of Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
, where Cantonese
Standard Cantonese
Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a language that originated in the vicinity of Canton in southern China, and is often regarded as the prestige dialect of Yue Chinese....
(based on the Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
dialect) is a lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
. Over the years, Hong Kong Cantonese has also absorbed foreign vocabularies
Vocabulary
A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...
and developed a large set of Hong Kong-specific vocabularies. These differences from the Canton norm are the result of British rule
Colonial Hong Kong
In the 19th century the British, Dutch, French, Indians and Americans saw Imperial China as the world's largest untapped market. In 1840 the British Empire launched their first and one of the most aggressive expeditionary forces to claim the territory that would later be known as Hong Kong.In a few...
between 1841 and 1997, as well as the closure of the Hong Kong-China border immediately after the establishment of the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
in 1949.
History
Before the arrival of British settlersColonial Hong Kong
In the 19th century the British, Dutch, French, Indians and Americans saw Imperial China as the world's largest untapped market. In 1840 the British Empire launched their first and one of the most aggressive expeditionary forces to claim the territory that would later be known as Hong Kong.In a few...
in 1842, the inhabitants of Hong Kong mainly spoke the Dongguan-Bao'an (Tung Kwun-Po On) dialect of Yue, as well as Hakka, Teochew, and Tanka. These dialects are all remarkably different from Cantonese.
After the British acquired Hong Kong Island
Hong Kong Island
Hong Kong Island is an island in the southern part of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It has a population of 1,289,500 and its population density is 16,390/km², as of 2008...
, Kowloon Peninsula
Kowloon Peninsula
The Kowloon Peninsula is a peninsula that forms the southern part of the main landmass in the territory of Hong Kong. The Kowloon Peninsula and the area of New Kowloon are collectively known as Kowloon....
and the New Territories
New Territories
New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory. Historically, it is the region described in The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory...
from the Qing in 1841 (officially 1842), 1860 and 1898 respectively, large numbers of merchants and workers came to Hong Kong from the city of Canton
Canton
- Administrative divisions :* Canton , territorial/administrative subdivision in some countries, notably Switzerland* Township , known as canton in Canadian French- China :...
, the centre of Cantonese. Cantonese became the dominant spoken language in Hong Kong. The frequent migration between Hong Kong and other Cantonese-speaking areas did not cease until the 1949 when the Communists took over mainland China. During this period, the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong was very similar to that in Canton.
Around 1949, the year that the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
was established, Hong Kong saw a large influx of refugees from different areas of China. The Hong Kong Government closed the border to halt the influx, but illegal immigration from mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
into Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
continued. Because of this, the correspondence between language and ethnicity may generally be true though not absolute, as many Chinese who speak Hong Kong Cantonese may come from other areas of China, especially Shanghai or non-Cantonese regions of Guangdong where Hakka and Teochiu prevail. Movement, communication, and relations between Hong Kong and mainland China became very limited, and consequently the evolution of Cantonese in Hong Kong diverged from that in the rest of Guangdong. In mainland China, the use of Mandarin
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
as the language of official use and education was enforced. In British ruled Hong Kong and the Hong Kong SAR, Cantonese was and continues to be the medium of instruction
Medium of instruction
Medium of instruction is a language used in teaching. It may or may not be the official language of the country or territory. Where the first language of students is different from the official language, it may be used as the medium of instruction for part or all of schooling. Bilingual or...
in schools, along with written English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and written Chinese. And because of the long exposure to English during the colonial period, large number of English words were loaned into Hong Kong Cantonese, e.g. "巴士" (/páːsǐː/), literately, "bus". Hong Kong people even started to calque
Calque
In linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation.-Calque:...
English constructions, for example, "咁都唔 make sense" (literately "it still does not make sense."). Therefore, the vocabularies of Cantonese in Mainland China and Hong Kong differed.
Moreover, the pronunciation of Cantonese changed while the change either did not occur in Mainland China or took place much slower. For example, merging of /n/ initial into /l/ initial and /ŋ/ initial into null initial were observed. Due to the limited communication between Hong Kong and Mainland China, these changes only had a limited effect in Mainland China at that time. As a result, the pronunciation of Cantonese between Hong Kong and Mainland China varied, and so native speakers may note the difference when listening to Hong Kong Cantonese and Mainland China Cantonese.
