Hong Kong English – Language Culture and Society in Hong Kong (and beyond)

Hong Kong English Internet Slang

Posted on December 6, 2019May 15, 2020 by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

by Psy Poon

The Origin of Internet Slang

Hong Kong English Internet Slang was initially developed mainly because of the limitation of words on early appeared online chatting platforms like ICQ and MSN Messenger, just like how the English community uses a lot of abbreviations when only 140 characters(now it is 280 characters) were allowed on Twitter before 2018. During then, Hong Kong people created a few Internet slangs, for example, c replaces ‘see’, and u replaces ‘you’. However, most of them were buried with the downfall of ICQ until the revival of Internet Slang.

The Revival of Internet Slang

With the rise of social media during the 2000s, Internet Slang captured attention once again. Especially in the early 2010s when platforms like Facebook and Twitter were gaining popularity rapidly, people sought convenience and speed in typing while they might have tens of friends in chat room or inbox. Here are the major advantages of using Internet Slang:

Is fun to use
Has shorter spelling
Enables faster typing
Implies informality
Indicates identity
Expresses in trendy way

After knowing all these pros, are you surprised why the use of Internet Slang is still growing?

The Development of English Internet Slang

Well affected by world trends and globalization, online forums dedicated to Hong Kong people such as HKGolden were established and they often got influenced by foreign cultures, but only the ones that are popular.

For example, the graph below shows the timeline of different acronyms in history of Internet Language. However, only YOLO(You Only Live Once), a slang developed in the black culture, survived with its discernible use in the Hong Kong Internet. It is even included in the Oxford English Dictionary. The hit of the song The Motto(YOLO) by Drake in 2011 was probably the cause, making the phrase ‘YOLO’ popularized.

Picture retrieved from: https://blogs.ntu.edu.sg/hss-language-evolution/wiki/chapter-12/)

Its appearance in the chorus part of BTS(a famous Korean boy band)’s song Go Go further proves the popularity of the slang ‘YOLO’ in different countries under the effect of globalization.

Another similar example is how the phrase ‘Nae Nae’ blew out when Watch me by Silentó was released in 2015. There used to be a Nae Nae dance craze which many teenagers were into in Hong Kong because of the catchy music and simple movement. Since the dance move seems like one is waiving and stepping back, ‘nae nae’ as slang could hold a variety of meanings like ‘saying bye to something in a cool/stupid way’, ‘a (cringey) no-no’, etc.

We see how Internet slang borrows cultures or originates from a specific place but ending up in being popular everywhere!

Common Hong Kong English Internet Slang in category

As mentioned before that Hong Kong is under the influence of popular culture, we developed our own set of Internet slang, the characteristics are as belows:

I. Shortened form of words

A. Abbreviations(the most common in English, the formation of slangs like lol as ‘laugh out loud’, btw as ‘by the way’ and omg as ‘on my god’, etc.)

Places, e.g. HKBU(Hong Kong Baptist University), NP(North Point)

2. People, e.g. KOL(key opinion leader), LKS(Li Ka Shing)

B. Initialisms regarding syllables or pronunciations(the formation of slangs like hbd as happy birthday and bbq as barbeque, etc.)

Places, e.g. MK(Mongkok), CWB(Causeway Bay)

2. Platforms, e.g. FB(Facebook), IG(Instagram)

3. Foul or vulgar language, e.g. cls(癡[ci1]撚[nan2]線[sin3], meaning ‘insane’ or ‘crazy’), dllm(屌[diu2]你[nei5]老[lou5]母[mou2], meaning f*** your mother)

C. Single word contractions(the formation of slangs like good → gd, what → wt, okay → k and though → tho, etc.)

D. Replacement of letters(the formation of slangs like good → gud and what → wut, etc.)

E. Clipping(the formation of slangs like sorry → sor and post → po, etc.)

II. Konglish

A. Loan translation

Foul or vulgar language, e.g. seven(柒[cat1], one of the vulgar names for penis, also the capital form of the chinese numeral seven ‘七’, meaning one is acting stupid), on nine(戇[ngong6]鳩[gau1], meaning similarly with ‘seven’)

