Languages of Hong Kong - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

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...

, 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 Chinese

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...

are the official language

Official language

An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...

s as defined in the Basic Law of Hong Kong. Since Britain's arrival in 1842, English became the sole official language of Hong Kong

Hong Kong

until 1974. The majority of the population in Hong Kong are descendants of migrants 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...

. Smaller minority groups include expatriate

Expatriate

An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing...

s, immigrants from Western and Asian countries such as the Indian subcontinent

Indian subcontinent

The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

and the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, and their descendants. The diverse population directly results in the rich variety of languages heard.

English and Chinese

English

English language

and Chinese

Chinese language

are both official

Bilingualism in Hong Kong

Hong 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...

languages of Hong Kong under the Hong Kong Basic Law

Hong Kong Basic Law

The Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, or simply Hong Kong Basic Law, serves as the constitutional document of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China...

(Article 9) and the Official Languages Ordinance (Chapter 5).

Historically, English was the sole official language of Hong Kong

Hong Kong

from 1883 to 1974. Only after numerous demonstrations and petitions from the locals demanding for the equal official status of Chinese as that of English, Chinese became another official language in Hong Kong from 1974 onwards. In March 1987, the Official Languages Ordinance was amended to require all new legislation to be enacted bilingually in both English and Chinese. In 1990, the Hong Kong Basic Law

Hong Kong Basic Law

declared English's co-official language status with Chinese after the 1997 handover

Transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong

The transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China, referred to as ‘the Return’ or ‘the Reunification’ by the Chinese and ‘the Handover’ by others, took place on 1 July 1997...

Government language policy

After the handover, the government of Hong Kong

Government of Hong Kong

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, commonly the Hong Kong Government, is led by the Chief Executive as Head of the Government, who is also the head of the Hong Kong SAR...

adopted the "biliterate and trilingual" policy. Under this policy, Chinese and English must both be acknowledged as official languages

Bilingualism in Hong Kong

, with 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....

being acknowledged as the de facto official spoken variety of Chinese in Hong Kong, while also accepting 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....

.

The Civil Service Bureau

Civil Service Bureau

The Civil Service Bureau of Hong Kong is responsible for the formulation and implementation of policies on the management of the Hong Kong Civil Service. The primary role of the civil service is to serve the community....

monitors the implementation of the government's language policy at the civil level, the Department of Justice

Department of Justice (Hong Kong)

The Department of Justice is the department responsible for the laws of Hong Kong headed by the Secretary for Justice. Before 1997, the names of the department and the position was the Legal Department and Attorney General respectively....

governs the legal aspect and the Education and Manpower Bureau

Education and Manpower Bureau

The Education Bureau is responsible for education policies in Hong Kong.The bureau is headed by the Secretary for Education and oversees the Secretariat, University Grants Committee and Student Financial Assistance Agencies...

monitors the educational aspect.

Spoken Cantonese

97% of the population in Hong Kong speak 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 Chinese spoken variant originating from 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...

city in 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...

province. It is the main variety used in education, broadcasting, government administration, legislature and judiciary as well as in daily social communication.

China has numerous regional and local variants of spoken Chinese, many of which are mutually unintelligible. Most are only used in their own native areas, but some, particularly the various languages and dialects 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...

and Fujian

Fujian

' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...

, have spread to other areas by emigration from those provinces.

In the Western districts

Sai Wan

Sai Wan , or Western District, or simply Western, is an area in Hong Kong that corresponds to Sai Ying Pun, Shek Tong Tsui, Belcher Bay and Kennedy Town....

of Hong Kong, Taishanese and Teochiu are common. In Yuen Long

Yuen Long

Yuen Long , formerly Un Long, is an area and town located in the northwest of Hong Kong, on the Yuen Long Plain. To its west lie Hung Shui Kiu and Ha Tsuen, to the south Shap Pat Heung and Tai Tong, to the east Au Tau and Kam Tin, and to the north Nam Sang Wai.-Name:The Cantonese name Yuen Long 元朗...

and Kam Tin

Kam Tin

Kam Tin , or Kam Tin Heung , is an area in the New Territories, Hong Kong. It is north of Tai Mo Shan and east of Yuen Long. It was formerly known as Sham Tin...