Hong Kong-based Cantonese can be found in Hong Kong popular culture such as Hong Kong films
Cinema of Hong Kong
The cinema of Hong Kong is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China, and the cinema of Taiwan...
and Hong Kong pop music (Cantopop
Cantopop
Cantopop is a colloquialism for "Cantonese popular music". It is sometimes referred to as HK-pop, short for "Hong Kong popular music". It is categorized as a subgenre of Chinese popular music within C-pop...
). Hong Kong people who have emigrated to other countries have brought Hong Kong Cantonese to other parts of the world.
Pronunciation
In modern-day Hong Kong, many native speakers are unable to distinguish between certain phoneme pairs, causing them to merge one sound into another. Although this is often considered substandard and is frequently denounced as "lazy sound" , the phenomenon is becoming more widespread and is influencing other Cantonese-speaking regions. Contrary to popular opinion, some of these changes are not recent. The loss of the velar nasal (/ŋ/) was documented by Williams (1856), and the substitution of the liquid nasal (/l/) for the nasal initial (/n/) was documented by Cowles (1914).Other observed shifts:
- Merging of /n/ initial into /l/ initial.
- Merging of /ŋ/ initial into null initial.
- Merging of /kʷ/ and /kʷʰ/ initials into /k/ and /kʰ/ when followed by /ɔː/. Note that /ʷ/ is the only glideSemivowelIn phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:...
in Cantonese. - Merging of /ŋ/ coda into /n/ coda, eliminating contrast between these pairs of finals: /aːn/-/aːŋ/, /ɐn/-/ɐŋ/, and /ɔːn/-/ɔːŋ/.
- Merging of entering-tone /k/ coda into /t/ coda analogously.
- Merging of the two syllabic nasals, /ŋ̩/ into /m̩/, eliminating the contrast of sounds between (surname Ng) and (not).
- Merging of some /tsʰ/ into /ts/.
Today in Hong Kong, people still make an effort to avoid these sound merges in serious broadcasts and in education. Older people often do not exhibit these shifts in their speech, but some do. With the sound changes, the name of Hong Kong's Hang Seng Bank
Hang Seng Bank
Hang Seng Bank Limited is the second largest bank in Hong Kong. It is a listed company but it is majority owned by the HSBC Group via The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. Hang Seng is also one of the constituent shares of the Hang Seng Index...
, /hœ́ːŋ kɔ̌ːŋ hɐ̏ŋ sɐ́ŋ ŋɐ̏n hɔ̏ːŋ/, becomes /hœ́ːn kɔ̌ːn hɐ̏n sɐ́n ɐ̏n hɔ̏ːn/, sounding like Hon' Kon' itchy body ( /hɐ̏n sɐ́n/) un cold ( /ɐ̏n hɔ̏ːn/) . The name of the Cantonese language itself would be /kʷɔ̌ːŋ tʊ́ŋ wǎː/ without the merger, whereas /kɔ̌ːŋ tʊ́ŋ wǎː/ (sounding like "": "speak eastern speech") and /kɔ̌ːn tʊ́ŋ wǎː/ (sounding like "" : "chase away eastern speech") are overwhelmingly popular.
The shift affects the way some Hong Kong people speak other languages as well. This is especially evident in the pronunciation of certain English names: "Nicole" becomes leg ko, and "Leonardo" becomes lee on la doh. A very common example of the mixing of (/n/) and (/l/) is that of the word , , meaning "you." Even though the standard pronunciation should be (/nei/) , the word is often pronounced (/lei/) ,which is a surname,, or the word , meaning theory. The merger of (/n/) and (/l/) also affects the choice of characters when the Cantonese media transliterate
Transliteration into Chinese characters
In Chinese, transcription is known as yīnyì or yìmíng . While it is common to see foreign names left in their original forms in a Chinese text, it is also common to transcribe foreign proper nouns into Chinese characters....
foreign names.
Prescriptivists who try to correct these "lazy sounds"
Proper Cantonese pronunciation
From the 1980s onwards, the proper Cantonese pronunciation has been much promoted in Hong Kong, with the scholar Richard Ho Man Wui as the iconic campaigner...
often end up introducing hypercorrection
Hypercorrection
In linguistics or usage, hypercorrection is a non-standard usage that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of grammar or a usage prescription...
s. For instance, while attempting to ensure that people pronounce the initial /ŋ/, they may introduce it into words which have historically had a null-initial. One common example is that of the word , meaning "love." Even though the standard pronunciation would be /ɔ̄ːi/, the word is often pronounced /ŋɔ̄ːi/.
In recent years, a number of Hong Kong secondary schools have tried to reverse this change by making the learning of Cantonese Pinyin part of the school Chinese curriculum.
Unique phrases and expressions
Due to Hong Kong's unique historical background, Hong Kong Cantonese has evolved differently from the Chinese spoken in China, Taiwan and Singapore over the years. Hong Kong Cantonese has developed a number of phrases and expressions that are unique to the context of Hong Kong. These phrases and expressions usually make references to specific things that can only be found in Hong Kong or specific incidents that happened in Hong Kong.Here are a few examples:
| Characters | Jyutping Jyutping Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme... |
literal meaning | actual meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 食皇家飯 | sik6 wong4 gaa1 faan6 | eating Royal meal | being imprisoned Incarceration Incarceration is the detention of a person in prison, typically as punishment for a crime .People are most commonly incarcerated upon suspicion or conviction of committing a crime, and different jurisdictions have differing laws governing the function of incarceration within a larger system of... |
| 話知你九七 | waa6 zi1 nei3 gau2 cat1 | Who cares about your 1997? | Who cares? |
Loanwords
Life in Hong Kong is characterised by the blending of AsiaAsia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
n (southern Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
in particular) and Western cultures, as well as the city's position as a major international business centre. In turn, Hong Kong influences have also spread widely into other cultures. As a result, a large number of loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s are created in Hong Kong and then exported to China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, Taiwan
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
and Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. Some of the loanwords have become even more popular than their Chinese counterparts, in Hong Kong as well as in their destination cultures.
From English
| Characters | Jyutping Jyutping Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme... |
Cantonese IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... |
English | English pronunciation | Mandarin Chinese Term |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| baa1 si2 | /paː˥siː˧˥/ | bus Bus A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are... |
/bʌs/ | ||
| dik1 si2 | /tɪk˥siː˧˥/ | taxi Taxicab A taxicab, also taxi or cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice... |
/ˈtæksi/ | (in Taiwan) (in Mainland) (in Singapore and Malaysia, also a loanword from English) |
|
| zyu1 gu1 lik1 | /tsyː˥kuː˥lɪk˥/ | chocolate Chocolate Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC... |
/ˈtʃɒklɪt/ | also a loanword | |
| saam1 man4 zi6 | /saːm˥mɐn˨˩tsiː˨/ | sandwich | /ˈsænwɪdʒ/ | also a loanword | |
| si6 do1 | /siː˨tɔː˥/ | store (retail), usually referring to a small convenience store | /stɔː/ | archaic, but still used occasionally in Hong Kong |
|
| si6 do1 be1 lei2 | /siː˨tɔː˥pɛː˥lei˧˥/ | strawberry Strawberry Fragaria is a genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, commonly known as strawberries for their edible fruits. Although it is commonly thought that strawberries get their name from straw being used as a mulch in cultivating the plants, the etymology of the word is uncertain. There... |
/ˈstrɔːbəri/ | ||
| be1 lei2 | /pɛː˥lei˧˥/ | pear Pear The pear is any of several tree species of genus Pyrus and also the name of the pomaceous fruit of these trees. Several species of pear are valued by humans for their edible fruit, but the fruit of other species is small, hard, and astringent.... |
/peər/ | ||
| saa1 si6 | /saː˥siː˨/ | SARS Severe acute respiratory syndrome Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is a respiratory disease in humans which is caused by the SARS coronavirus . Between November 2002 and July 2003 an outbreak of SARS in Hong Kong nearly became a pandemic, with 8,422 cases and 916 deaths worldwide according to the WHO... |
/sɑːz/ | ||
| baai1 baai3 | /paːi˥paːi˧/ | bye bye | /ˈbaɪbaɪ/ | ||
| 啤啤 | bi4 bi1 | /piː˨˩piː˥/ | baby | /ˈbeɪbi/ | |
| 阿蛇 | aa3 soe4 | /aː˧sœː˨˩/ | sir (policeman; teacher) | /sɜː/ | police - teacher - |
| 泊（車） | paak3˧ | /pʰaːk˧/ | to park Parking Parking is the act of stopping a vehicle and leaving it unoccupied for more than a brief time. Parking on one or both sides of a road is commonly permitted, though often with restrictions... |
/pɑːk/ | a relative translation. It merely means "to stop the car". |
| 菲林 | fei1 lam2 | /fei˥lɐm˧˥/ | film (photographic) Photographic film Photographic film is a sheet of plastic coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive silver halide salts with variable crystal sizes that determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film... |