2. Common expressions or Cantonese puns

a)add oil(加油, meaning an encouragement like ‘fighting!’)

b)laugh die me(笑死我, meaning something is funny to the point that can make the person died from too much laughter)

c) no eye see(無眼睇, meaning something is like an eyesore to oneself)

d) nine not following eight(九唔搭八, meaning that someone is providing irrelevant responses)

(For more examples, please visit https://zolimacitymag.com/tag/cantonese-language/)

III Typing out English syllables that sound similar to Cantonese

A. Interjections

B.Cantonese dialects that no Chinese words can represent, e.g. hea(the state of being lazing or chilling out), chok(acting cool)

IV Direct use of English inflectional suffixes

A. -ed indicating past event, e.g. doed(did)

B. -ing indicating progressing event, e.g. walking street(shopping)

C. ‘-er’ and ‘-est’ indicating comparatives and superlatives, e.g. gooder, goodest

V Mix-and-match of slang formation(for example, thx is first contracted or clipped that ‘th’ represents the sound /θaŋ/, and then ‘s’ is replaced by ‘z’, similar to what happened to plz)

From the list above, it can be observed that vulgar languages or Cantonese expressions have contributed a lot to the creation of various Internet slang in Hong Kong. These characteristics act as another proof that the use of Cantonese profanity and code-switching are prevalent, shedding light on the local linguistic culture.

How do Cantonese and traditional Chinese act as a recognition of Hong Kongers?

Posted on November 18, 2019November 18, 2019 by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

by Janis Ng

“If you want to kill a city, you kill its language.” Language is a matter of identity. The interrelationship between language and identity is inseparable. Cantonese and traditional Chinese are language use of speaking and writing respectively. Up to this day, Cantonese is still acting as the city’s mouther tongue in Hong Kong. While traditional Chinese is an official language of Hong Kong. However, recently some people may argue that both of these spoken and written languages can be replaced by Mandarin and simplified Chinese. So, what makes them special to represent the identity of a Hong Konger?

The majority Hong Kongers speak Cantonese as their daily communication tools, is spoken by 89.5% of the overall population. As the city grown more developed, Mandarin has grown massively in Hong Kong. Mandarin even become the medium of instruction in many primary schools’ Chinese subject. However, Cantonese is still standing firm in its premium stage. Although Cantonese and Mandarin share some words, they have different lexicon, grammar, sentence structure and pronunciation. And this make them mutually unintelligible. Cantonese’s origin is in Guangdong. The pronunciation used in Hong Kong Cantonese and Guangdong Cantonese are slight different. From the 1970s to the 1990s, Cantonese became popular due to the exportation of its language and culture. People gradually spread the culture via Hong Kong martial arts films and cultural celebrities like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. If you would like to take a deeper glimpse into the Hong Kong art culture, it is better for you to know Cantonese. Cantonese is a tonal language that has six more tones than Mandarin. The pitch helps you to understand the meaning of the words. In Cantonese, we have“nine sounds six tones”, gau2 seng1 luk6 diu6九聲六調.

Nowadays, the new generations in Hong Kong use Kongish in their texting language, which is a blend of Cantonese and English, and they use it as a recognition of their identity. Konglish is a double-entendre that make absolutely no sense if you just read it literally. I am sure that only Hong Kongers can read it. From Figure 1, it is a conversation between friends, and they are trying to make a time to hang out together. The first line, “blow blow water with me la” is something like a lead in to start a conversation with your friends. “blow water” means chit chat, pronounced as “Chui Sui”. You can imagine the picture of spitting saliva from your mouth while chatting with your friends.

Cantonese is a language of resistance. Once there is threat to the development of Cantonese, Hong Kongers would preserve it in any possible ways. In 2010, the public in Guangzhou initiated a protest to oppose the proposal of changing part of the programming on Guangzhou television from Cantonese to Putonghua. After the mass protest, the plan was banned.

In 2014, HKEDB released an article on its website that stated Cantonese is not an official language of the territory. This caused massive demonstration against what was seen by opponents as an offence to Hong Kong identity and independence. The article was immediately deleted from the website in order to stop the public relation disaster. Cantonese speakers have proven super proud towards their linguistic heritage.