, Hakka is common. Other forms like Waitau Wah are mostly associated with the elderly aged groups living in walled villages

Walled villages of Hong Kong

Once common throughout China, walled villages can still be found in southern China and Hong Kong. Most of the walled villages in Hong Kong are located in the New Territories...

. The Tanka

Tanka (ethnic group)

The Tankas or Boat people is a special group of people in Southern China that has traditionally lived on junks in coastal parts of Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hainan, and Zhejiang provinces, as well as Hong Kong and Macau...

people from the fishing villages is another group having their own variation of Cantonese.

Spoken Mandarin

When Hong Kong was a colony of the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

, Mandarin

Standard Chinese

was not widely used in Hong Kong despite it being the de facto official language of China

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...

since the time of Imperial China.

Despite the continuous effort of Chinese governments (including those of Imperial, Republic

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 Communist

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...

China) to promote Mandarin

Standard Chinese

as the official dialect (or, to some extent, 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...

) within mainland China and the Sinosphere

Sinosphere

In areal linguistics, Sinosphere refers to a grouping of countries and regions that are currently inhabited with a majority of Chinese population or were historically under Chinese cultural influence...

, many ethnic Chinese still maintain at least one native language for informal uses in addition to formal Mandarin.

A similar practice applies for ethnic Chinese in Hong Kong, but with English as the formal language. Most Hongkongers maintain at least one native Chinese language for informal use in addition to the formal language. From mid-19th century to late-20th century, a majority of Hongkongers had 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....

as their native Chinese language and English

English language

as the official language.

In the second half of the 20th century, mainland China was scarred by poverty

Poverty

Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

, cultural revolution

Cultural Revolution

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...

, corruption

Political corruption

Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...

and illiteracy, which led to increased migration from the mainland to Hong Kong. As a result, Mandarin has negative associations in Hong Kong.

In the late 20th century, mainland China's economic situation improved under Deng Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy...

's economic reform, and is now described by some as an "emerging superpower". After the 1997 handover, Hong Kong developed closer economic ties

Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement

The Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement, or Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement for short, is an economic agreement between the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China, signed on...

with the rest of China. The Hong Kong government started to promote the use Mandarin as a business skill. Mandarin became a subject in many primary schools beginning in 1998, and was also integrated into the HKCEE

Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination

The Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination was a standardized examination between 1974 and 2011 after most local students’ five-year secondary education, conducted by the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority . The examination will be discontinued in 2012...

examinations in 2000. The government of Hong Kong has publicly encouraged students to be "biliterate and trilingual", thus adding Mandarin to the required arsenal of languages. Mandarin has also become an important asset in career advancements for adults. The usage of Mandarin in Hong Kong is also spreading to public service announcements, e.g. on the metro and buses.

At least 4% of Hong Kong citizens speak a variety of Mandarin at home.

Written Chinese

Hong Kong uses standard modern written Chinese, which is most closely related to the grammar and vocabulary from the Mandarin dialects and is the standard formal written language for all Chinese speakers. However, it is different from spoken Cantonese in grammar and vocabulary.

There is also a writing system based on the vocabulary and grammar of spoken Cantonese, in which people write the way they speak. Written Cantonese

Written Cantonese

Cantonese has the most well-developed written form of all Chinese varieties apart from the standard varieties of Mandarin and Classical Chinese. Standard written Chinese is based on Mandarin, but when spoken word for word as Cantonese, it sounds unnatural because its expressions are ungrammatical...

is gaining popularity in newspapers and magazines for quotations and sections dealing with entertainment and local issues, but such writings are often unreadable to people outside Hong Kong or Macau. While it is considered non-standard by many educators, it is commonly used in Hong Kong. Written Cantonese does not have a standard set of characters but has essentially standardised itself over the years through convention. Some have credited this system to the challenges standard Chinese writing system have faced in pop cultures of the past.