/fɪlm/ | literally: Rubber Roll |
| 三文魚 | saam1 man4 jyu4 | /saːm˥mɐn˨˩jyː˨˩/ | salmon Salmon Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true... |
/ˈsæmən/ | |
| 布菲 | bou6 fei1 | /pou˨fei˥/ | buffet Buffet A buffet is a system of serving meals in which food is placed in a public area where the diners generally serve themselves. Buffets are offered at various places including hotels and many social events... (British/Commonwealth pronunciation) |
/ˈbʊfeɪ/ | |
| 沙律 | saa1 leot6 | /sa˥lɵt˨/ | salad Salad Salad is any of a wide variety of dishes, including vegetable salads; salads of pasta, legumes, eggs, or grains; mixed salads incorporating meat, poultry, or seafood; and fruit salads. They may include a mixture of cold and hot, often including raw vegetables or fruits.Green salads include leaf... |
/ˈsaləd/ | (also a loanword from English) |
| 呔 | taai1 | /taːi˥/ | tyre / tire Tire A tire or tyre is a ring-shaped covering that fits around a wheel rim to protect it and enable better vehicle performance by providing a flexible cushion that absorbs shock while keeping the wheel in close contact with the ground... or necktie Necktie A necktie is a long piece of cloth worn for decorative purposes around the neck or shoulders, resting under the shirt collar and knotted at the throat. Variants include the ascot tie, bow tie, bolo tie, and the clip-on tie. The modern necktie, ascot, and bow tie are descended from the cravat. Neck... |
/taɪə(ɹ)/ | Tyre/Tire - Necktie - |
From Japanese
| Characters | Jyutping Jyutping Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme... |
Cantonese IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... |
Japanese | Japanese Romaji | English Meaning | Mandarin Chinese Term |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OK | kaa1 laa1 ou1 kei1 | /kʰaː˥laː˥ou˥kʰei˥/ | karaoke | karaoke Karaoke is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music using a microphone and public address system. The music is typically a well-known pop song minus the lead vocal. Lyrics are usually displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol,... (literally: "empty orchestra"; kara = empty, oke = orchestra) |
No Formal Chinese term exists, but (merely "to sing") is a relative translation | |
| (usually miswritten as ) | lou5 sai3 | /lou˩˧sɐi˧/ | setainushi | head of a company/chief/boss | (boss)， (old term for company owner)， (supervisor/superior)， (Supervisor, Cantonese term used in Hong Kong and Macao) | |
| gaan1 baa1 de1 | /kaːn˥paː˥tɛː˥/ | ganbatte | a cheering-on term/Come On | (in this context, keep up the effort)， (Keep up!) |
From French
| Characters | Jyutping Jyutping Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme... |
Cantonese IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... |
French | English Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| laang1 | /laːŋ˥/ | laine | yarn Yarn Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or... |
|
| so1 fu4 lei4 | /sɔː˥fuː˨˩lei˨˩/ | soufflé | soufflé Soufflé A soufflé is a light baked cake made with egg yolks and beaten egg whites combined with various other ingredients and served as a savoury main dish or sweetened as a dessert... |
Into English
| English | Characters | Jyutping Jyutping Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme... |
Cantonese IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... |
|---|---|---|---|
| dim sum Dim sum Dim sum refers to a style of Chinese food prepared as small bite-sized or individual portions of food traditionally served in small steamer baskets or on small plates... |
dim2 sam1 | /tǐːmsɐ́m/ | |
| kumquat Kumquat Cumquats or kumquats are a group of small fruit-bearing trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae, either forming the genus Fortunella, or placed within Citrus sensu lato... |
gam1 gwat1 | /kɐ́mkʷɐ́t/ | |
| loquat Loquat The loquat , Eriobotrya japonica, is a fruit tree in the family Rosaceae, indigenous to southeastern China. It was formerly thought to be closely related to the genus Mespilus, and is still sometimes known as the Japanese medlar... |
lou4 gwat1 | /lȍukʷɐ́t/ | |
| wonton Wonton Not to be confused with WantonA wonton is a type of dumpling commonly found in a number of Chinese cuisines.-Filling:... |
wan4 tan1 | /wɐ̏ntʰɐ́n/ | |
| bak choy | baak6 coi3 | /pàːktsʰɔ̄ːi/ | |
| ketchup Ketchup Ketchup is a sweet-and-tangy condiment typically made from tomatoes, vinegar, sugar or high-fructose corn syrup and an assortment of... |
ke2 zap1 | /kʰe tsɐp/ |
Into PRC Mandarin
| Mandarin Characters | Mandarin Pinyin Pinyin Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into... |
Cantonese Characters | Jyutping Jyutping Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme... |
Cantonese IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... |