On written level, traditional Chinese act as a recognition of Hong Kongers. The traditional form of Chinese makes more sense than the simplified one in presenting the real meaning of a Chinese character.

Both characters in Figure 2 is the word “love” in Chinese In traditional Chinese, there is a ‘heart’ in the middle of the character. However, the simplified form of “love”, is without “heart”. How can we love heartlessly?

Even the written language of Hong Kong and Taiwan are both traditional Chinese, they have their uniqueness created by their own language environment.

The traditional Chinese of Hong Kong & Taiwan

Although they are different in writing, they are mutually intelligible. However, they will be more comfortable to read the text in their own variety style.

To Hong Kongers, traditional Chinese is not only structurally beautiful but they have their own specific meaning for each character.

Cantonese and traditional Chinese act as a recognition of Hong Kongers in terms of their special meaning that only local will fully understand. It is a heritage of Hong Kong that all citizens would try their very best to preserve.

Translations between Chinese and English in Hong Kong

Posted on November 16, 2019November 18, 2019 by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

by Tiff Lau

Since Hong Kong has been one of the colonies of the British, English has become one of the language that commonly used by Hong Kong people. We can see many Chinese-English translations in Hong Kong, almost everywhere. From restaurants’ menu to their signboard, from notice on the streets to street signs, from schools to public locations. Nearly all posted notices in Hong Kong have Chinese-English translation.

Most of the restaurants in Hong Kong have menu with English translation as there are people all around the world in local society. However, the translation might be ridiculous and totally not having the same meaning as the Chinese version. For example, this menu from a restaurant in Hong Kong have some special translation.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/tokit.channel/posts/1507108756028309
@tokit.channel 陶傑Channel

It is obvious that the English translations in the menu is directly translated from Chinese, like “夏門炒米粉”, its English translation is “Summer door fried rice noodles”. “Summer door” refers to “夏門”, which should be translated to Xiamen, a city in Mainland China. And the one “秘制梘水粽“ is translated to “Secret soap water dumplings”, but the term “soap water“ cannot convey the meaning that is the exact same as the Chinese version, “梘水” is a kind of ingredients that made of water and ashes of different plants, but not exactly “soap water” that is inedible. This is very common in Hong Kong as people in the old days learn English by directly translating English into Cantonese according to pronunciation. In Qing dynasty, Hong Kong people learn English through Mondegreens as shown below.

Source: https://lihkg.com/thread/494965/page/1

As you can see, Hong Kong people tend to translate Chinese into English by Transliteration or chop the phrase into smaller parts and directly translate them regardless of the original meaning.

Source: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1857209/dont-treat-me-potato-ten-english-signs-hong-kong
11 Sep, 2015

There’s another way for Hong Kong people to translate Chinese into English, they try to keep the same meaning but failed. It is very common for Hong Kong’s organizations posting notice with two languages, and there are many accidents due to the mis-translation of English. Like the one outside the police office, the Chinese version has a typo and the sentence structure made the notice misleading. The word “系絕” should be written as “系統“, which means “system”. The original meaning of the notice is to inform citizens that more time is needed for reporting cases as the computer service is suspended. So the whole sentence should be written as “警察（的）電腦更新，系統停止使用，（市民）報案需要更多時間” the words in brackets is the content that have to be added so as to fulfill the context. As for the English version, it is completely wrong as both the grammar and word usage are not probably used. It should be written as “The Police computer service is suspended due to system updates, more time is needed for citizens to report cases.” In order to convey the original meaning.

The same thing happens everywhere, this can be called “Hong Kong English” as it is a unique form of English that only exists in Hong Kong with the influence of local culture and Cantonese. “Hong Kong English”, or you can say “Kongish” is a form of English that mix English with Cantonese. The wrong translation between Chinese and English in Hong Kong can be related to “Kongish”, as the wrongly translated English version is having the problem of grammar, sentence structures and word choices. These are all affected by the grammar of Cantonese. The difference in grammar and sentence structures, and the habits of native Cantonese speakers when they speak or write in Chinese lead to the development of “Hong Kong English”.

Source: https://boon-ying-lee.blogspot.com/2018/08/honglish.html
李本瀅

In conclusion, Chinese-English translation is very common in Hong Kong society due to the historical background. However, some translations are not fully correct in terms of contexts or grammar. The English translations in Hong Kong are affected by unique local culture, the language habits, the formation of Cantonese, and the way people learn English in the old days. And the differences in English and Chinese version are mainly due to the difference of language usage in words or forms between Cantonese and English.

How a Hong Kong Accent is Formed

Posted on November 16, 2019November 18, 2019 by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

by Victoria Chan

Most of the English learners in Hong Kong admire a British accent. When Hong Kong people can speak in British accent naturally and fluently, they always receive compliments such as “ Wow! Your English is so good!” or “ I love your accent! It is so beautiful!”. Most of the people deem British English as the standard English. In other words, people who is not able to speak in British accent are regarded as having low proficiency in English. The official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English. It has a long history of learning English as a second language. Under this circumstances, why Hong Kong accent still exist despite its wide use of English?

When Hong Kong became a crown colony of the United Kingdom, Hong Kong people needed to learn English because the colonial government announced English as the official language of Hong Kong. Hardly could the Hong Kong people learn English at that time due to the difference between Cantonese and English. Moreover, education in Hong Kong was not popular due to the limited expenditure to schooling by the local government. In other words, Hong Kong’s proficiency in English was low as the government failed to provide proper assistance to the new language policy. Under this circumstance, the Hong Kong people needed to learn English by themselves.

The main use of English was to communicate with English speakers in Hong Kong during the colonial period. Therefore, the most efficient way to learn English was to simply imitate the pronunciation of English through speaking Cantonese. The following figure is an old Cantonese book which aims to teach Hong Kong people English daily expressions through speaking Cantonese.

Picture 1: The book cover of an old Cantonese book which teaches English
Source: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=8421

How Hong Kong people learned English speaking in the past
Source: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=8421

The title of the book is “ 自學英語不求人“ which means “ Self-learning English without asking anybody”. It shows that Hong Kong people couldn’t receive efficient English education despite the issue of official language policy. From the above picture, it shows how Hong Kong people learnt English at that time. The writer helps the reader to pronounce the English expression through generating a Cantonese sentences which has similar pronunciation with it. For example, “ 打孻亞見 Daa Laai Ah gin” for “ Try again”. Although it is written in traditional Chinese, the imitation doesn’t make sense if we pronounce it in Mandarin. The reader has to pronounce the Chinese sentence in Cantonese in order to imitate the English pronunciation. Moreover, these Chinese sentences are neither grammatical nor related to the English expression. It only helps the readers to generate the pronunciation of the English expressions. The Hong Kong accent is formed because the learners don’t imitate the pronunciation of a native speaker. On the other hand, they find their own way to pronounce English with the help of Cantonese.

Not to mention that English education in Hong Kong focuses primarily on reading and writing, the accent is not important if the speaker can use a wide range of vocabulary to express his or her ideas. A study on phonological awareness and oral language proficiency in Hong Kong by the University of Hong Kong discovered that the tone of first language will contribute significantly to second language. The reason why English accent of Hong Kong people differs from British is because of the difference of subsyllabic levels (rime and phoneme) in English and Cantonese. If children fail to develop phonological awareness (developing across levels of different phonological units) in early age, their accent of English will be similar to the tone of Cantonese.

After discovering how Hong Kong accent is formed, we can also explore the method to improve our English accent. The sooner the children learn phonics of English, the higher phonological awareness they can achieve. In other words, the best way to improve English accent is not about imitating the pronunciation of each word, but to understand and to acquire the whole system of the phonics of English. This suggests that there is a need for reform of English learning in Hong Kong. Instead of pushing children to learn difficult words in a very young age, we should teach the children phonics before spelling. Thus, we can help our children to immerse themselves in English completely as their mother tongue.

