Dictionary of Hong Kong English, A

English in Hong Kong

xiv English in Hong Kong The history of English in Hong Kong Hong Kong is a political, cultural and linguistic borderland. European and Chinese cultures met in 1517, when the Portuguese started trading along the south coast of China. In the seventeenth century, the English came to the area, which became a linguistic contact zone between English, Portuguese, Chinese, and other languages. When a common language was unavailable, many people communicated in Chinese Pidgin English, the newly formed trade language spoken by both Western and Asian merchants along the south coast of China in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Chinese Pidgin English was a simple language that combined words from several different languages: Malay, Portuguese, Indian English, Cantonese as well as Standard English. Even today in coastal trade cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai, the local English contains relics of Chinese Pidgin English. When the UK colonized Hong Kong after the Opium wars in 1840–43 and 1856–60, new political boundaries were created. During the UK colonial period, many Indians worked in Hong Kong, and Indian English came to have a great lexical influence on HKE (and, in turn, HKE on Indian English). Education in missionary schools, and the need for middlemen between the English and Chinese-language groups, helped develop a bilingual Eurasian comprador class. With the late xv twentieth-century expansion of education and growing English proficiency among the population, the comprador class became obsolete. Following the 1997 handover of sovereignty to China, many boundaries have remained intact. Today, Hong Kong has multiple language boundaries, between different varieties of English (many of which spoken by expatriates), Chinglish (a mixture of Cantonese and English, whose linguistic status is still disputed; see entry for Chinglish), Cantonese, Putonghua and other languages such as Tagalog and Japanese. The status of English in Hong Kong Cantonese is the main and most widely-spoken language of Hong Kong. It is the first language of the vast majority of Hongkongers (89.2%, according to CIA 2010). It is also a common medium of primary and secondary education. However, the importance of English in Hong Kong goes well beyond the simple role of a colonial language after the colonizers have left. In the public life of Hong Kong, so much English is used that it is possible for expatriates to live in this city for many years without ever learning Cantonese or any Chinese dialect, and many do. At the political level, the government of China recognizes the need for English in politics and law, by including English as a second official language in the Basic Law: In addition to the Chinese language, English may also be used as an official language by the executive authorities, English in Hong Kong xvi legislature and judiciary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. (The Basic Law, Chapter I: General Principles, Article 9) The number of speakers of English has been increasing drastically from just 6.6% in 1983 to 43% in 2001, as the latest census results indicate (Bolton 2002b: 2). The greatest increase in the popularity of English has been after the UK agreed to hand over the territory to the People’s Republic of China, not during the previous century of occupation. This trend suggests a delinking of English from its colonial legacy. English is taught in schools as a second language, along with Putonghua, and sometimes used as the medium of instruction. Most university classes are conducted in English. English is needed for people to advance in many professions, such as banking. Yet schools treat English as a foreign language. Many English teachers will not accept local words in their classrooms, and English is still taught according to a British English standard, though hardly ever attained. This strict preference for some form of British English on the side of the educators is in stark contrast to the post-colonial attraction to English mentioned above. In Hong Kong language loyalty can be a big argument, as the debate over medium of instruction has shown. Some people express a nationalist loyalty to Putonghua. Others insist on British English being taught. Unlike what might have been expected after the 1997 handover, Putonghua has not replaced English, and English is English in Hong Kong xvii still perceived to provide the best opportunities for success or prestige. Despite this, Putonghua, being the national language of China, will certainly be of increasing economic importance and...