English Meaning | Other Mandarin synonyms | Mandarin Pinyin Pinyin Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into... |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mǎi dān | maai4 daan1 | /mȁːitáːn/ | "Bill/Check, please." (used when calling for the bill at a restaurant) | |||
| dā dàng | paak3 dong3 | /pʰāːktɔ̄ːŋ/ | partner | |||
| dǎ dī | daap3 dik1 si2 | /tāːptɪ́ksǐː/ | to ride a taxi | |||
| wú lí tóu | , corruption of | mou4 lei4 tau4 | /mȍulȅitʰɐ̏u/ | nonsensical humor (see mo lei tau Mo lei tau Mo lei tau is a name given to a type of humour originating from Hong Kong during the late 20th century. It is a phenomenon which has grown largely from its presentation in modern film media. Its humour arises from the complex interplay of cultural subtleties significant in Hong Kong... ) |
||
| or | liàng zǎi | leng3 zai2 | /lɛ́ːŋtsɐ̌i/ | handsome (pretty) boy/young man | ||
| pāi tuō | paak3 to1 | /pʰāːktʰɔ́ː/ | to date; to court | |||
| hěn zhèng | hou2 zeng3 | /hǒutsɛ̄ːŋ/ | (colloquial) awesome; perfect; just right | |||
| or | gǎo diàn or gǎo dìng | gaau2 dim6 | /kǎːutìːm/ | "Done!", to complete; completed (when used as an exclamation) |
Into Taiwanese Mandarin
| Taiwanese Mandarin Characters | Taiwanese Mandarin Pinyin Pinyin Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into... |
Cantonese Characters | Jyutping Jyutping Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme... |
Cantonese IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... |
English Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| sāi léi hóu sāi léi |
(Comes from Classical Chinese Classical Chinese Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese... ) |
sai1 lei6 hou2 sai1 lei6 |
/sɐ́ilèi/ /hǒusɐ́ilèi/ |
great; powerful very great; very powerful |
Into Japanese
| Japanese Kana Kana Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji... (Kanji Kanji Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet... ) |
Japanese Rōmaji Romanization of Japanese The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is known as , less strictly romaji, literally "Roman letters", sometimes incorrectly transliterated as romanji or rōmanji. There are several different romanization systems... |
Cantonese Characters | Jyutping Jyutping Jyutping is a romanization system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme... |
Cantonese IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... |
English Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| yamucha | jam2 caa4 | /jɐ̌mtsʰȁː/ | To drink tea or go to Chinese restaurant (yum cha Yum cha Yum cha , also known as Ban ming , is a Chinese style morning or afternoon tea, which involves drinking Chinese tea and eating dim sum dishes... ) |
||
| chashyu | caa1 siu1 | Roasted pork (literally roasted on a fork char siu Char siu Char siu , otherwise known as barbecued meat in China or Chinese-flavored barbecued meat outside China, is a popular way to flavor and prepare pork in Cantonese cuisine. It is classified as a type of siu mei, Cantonese roasted meat... ) |
|||
| chahan | chaau2 faan6 | To stir-fry rice (Fried rice Fried rice Fried rice is a popular component of Asian cuisine, especially Chinese food. It is made from steamed rice stir-fried in a wok, often with other ingredients such as eggs, vegetables, and meat. It is sometimes served as the penultimate dish in Chinese banquets... ) |
Code-switching and loanword adaptation
Hong Kong Cantonese has a high number of foreign loanwords. Sometimes, the part of speech of the incorporated words are also changed, like "佢地好friend", translated into English as "they are very 'friend'", means "they are good friends". The word "friend" is changed from a nounNoun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
into an adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
. In some examples, some new meanings of English words are even created. For example, "至yeah", literally "the most yeah", means "the trendiest". Originally, "yeah" means "yes" in English, but it means "trendy" when being incorporated into Hong Kong Cantonese. However, semantic change is common in loanwords. When foreign words are borrowed into Cantonese, polysyllabic words and monosyllabic words tend to become disyllabic, and the second syllable is in the Upper Rising tone (the second tone). For example, "kon1 si2" (coins), "sat6 kiu1" (security) and "ka1 si2" (class). A few polysyllabic words become monosyllabic though, like "mon1" (monitor), literally means computer monitor. And some new Cantonese lexical items
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
are created according to the morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
of Cantonese. For example, "laai1 記" from the word "library". Most of the disyllabic words and some of the monosyllabic words are incorporated as their original pronunciation, with some minor changes according to the Cantonese phonotactics
Phonotactics
Phonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes...
.
Incorporating words from foreign languages into Cantonese is also acceptable by most Cantonese speakers. Hong Kong Cantonese speakers frequently code-mix although they can distinguish foreign words from Cantonese ones. For instance, "咁都唔 make sense", literally means "it doesn't make sense". After a Cantonese speaker decides to code-mix a foreign word in a Cantonese sentence, syntactical rules
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
of Cantonese will be followed. For instance, "sure" (肯定) can be used like "你 su1 唔 su1 aa4?" (are you sure?) as if it were its Cantonese counterpart "你肯唔肯定?", using the A-not-A question construction.
In some circumstances, code-mixing is preferable because it can simplify sentences. In the case of some technological terms, code-mixing becomes very hard to avoid. For example, Hong Kong people find it difficult to say “你用個 mau1-si2 right-click嚟highlight啲字” (“You use the right-click of the mouse to highlight the words”) in pure Cantonese. It is actually not surprising if a Hong Konger does not know how to express "mouse", "right-click" and "highlight" in Chinese. Code-mixing is almost unavoidable for some technical terms like "trial balance" in accounting and "benzene" in chemistry because of the use of English as the medium of instruction at the tertiary level and oftentimes the secondary level. Many people in Hong Kong do not know the Chinese names of many technical terms and as a result, it is expected that English names of the terms be used. This is also a headache of prescriptive linguists and Chinese teachers who advocate the use of pure Cantonese. Code-mixing is in general not a problem but it could impose a language barrier between Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese as the former do not know the Chinese names of the terms while the latter, the English of the terms.
See also
- Bilingualism in Hong KongBilingualism in Hong KongHong Kong is an officially bilingual territory. Under the Hong Kong Basic Law and the Official Languages Ordinance , "English and Chinese" are, of equal status, the official languages of the territory. However, it is not specified which variety of "Chinese" is referred to...
- Cantonese profanityCantonese profanityThe five most common vulgar words in Cantonese profanity are diu , gau , lan , tsat and hai , where the first literally means fuck, while the rest are sexual organs of either gender. They are sometimes collectively known as the "outstanding five in Cantonese" . These five words are generally...
- Chinese languageChinese languageThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
- Code-switching in Hong KongCode-switching in Hong KongCode-switching, or the practice of using more than one language in conversation, is very common in Hong Kong. It usually involves a mix of Cantonese and English as a result of the bilingualism in Hong Kong...
- Proper Cantonese pronunciationProper Cantonese pronunciationFrom the 1980s onwards, the proper Cantonese pronunciation has been much promoted in Hong Kong, with the scholar Richard Ho Man Wui as the iconic campaigner...
- Regional differences in the Chinese language
- Hong Kong EnglishHong Kong EnglishHong Kong English may refer to two different yet interrelated concepts. The first concept refers to the variation or dialect of the English language used in Hong Kong. The second concept refers to the accent and elements as a result of its use by Cantonese speakers.For the first meaning, Hong Kong...
- List of Chinese dialects
- Varieties of ChineseVarieties of ChineseChinese comprises many regional language varieties sometimes grouped together as the Chinese dialects, the primary ones being Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, and Min. These are not mutually intelligible, and even many of the regional varieties are themselves composed of a number of...
External links
- Learn Cantonese (with Cantonese-English / English-Cantonese Dictionary)
- Learn Chinese with Chinese Lyrics Now with Pinyin and sound files
- 分類:術語 - 香港網絡大典 Hong Kong slangs & jargons in the Encyclopedia of Virtual Communities in Hong Kong (Wikia)