Traditional Chinese character

Traditional Chinese character

Traditional Chinese characters refers to Chinese characters in any character set which does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. It most commonly refers to characters in the standardized character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong, or in the Kangxi...

s are widely used, and are the de facto writing standard in Hong Kong. However there are some special Simplifications to written Chinese in Hong Kong, in addition to Mainland-style Simplified Chinese from posters, leaflets, flyers and signs in the tourist areas, to students using the simplified form in time-constrained exams. Nevertheless, Hong Kongers feel a sense of cultural attachment to Traditional Chinese, and the SAR seems unlikely to abandon them in the foreseeable future (citations forthcoming).

English

English is a major working language in Hong Kong, and is widely used in commercial activities and legal matters. Although the sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred to the PRC

People's Republic of China

by the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

in 1997, English remains one of the official language

Official language

s of Hong Kong as enshrined in the Basic Law. So almost everything written is translated into both languages. For most of the population who are ethnically Chinese, it is a foreign language acquired from school education, taught since the kindergarten

Kindergarten

A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...

level. About 25% of secondary school

Secondary school

Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...

s use English from Form 1 to Form 3 in all subjects except Chinese language and Chinese history. The percentage of English used is increased starting with Form 4. On average, most Chinese Hongkongers have a limited knowledge of English, with only 38% being fluent, and Cantonese is required for much of daily communication outside the central districts.

Code-switching between Cantonese and English

Many Hongkongers use both Cantonese and English

Code-switching

In linguistics, code-switching is the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals—people who speak more than one language—sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other...

, or "code-switch", in the same sentence when speaking. For example, " make sense!" ("Wow, that made no sense!"). The code-switching can freely mix English words and Chinese grammar, for instance " Un Un ?" ("Do you understand?") (not a common use) which follows the Chinese grammar syntax 'verb - - verb' to ask "Do you (verb)?". Notice also the shortening of 'understand' to 'un' since most Cantonese verbs are single syllables.

Some code-switched words are used so often that they have become 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 in Cantonese, for example,

"like", pronounced "lai-kee".
"Partner", pronounced "park-na".
"File", pronounced "fai-lo".
"Number", pronounced "lum-ba".
"Case", pronounced "kei-see".

Transliterations in Hong Kong after 1997

Before 1997, Cantonese pronunciation was the basis for transliterating English proper names into Chinese

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....

. After the handover, however, the media in Hong Kong began to adopt already established transliterations based on Mandarin pronunciations in order to align with the mainland. For example, Houston, which used to be transliterated as (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...

: hau6 si1 deon6), has now become (jau1 si1 deon6), and San Diego, formerly (sing3 dei6 ngaa4 go1), has become (sing3 dit6 gwo1). In some cases the Mandarin-based transliteration sounds far from the original when pronounced in Cantonese. For example, Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...

is transliterated as (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...

: wòěrmǎ); when pronounced in Cantonese, the name becomes juk1 ji5 maa5.

French

In Hong Kong, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

is the second most studied foreign language after Japanese. Many institutions in Hong Kong, like Alliance française

Alliance française

The Alliance française , or AF, is an international organisation that aims to promote French language and culture around the world. created in Paris on 21 July 1883, its primary concern is teaching French as a second language and is headquartered in Paris -History:The Alliance was created in Paris...

, provide French courses. Local universities, such as the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Baptist University offer programmes which aim at developing proficiency in French language and culture. The language is included as a subject in the HKCEE, but not in HKALE with accordance to British International General Certificate of Secondary Education's (IGCSE) standards. The IGCSE French syllabus used by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) is adopted in the examination. The only French book store, Librairie Parentheses, in Hong Kong is located on Wellington Street

Wellington Street, Hong Kong

Wellington Street is a street in Central and Sheung Wan on Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. It is a straight road running downward and westward from Wyndham Street to Queen's Road Central. The two sides of street is a mosaic of old and new buildings. Varieties of trades can be found on the street level...

, Central

Central, Hong Kong

Central is the central business district of Hong Kong. It is located in Central and Western District, on the north shore of Hong Kong Island, across Victoria Harbour from Tsim Sha Tsui, the southernmost point of Kowloon Peninsula...