Hong Kong accents – The Characteristics of Hong Kong English

Posted on November 15, 2019 by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

by Christy Chow

English is one of the official languages in Hong Kong, which is significantly used in the Government, business sector and educational sector. It is not uncommon to see the bilingual road and government signs along the street. Hong Kong had been a colony of Britain and was under British rule from 1841. Before the handover of Hong Kong From Britain to China, Hong Kong had been immersing in an English environment in which using English for communication became gradually common. However, due to the influence of native Cantonese speaker, people in Hong Kong developed a unique accent when speaking English.

According to the study of Swell (2012), there are a few consonantal features in Hong Kong English. In this blog, some of the major features will be explained briefly to introduce Hong Kong English.

1) [n] / [l] conflation

The use of [l] in place of [n] is rather more common than the inverse, and it may be associated with the recent changes in Cantonese in which there is progressive use of traditional words that began with [n] to [l]. For example, in Hong Kong English, people may pronounce the word ‘l’eed instead of ‘n’eed, ‘l’ever instead of ‘n’ever.

2) TH-

This is a very typical type of accent characteristic of Hong Kong English. It has been extensively observed that the voiceless TH is occasionally pronounced as [f] in Hong Kong English. Furthermore, this observation is observed under different situations such as the pronunciation of voiceless TH in initial, medial and final position. For instance, in initial position, very often Hong Kong people pronounce ‘think’ /θɪŋk/ as /fɪŋk/. Seemingly, for ‘thank’, people often pronounce it as /fæŋk/ instead of /θæŋk/. While for the medial position, it is also uncommon to see people pronounce ‘something’ (/ˈsʌm.θɪŋ/) as ‘someting’ (/ˈsʌm.tɪŋ /), in which the voiceless TH is pronounced as [t] sound. Lastly, in the final position, there are also words that we normally pronounced them wrongly. Take ‘youth’ as an example, we often mispronounce the -TH as [f] instead of [θ].

3) Final consonant cluster

There is a trend in Hong Kong in the simplification of final consonant clusters, specifically with the exclusion of final consonant. However, we should note that this is not only the characteristic of Hong Kong English but also a universal feature of spoken English. And in fact, Hong Kong English speakers actually omit the [t] in word phrase less often than speakers from other countries. For example, we can take a look at the words with a word-final plosive, [t], [d] or [k]. In word phrases such as ‘most of’, ‘friend and’ and ‘think it’s’, the [t], [d] and [k] in respective word phrase are deleted. One noticeable feature is that in the word phrase ‘kind of’, the [d] is omitted nearly in every case.

4) Initial consonant cluster

People in Hong Kong often confused between the pronunciation of [l] and [r]. Indeed, when [r] is the second sound in a consonant cluster, in most instances the [r] would be pronounced as [l]. For example, the word crowded /ˈkraʊ.dɪd/ is often pronounced as /klaʊdId/, and please /pli:z/ as /pi:z/. While on the other hand, there is also a replacement or omission of [r] and [l] in some words. As in the word ‘applied’, people pronounce it as /əˈpaɪd/ instead of /əˈplaɪd/. Another example is that ‘primary’ is pronounced as /ˈpaɪ.mər.i/ instead of /ˈpraɪ.mər.i/.

5) L-vocalization or deletion

This is the most common characteristic of Hong Kong English. Most of the time, Hong Kong people pronounce the words such as ‘will’ from /wɪl/ to /wɪu/ and ‘oral’ from /ˈɔː.rəl/ to /ˈɔː.rəu/, that is a use of vowel which is an l-vocalization. Besides l-vocalization, there is also l-deletion rather than replacement after a back vowel. For instance, ‘call’ is pronounced as /kɔ/ instead of /kɔːl/ and ‘cool’ is pronounced as /ku/ instead of /kuːl/. Vocalization of [l] is actually really common like Singapore also has this kind of problem.

To conclude, the characteristics of Hong Kong English accents are obvious. If you go to another country and speak English, people would probably think you are a Hongkonger! However, what we need to know is that there is always variation between things, so as languages. English can be spoken with a Hong Kong accent or it can be spoken professionally when you are in a formal situation. It depends on the context of history or culture. More importantly, Hong Kong accent makes us identify us as a Hongkonger!

