Thread by @ewen201

This week I wanted to touch on the minority languages of Hong Kong, since the convo around language in HK always tends to be very Cantonese-centric

I've picked 5 spoken languages (Weitou, HK Hakka, Hoklo, Tanka, and Tingkok/TPC) and 1 signed language (HKSL) to focus on

🖐️☝️

Before British colonization, there were ~7 spoken languages indigenous to the region, but these were gradually replaced after GZ and Pearl River Delta migrants came in the late 1800s, bringing in what would be the pre-cursor to modern HK Cantonese

1/

The future for these languages is pretty grim, because many of them are only spoken by the older generation and have little to no speaker transmission. HKSL is one of the few with remotely any kind of institutional presence (there are some SL linguistic courses at CUHK iirc!)

2/

The plummet in language vitality is a direct result of mandatory Cantonese instruction post-1950, and the assimilation of Tanka and Hoklo fishermen in the 70s. Aggressive language policy and lack of institutional support have obliterated linguistic diversity in the region.

3/

Given the language attitudes from older generations, I doubt there's much hope that these languages can be revitalized, but if anything, this should be a reminder to us that institutional support and educational language policy are *key* in ensuring language vitality in HK

4/

Now, in no particular order, let's start with HKSL!

HKSL was formed from two main sources:

1) the Nanjing/Shanghai (Southern Chinese SL) variety taught at OCSD (signing school) after 1948

2) locally derived signs from residential students at HKSD (oralist school)

5/

The lexicon of HKSL is ~66% similar to the Shanghai variety (Woodward 1993), and the remaining chunk is attributed to signs created by HKSD students independent of the Shanghai variety. HKSD students from the late 40s report that their signing was not yet a "sign language"...

6/

although the presence of name signs and classifiers, as well as consistent and stable signs invented by students point to some early form of SL. By the mid-1950s, signs were more widespread at HKSD and reportedly much more stable.

7/

OCSD students were mainly exposed to Shanghai SL, and not many novel signs were created among students, as it was discouraged by teachers.

Deaf education changed in the mid-70s when all signing schools shut down, and students were redistributed to orally oriented schools.

8/

This caused signers with different lexicons and different signing backgrounds to interact for extended periods of time; this is likely when the crossover between the Shanghai SL of OCSD and the local signs from HKSD happened.

9/

Social gatherings run by Deaf associations and informal social interactions between members of the Deaf community were also massive catalysts in creating inter-dialectal contact, smoothing out the differences in HKSL over the span of a decade.

10/

The main problem now is that deaf children are put in mainstream schools with no support and have no connection to other Deaf people. In our modern, technological world, the role of in-person Deaf associations has also decreased, isolating Deaf people from a wider community.

11/

As a result, many Deaf people do not learn HKSL, and unless educational policies are improved, the future of HKSL looks pretty bleak. 😔

This website has a ton of HKSL vocab (w/ videos) if anyone's interested: cslds.org/hkslbrowser/in…

And this one: hksla.org.hk/everybody/inde…

12/

Next, we have 圍頭話 (Waitau/Weitou), whose speakers have been in and around HK and Shenzhen since at least the Song dynasty. They were referred to as Punti (本地人) but are now mainly called 圍頭人 to distinguish them from other minority groups (Hakka, Hoklo, Tanka, etc)

13/

Two famous Weitou celebs you might be familiar with are 王浩信 (Vincent Wong) and 周潤發 (Chow Yun-Fat); CYF spoke Weitou quite a bit in some movies, you can poke around Youtube to find some clips :^)

14/

圍頭話 is closely related to the Yue variety spoken in Dongguan (東莞話), and differs from HK Canto in the following ways

- none of the i/ei, u/ou, y/eoi splits (飛 = fi, 布 = bu, 佢 = kyu)
- no diminuative tone change (re: my thread on Tone 2)
- no high flat tone (55)

15/

It also shares some vocabulary with HK Hakka probably because of prolonged contact and inter-marriage (ie: 地豆 'peanut', 伶俐 /ləŋ˨˩ lei˧˨/ 'clean', 舀飯 /jiu˨˧ fæŋ˧˨ 'fill bowl with rice/裝飯')

(Examples taken from Zhang, Zhuang, et al. (1999) and Lau Chun-Fat's PPT)

16/

The language is highly endangered, limited to older generations, and their adult children are passive bilinguals/code-switch between WT and Canto. Older speakers are subbing in Canto words to make communication easier and a 55 tone is entering the language via Cantonese.

17/

There's little to no transmission to younger gens out of fear of ridicule, as well as 圍頭話's lack of linguistic capital in HK society. HK's construction of itself as culturally and linguistically homogeneous contributes to this abandonment of minority languages.

18/

The Great Clearance (遷界令) forced out many WT ppl, but after it was lifted in 1669, only a portion of WT ppl returned, and immigrants from NE Guangdong, many of whom spoke Hakka, were called in to help tend the fields; they settled in NE New Territories and nearby islands.

19/

HK Hakka branched off from Huizhou Hakka (惠陽話) and was a lingua franca in the New Territories until the 80s. There's also a handful of Pingpo Hakka speakers (平婆話) in Yuen Long, but they are all elders and refuse to be interviewed, so little is known about the variety.

20/

Some quirks:

- has -ioi which I lub ('tired' is /kʰiɔi˥˨/)
- has the N/L > L merger like in Canto but historic *n > ng before /i/ > g (ie: 娘 'young woman' /giɔŋ˩/ - Compare Cantonese noeng4 and Mandarin niáng)
- basically only has 5 vowels
- tones are similar to MX

21/

The situation for Hakka is a bit different from WT; older speakers in rural areas still use it relatively rigorously and code switch rarely, but those educated after 1950 are often more fluent in Canto, and children born after 1980s are likely to be Canto monolinguals

22/

Hakka has an edge in that its phonology is very distinct from Canto, whereas WT is closely related to Canto, causing WT speakers to want to "correct" their speech to the prestige variety. Older Hakka speakers don't have this pressure and have less qualms speaking Hakka

23/

Here's an awesome dictionary site for Weitou and HK Hakka (audio included):
hkilang.org/v2/%E7%99%BC%E…

Professor Lau Chun-fat has also recently created a HK Hakka channel that y'all should check out: youtube.com/channel/UC8YqM…

24/

Next up is Tanka (蛋家話)!

Tanka is spoken by the Tanka people (疍家人), Sinicized ethnic minorities who lived primarily in boats as fishermen until about the 70s and 80s, when they started moving onshore. In HK, 疍家話 refers to the Yue variety that they speak...

25/

and it's similar to HK Canto in its phonology with some exceptions

- our eu /œ/ is pronounced as an o /ɔ/instead (it's hypothesized that the name 'Hong Kong' comes from the Tanka pronunciation bc that's literally how they say it)
- /y/ is often /u/ or /i/ (魚 = 椅)

26/

- no /ʷ/ in 怪 /kai˧/, 鬼 /kai˧˥/, 骨 /kɐt˥/
- no final -m or -p, so 鹹 = 行 /haŋ˨˩/ and 葉 = 熱 /jit˨/
- they also have the N/L merger, so 南 = 藍 /laