What is it about?
The Mandarin and Cantonese speech varieties are mutually unintelligible. The written form of Hong Kong's Cantonese language has never been standardized. Nonetheless, the written Cantonese language has developed conventions that writers have generally adopted.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
The Cantonese language is the predominant speech variety of Hong Kong's population of approximately 7.5 million inhabitants. Despite the fact that the written form of Cantonese has never been standardized, writers have informally developed conventions that are widely followed.
Perspectives
From this author's perspective, the written Cantonese is a particularly interesting linguistic phenomenon because its development has been both spontaneous and informal.
Robert Bauer
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Hong Kong’s Written Cantonese Language and Its Twelve Basic Principles, July 2024, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1515/9783111382746-004.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