.

Real estate

Real estate

In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...

developers in Hong Kong often give their buildings French names, such as Bel-Air, Les Saisons and Belle Mer. This kind of foreign branding

Foreign branding

Foreign branding is an advertising and marketing term describing the implied cachet or superiority of products and services with foreign or foreign-sounding names.-English-speaking countries:...

is also used in boutique

Boutique

A boutique is a small shopping outlet, especially one that specializes in elite and fashionable items such as clothing and jewelry. The word is French for "shop", via Latin from Greek ἀποθήκη , "storehouse"....

s and restaurant

Restaurant

A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...

s. An example is Yucca de Lac

Yucca de Lac

Yucca de Lac was a high-end restaurant in Hong Kong, famous for frequently serving as a scene for the black-and-white Cantonese films made in the 1960s...

in Ma Liu Shui

Ma Liu Shui

Ma Liu Shui or originally Ma Niu Shui is an area in Sha Tin District, in the New Territories, Hong Kong.The area faces Tide Cove and Tolo Harbour...

. Sometimes only French elements such as articles and prepositions are added to the name, as in the case of the restaurant chain Café de Coral

Café de Coral

Café de Coral is a fast food restaurant group which owns and operates fast food chains and restaurants including Café de Coral, The Spaghetti House, Manchu Wok, Oliver's Super Sandwiches, Ah Yee Leng Tong and others. Founded in 1968, the Café de Coral group opened its first Café de Coral...

. Similar mixing of English and French can be seen on the menu of Délifrance

Délifrance

Délifrance is a bakery company that serves "French style" bakery products in over 50 countries on five continents. It has been in operation for more than 25 years....

, a French-style restaurant chain in Hong Kong.

German

The exact number of German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

speakers in Hong Kong is about 5000, significant enough for the establishment of the German Swiss International School (Deutsch-Schweizerische Internationale Schule), which claims to number more than 1,000 students, at The Peak

Victoria Peak

Victoria Peak is a mountain in Hong Kong. It is also known as Mount Austin, and locally as The Peak. The mountain is located in the western half of Hong Kong Island...

of 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...

.. Many institutions in Hong Kong provide German courses. The most well-known one is the Goethe-Institut

Goethe-Institut

The Goethe-Institut is a non-profit German cultural institution operational worldwide, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange and relations. The Goethe-Institut also fosters knowledge about Germany by providing information on German...

, which is located in Wan Chai

Wan Chai

Wan Chai is a metropolitan area situated at the western part of the Wan Chai District on the northern shore of Hong Kong Island, in Hong Kong. Its other boundaries are Canal Road to the east, Arsenal Street to the west and Bowen Road to the south. The area north of Gloucester Road is often called...

. After spending a certain period of time in learning German, students can take the German Test as a Foreign Language (Test Deutsch als Fremdsprache; TestDaF for short) and Start German A1-C2. There are currently two test centres for TestDaF in Hong Kong: the Goethe-Institut and the Hong Kong Baptist University

Hong Kong Baptist University

Hong Kong Baptist University is a publicly-funded tertiary institution with a Christian education heritage. It is the sole surviving institution of 13 major Christian universities that once operated on the Chinese mainland,...

. The latter one also offers a European Studies degree course of German Stream, Bachelor

Bachelor

A bachelor is a man above the age of majority who has never been married . Unlike his female counterpart, the spinster, a bachelor may have had children...

of Social Science in European Studies (German Stream), in parallel with the French stream. A minor program of German is offered at the Language Centre of HKBU. The Hong Kong University is offering a Major in German after 4 years of study. The Chinese University is offering a Minor in German and popular summer courses. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology is offering German for science and technology.

Japanese

There are more than 25,000 Japanese people in Hong Kong

Japanese people in Hong Kong

Japanese people in Hong Kong are composed primarily of expatriate businesspeople and their families, although there are also a sizable number of single women. Their numbers are smaller when compared to the sizable presence of Americans, British and Canadian expatriates. , 21,518 Japanese citizens...