References

Deterding, D., Wong, J., & Kirkpatrick, A. (2008). The pronunciation of Hong Kong English. English World-Wide, 29(2), 148-175.

Sewell, A. (2012). The Hong Kong English accent: Variation and acceptability. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, 13(2), 1-21.

Is English affecting our languages?

Posted on November 14, 2019 by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

by Catherine Haugen Wroldsen

We borrow words from languages all the time. Especially when we don’t have the phrases or words for it. Young people in Norway adopt more and more in their daily communication. Why is this happening? Does it affect the language in a positive or negative way? And does this also happen in Hong Kong?

*Photo: Cathrine Haugen Wroldsen, Victoria Harbor.*

Numbers from the Norwegian language council tells that there have been an increase the last 50 years of English adopted words. Just from 1953 to 2000 the Norwegian dictionary increased from 6,5 % English words to 9 %.

Borrowing words and alarms ringing

The Norwegian language council writes that the English language have today received a position as contributor of new words and phrases in Norwegians daily speech. English words and phrases are used even though there is a Norwegian translation. People also think it has a dark future for the Norwegian language, but a lot of the English borrowed words has an expiration date.

Over time we have seen that the writing method kviss have taken root next to the English form quiz, explains Gisle Andersen. – and if a word becomes well established, it will find its way into the dictionary, as the case with quiz, kviss.

Gisle Andersen is a professor at the Norwegian School of Economics. He is the head of the language council´s professional advisory group for norming and language observation, which proposes writhing methods and inflectional forms in Bokmål and Nynorsk.

Wherever the need for communication do not indicate the use of English or any other foreign language, Norwegian must feel like the only natural language choice. Only in that moment where English is used without it being necessary, the alarm bells should start ringing. Writes Gjert Kristoffersen a professor in Nordic linguistics, at the University in Bergen, in an article for the Norwegian paper Aftenposten.

Learn more by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=b1fc7NXdZ7g&feature=emb_logo

*Photo: Cathrine Haugen Wroldsen, Hong Kong Baptist University.*

The students of HKBU

Liu Po Kwan aka Katie is a local student at Hong Kong Baptist University and she explains how she use English in her daily speech.

I use “hello”, “happy birthday” and “goodbye”. When I speak Cantonese I usually ad some English words in the sentence. We will directly translate the Chinese word into English, but the English word it does not mean the same. For example; add oil.

“Orig. and chiefly Hong Kong English. Add oil!: expressing encouragement, incitement, or support: go on! Go for it!”. As written in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Do you think English is affecting the language positively or negatively?

I would say it is positive. Because Cantonese is the language in Hong Kong and Hong Kong is a place where western and Chinese culture is mixed. So, speaking in that way I think we are representing our culture.

Cody Cheung, a local student at Hong Kong Baptist University explains how she use English in her daily life.

We don’t say canteen in Chinese, most of the time we use both languages in our daily conversation.

Do you think English is affecting the language positive or negative?

We have two official languages in Hong Kong, so we just use them both because it is a necessary thing for us to use in our daily life.

The digital community

Pop culture and social media have a bigger impact now than ever before. Easier access to internet is affecting in some way how we talk and communicate. We do as they do. The English and American influence is around us every day. Celebrities update us with their daily life on social medias like Instagram or snapchat and movies are usually from America with the main language set to English.

Social media is a bigger part of a bigger picture where, in a completely different way than ever before, we are a part of something global, or more precise American dominated culture. Culture and media community where English in a big part works as a common language. For some Norwegians who grow up today, English is a natural part of their everyday which they encounter in many areas of the digital community. Explains Erlend Lønnum, senior adviser at the Norwegian language council.

Languages are going extinct

National Geographic is mentioning in their article, The Race to Save the World´s Disappearing Languages, that one language dies every two weeks. They are interviewing Wikitounges who is a volunteer organization who is expanding access to language revitalization. They record and document languages around the world and publish them online, so they are available for others.

They predict that within the next five years around 500 languages could disappear.

Fact box

English is a west Germanic language
It is the official language in 67 countries
Pangram – a sentence that contains every letter in the language; The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis – is the longest word in English