Hong Kong Cantonese


Hong Kong Cantonese is a dialect of the Cantonese language of the Sino-Tibetan family. It is the official and native language of Hong Kong. A similar dialect is also spoken in Macau, China.
Although Hong Kong people refer to the language as "Cantonese", publications in mainland China describe the variant as Hong Kong speech, due to the differences between the pronunciation used in Hong Kong Cantonese and that of the Cantonese spoken in neighbouring Guangdong Province where Cantonese is a lingua franca.
Over the years, Hong Kong Cantonese has also absorbed foreign terminology and developed a large set of Hong Kong-specific terms. Code-switching with English is also common. These 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.

History

Before the arrival of British settlers in 1842, the inhabitants of Hong Kong mainly spoke the Dongguan-Bao'an and Tanka dialects of Yue, as well as Hakka and Teochew. These languages and dialects are all remarkably different from Guangzhou Cantonese.
After the British acquired Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories from the Qing in 1841 and 1898, large numbers of merchants and workers came to Hong Kong from the city of Canton, the main centre of Cantonese. Cantonese became the dominant spoken language in Hong Kong. The extensive migration from mainland Cantonese-speaking areas to Hong Kong continued up until 1949, when the Communists took over mainland China. During this period, the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong was very similar to that in Canton.
In 1949, the year that the People's Republic of China was established, Hong Kong saw a large influx of refugees from mainland China, prompting the Hong Kong Government to close its border. Illegal immigration from mainland China into Hong Kong nevertheless continued.
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 of Guangzhou. In mainland China, the use of Mandarin as the official language and in education was enforced. In Hong Kong, Cantonese is the medium of instruction in schools, along with written English and written Chinese.
Because of the long exposure to English during the colonial period, a large number of English words were loaned into Hong Kong Cantonese, e.g. "巴士", literally, "bus". Therefore, the vocabularies of Cantonese in mainland China and Hong Kong substantially 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 initial into and the deletion of were observed.

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 was documented by Williams, and the substitution of the liquid nasal for the nasal initial was documented by Cowles.
List of observed shifts:
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" pronounce, "Nancy" pronounce etc. A very common example of the mixing of and is that of the word s. For instance, while attempting to ensure that people pronounce the initial, they may introduce it into words which have historically had a null-initial. One common example is that of the word wiktionary:愛, meaning "love". Even though the standard pronunciation would be, but the word is often pronounced.

Unique phrases and expressions

Hong Kong Cantonese has developed a number of phrases and expressions that are unique to the context of Hong Kong. Examples are:
Colloquial Cantonese ExpressionsLiterallyColloquiallyExplanation
離譜
Example:
佢遲咗成粒鐘，真係離譜!
English: He's an hour late. So outrageous!		depart from the scoreabsurd/outrageous/ridiculous/illogicalmusic score
撞板
Example:
成日都咁衝動，抵佢今次撞板。
English:
He is always so impulsive, no wonder he's got into trouble this time.		conflicting beatmake mistakes/get into troubleBeat in Cantonese Opera
串
Example:
你洗唔洗咁串呀!
English:
Do you have to be so harsh?		to string/vulgarharsh/extreme bluntness, lack of tactcolloquial usage for police handcuffing, broadened to incorporate harsh expression generally; alternatively, by modification of the tone value for "vulgar"
是但
Example:
A: 你想去邊度食飯？
B: 是但啦!
English:
A: Where do you want to go to eat?
B: Anything will do!		is/yes butwhatever/anything will do/I'm easy
derived from 肆無忌憚
冬瓜豆腐
Example:
你有乜冬瓜豆腐，我會好傷心㗎!
English:
I would be miserable if you died.		winter melon tofuto dievotive food offerings at funerals

Loanwords

Life in Hong Kong is characterised by the blending of southern Chinese with other Asian and Western cultures, as well as the city's position as a major international business centre. In turn, Hong Kong influences have spread widely into other cultures. As a result, a large number of loanwords are created in Hong Kong and then exported to mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Japan. Some of the loanwords have become even more popular than their Chinese counterparts, in Hong Kong as well as in their destination cultures.

Imported loanwords

Selected loanwords are shown below.

From English

From French

From Japanese

Exported loanwords

Into English

EnglishChinese CharactersJyutping
add oil加油gaa1 yau2
chop chop 速速chuk1 chuk1
kowtow叩頭kau3 tau4
typhoon颱風toi4 fung1
ketchup茄汁ke4 zap1

Into Mainland Chinese Mandarin

Into Taiwanese Mandarin

Into Japanese

Code-switching and loanword adaptation

Hong Kong Cantonese has a high number of foreign loanwords. Sometimes, the parts of speech of the incorporated words are changed. 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/okay" in English, but it means "trendy" when being incorporated into Hong Kong Cantonese.
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. For example, "kon1 si2" , "sek6 kiu1" and "ka1 si2". A few polysyllabic words become monosyllabic though, like "mon1", 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 acceptable to most Cantonese speakers. Hong Kong Cantonese speakers frequently code-mix although they can distinguish foreign words from Cantonese ones. For instance, "噉都唔 make sense", literally means "that 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" can be used like "你 su1 唔 su1 aa3?" 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. An excellent example of the convenience and efficiency of such mixing is "打 collect call" replacing "打一個由對方付款嘅長途電話", i.e. 13 syllables reduced to four.

Short-text adaptations

Abbreviation

Abbreviations are commonly used in Hong Kong and have flourished with the use of short messaging over the Internet. Some examples:
Original termAbbreviated termExplanation
Cantonese: 唔知 English: do not know5G
Example:
甲: 你知唔知邊個係比德?
乙: 我5G
English:
A: Do you know who is Peter?
B: I don’t know.		The “5” here is not pronounced as “five” but in Cantonese “ng5”, which is the Chinese word “五". Since “五" and “唔", “知" and “G” are having similar pronunciations, we used 5G to replace the Cantonese term”唔知, which carries the meaning of don’t know.
Cantonese:鍾意 English: Like中2
Example:
我好中2佢呀!
English:
I like him so much!		Due to similar pronunciation, the “2” here is pronounced as the Chinese “二" rather than “two”. Combining this number with the Chinese character "中", it carries similar pronunciation as “鍾意” but the structure of this martian language term is much simpler.
Cantonese:師奶 English: HousewifeC9
Example:
你著到成個C9咁
English:
You dress like a housewife.		The word C9 should be pronounced in English “C nine”, which is very similar to Cantonese si1 naai1. It is an easier form of typing the word “師奶” without changing the meaning in Cantonese. The two characters are already on the keyboard so it is much simpler to type.
7-Eleven Se-fun/ Chat1 Jai2 to buy some drinks.“Chat1” is the Chinese word of seven and “Jai2” is son or boy
Take AwayHaang4 Gai1
Example:
魚蛋粉行街!
English:
Fish Ball Noodles for take-away! 		This abbreviation is often used in Hong Kong-style cafés for take-away.
Uh-huh55
Example:
甲: 你今日要番學?
乙:55
English:
A: Do you need to attend school today?
B:Yea.		Homophonic for “ng ng” which indicates agreement or understanding.
Post po
Example:
我po咗相
English: I posted a photo.		example of common omission of final consonant