, so it is common to hear Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

conversations. More than 10,000 people in Hong Kong took the JLPT in 2005. ATV World

ATV World

ATV World , is one of the free-to-air English language television channels in Hong Kong, the other being its arch-rival TVB Pearl. Its sister station, ATV Home, broadcasts in Cantonese language...

broadcasts a TV programme for teaching Japanese. However, mis-use of the language is common.

Japanese culture, including anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

, manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

, sushi

Sushi

is a Japanese food consisting of cooked vinegared rice combined with other ingredients . Neta and forms of sushi presentation vary, but the ingredient which all sushi have in common is shari...

and pop music

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

, has been popular in Hong Kong for decades. Sometimes Hong Kongers replace Chinese characters with Japanese words. The Companies Registry permits the hiragana

Hiragana

is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...

(no) to be used in Chinese names of businesses registered in Hong Kong. It is usually used in place of the Chinese character (zi1) and read aloud as such. For example, snack and candy chain Aji Ichiban

Aji Ichiban

Aji Ichiban is one of the largest snack food franchises founded in Hong Kong. There are over 90 international locations in varying international destinations.-Product:...

does this, rendering their Chinese name as . Another example is the use of the Japanese shinjitai

Shinjitai

Shinjitai are the forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in shinjitai are also found in simplified Chinese, but shinjitai is generally not as extensive in the scope of its modification...

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...

(eki) to substitute (zaam6, both 站 and 駅 means "station" in their respective languages), as in Nu Front , a shopping mall for Hong Kong youngsters in Causeway Bay

Causeway Bay

Causeway Bay is a heavily built-up area of Hong Kong, People's Republic of China, located on the Hong Kong Island, and covering parts of Wan Chai and Eastern districts. The Chinese name is also romanized as Tung Lo Wan as in Tung Lo Wan Road...

. There are also some private estates named with the kanji . These loanwords are pronounced by Hong Kongers as if they were their Chinese counterparts (i.e. as , and as ). The Japanese Kanji is actually the shinjitai

Shinjitai

of the Chinese character (jik6). However, refers to posts for horses in ancient times, and, in modern Chinese, has been replaced by , which refers to stops for vehicles. Some people pronounce as if it were the Chinese character (cek3), according to the folk wisdom you bian du bian (literally, "(If) the side (of a Chinese character) is present, pronounce it (as the isolated character itself)."), an often false rule for reading unknown characters.

Korean

Koreans in Hong Kong

Koreans in Hong Kong formed a population of 4,812 individuals as of 2006, making them one of Hong Kong's smaller minority groups.-Migration history:...

only make up a small minority. Korean culture has gained in popularity since early 2000s. Korean pop music was the first medium to penetrate Hong Kong's market. Afterwards, several Korean TV series such as Dae Jang Geum

Dae Jang Geum

Dae Jang Geum is a 2003 epic South Korean television series directed by Lee Byung Hoon and produced by MBC. Starring Lee Young Ae, it tells the tale of an orphaned kitchen cook who went on to become the king's first female physician...

have also been shown across a large audience base. Roughly 1,000 students take Korean courses at the Chinese University of Hong Kong

Chinese University of Hong Kong

The Chinese University of Hong Kong is a research-led university in Hong Kong.CUHK is the only tertiary education institution in Hong Kong with Nobel Prize winners on its faculty, including Chen Ning Yang, James Mirrlees, Robert Alexander Mundell and Charles K. Kao...

each year, including undergraduates as well as professionals enrolled in continuing education programmes. Roughly 3,000 people have taken the standardised Test of Proficiency in Korean

TOPIK

TOPIK, or Test of Proficiency in Korean is a Korean language test offered twice annually to foreigners in Korea and people studying Korean in other countries. TOPIK is administered by the Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation .-History:The test was first administered in 1997 and taken by...

since its introduction to Hong Kong in 2003. Surveys and figures from course enrollments show that nine-tenths of students learning Korean in Hong Kong are women.

Vietnamese

Vietnamese language

Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

is used in Hong Kong among ethnic Chinese from Vietnam who had initially settled in Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

then relocated to Hong Kong. Vietnamese refugees

Boat people

Boat people is a term that usually refers to refugees, illegal immigrants or asylum seekers who emigrate in numbers in boats that are sometimes old and crudely made...

who left their home during the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

is another group.

The Vietnamese-language broadcasts made by the Hong Kong government in 1988 announced that Hong Kong was going to receive no more Vietnamese refugees. It has since become part of the collective memory

Collective memory

Collective memory refers to the shared pool of information held in the memories of two or more members of a group, and was coined by the philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs. Collective memory can be shared, passed on and constructed by groups both small and large...

of many Hong Kongers living in that era. The beginning words, "Bắt đầu từ nay", which mean "from now on", are probably the only Vietnamese phrase that most non-Vietnamese in Hong Kong know. The phrase Bắt đầu từ nay was then used by some locals to disparagingly refer to the Vietnamese people.

Tagalog

Tagalog language

Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...

and other Philippine languages

Languages of the Philippines

In the Philippines, there are between 120 and 175 languages, depending on the method of classification. Four languages no longer have any known speakers. Almost all the Philippine languages belong to the Austronesian language family...

are used by Filipinos in Hong Kong

Filipinos in Hong Kong

There are around 140,000 Filipinos in Hong Kong, a lot of whom work as foreign domestic helpers. Filipino maids are known by the locals as fei yung , fei being the first character in the Cantonese phonetic translation of Philippines and yung means maid...

, most of whom are employed as foreign domestic worker

Foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong

Foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong are foreign domestic workers and housemaids employed by Hongkongers, typically families. They make up approximately 3% of the population of Hong Kong and an overwhelming majority of them are women...

s. There is a long-standing practice with "No littering" signs written in Tagalog as well as Chinese and English.

Newspapers and magazines in Tagalog can also be easily bought in Central, Hong Kong

Central, Hong Kong

. There are also a small number of churches in Hong Kong that have masses

Mass (liturgy)

"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...

or services

Service of worship

In the Protestant denominations of Christianity, a service of worship is a meeting whose primary purpose is the worship of God. The phrase is normally shortened to service. It is also commonly called a worship service...

in Tagalog, for example the afternoon masses provided by the St. John's Cathedral

St. John's Cathedral, Hong Kong

St. John's Cathedral , officially The Cathedral Church of St. John the Evangelist and located at 4 Garden Road, Central, is an Anglican cathedral in Hong Kong. It is the Diocesan cathedral of the...

in Central.

Indonesian

Indonesian language

Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....

is the common language for the significant number of Indonesians working in Hong Kong

Indonesians in Hong Kong

Indonesians in Hong Kong, numbering 102,100, form the second-largest ethnic minority group in the territory, behind Filipinos. Immigration from Indonesia to Hong Kong began as early as the 1960s, when Indonesian Chinese seeking to escape discrimination and anti-Chinese pogroms relocated to Hong...

, though Javanese

Javanese language

Javanese language is the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. In addition, there are also some pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java...

is also widely spoken. Most are domestic workers; on their days off, they often gather at Victoria Park

Victoria Park, Hong Kong

Victoria Park is a public park in Hong Kong, named after Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. It is located in Causeway Bay, on the north of Hong Kong Island, between Causeway Bay and Tin Hau MTR stations...

in Causeway Bay

Causeway Bay

to socialise and the language can be heard.

Thai

Thai language

Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...

prevails among the Thai population in Hong Kong

Thais in Hong Kong

Thais in Hong Kong form a sizable minority. In 2003, there were an estimated 13,000 Thai people in Hong Kong, largely women. The 2006 Hong Kong by-census report showed 11,900 Thais living in Hong Kong, making up around 3.5% of the total non-Chinese population of 342,198, and about 0.17% of the...

, who are mostly working as domestic workers. The Thai language can be found in many shops and restaurants opened by Thais in Kowloon City

Kowloon City

Kowloon City is an area in Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is named after the Kowloon Walled City, and is administratively part of Kowloon City District....

. A number of Thai movies have been imported since the early 2000s, such as The Wheel in the medley Three, Jan Dara
Jan Dara
Jan Dara is a 2001 Thai erotic-period-drama film directed and co-written by Nonzee Nimibutr and co-starring Hong Kong cinema actress Christy Chung. It is based on a novel by Utsana Phleungtham. The film premiered at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival...

, the Iron Ladies, My Little Girl
My Little Girl
My Little Girl is a 1986 American drama film that was released in the U.S. in 1987. The film was the directorial debut of Connie Kaiserman and Jennifer Lopez' first major motion picture. It was the final movie performance of Oscar-winning actress Geraldine Page.-Plot:Franny Bettinger has had a...

, and Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior
Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior
Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior , also known in the United States as Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior is a 2003 Thai action film. It was directed by Prachya Pinkaew, featured stunt choreography by Panna Rittikrai and starred Tony Jaa. Ong-Bak proved to be Jaa's breakout film, with the actor hailed...

and Tom-Yum-Goong
Tom-Yum-Goong
Tom-Yum-Goong Tom-Yum-Goong Tom-Yum-Goong (Thai: ต้มยำกุ้ง, is a 2005 Thai Martial arts Action film starring Tony Jaa. The film was directed by Prachya Pinkaew, who also directed Jaa's prior breakout film Ong-Bak. As with Ong-Bak, the fights were choreographed by Jaa and his mentor, Panna Rittikrai...

starring Tony Jaa

Tony Jaa

Tatchakorn Yeerum , formerly Panom Yeerum , better known in the West as Tony Jaa, in Thailand as Jaa Panom, is a Thai martial artist, actor, choreographer, stuntman, director, and monk...

South Asian languages

According to the 2006 By-Census, there were at least 44,744 persons of South Asian descent in Hong Kong. Signboards written in Hindi

Hindi

Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

or Urdu

Urdu

Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...

can be seen, and conversation in South Asian languages including Nepali

Nepali language

Nepali or Nepalese is a language in the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family.It is the official language and de facto lingua franca of Nepal and is also spoken in Bhutan, parts of India and parts of Myanmar...

, Sindhi

Sindhi language

Sindhi is the language of the Sindh region of Pakistan that is spoken by the Sindhi people. In India, it is among 22 constitutionally recognized languages, where Sindhis are a sizeable minority. It is spoken by 53,410,910 people in Pakistan, according to the national government's Statistics Division...

and Punjabi

Punjabi language

Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...

, as well as Urdu and Hindi, can be heard.

Hong Kong has two Nepalese

Nepali language

newspapers, The Everest and the Sunrise Weekly Hong Kong. In 2004, the Home Affairs Bureau

Home Affairs Bureau

Home Affairs Bureau is one of the policy bureaux of the Hong Kong Government.One of the important roles of the Home Affairs Bureau is to enhance liaison and communication with all sectors of the community including the Legislative Council and the general public.Tsang Tak-sing has been the...

and Metro Plus AM

AM broadcasting

AM broadcasting is the process of radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation. AM was the first method of impressing sound on a radio signal and is still widely used today. Commercial and public AM broadcasting is carried out in the medium wave band world wide, and on long wave and short wave...

1044 jointly launched radio shows Hong Kong-Pak Tonight in Urdu

Urdu

and Harmo Sagarmatha in Nepalese

Nepali language

Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

is used frequently among members of Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

communities in Hong Kong. The University of Hong Kong is presently the only tertiary institution in Hong Kong offering Arabic-language courses. Some Islamic organisations do teach the language as well, but the current status can best be described as up-and-coming.

External links

Website of Official Languages Division, Civil Service Bureau.
Website of Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR), Education and Manpower Bureau.
The British Council, Hong Kong.
Alliance Française, Hong Kong.
French at The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Goethe-Institut, Hong Kong.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

English and Chinese

Government language policy

Spoken Cantonese

Spoken Mandarin

Written Chinese

English

Code-switching between Cantonese and English

Transliterations in Hong Kong after 1997

French

German

Japanese

Korean

Vietnamese

Tagalog

Indonesian

Thai

South Asian languages

Arabic

See also

External links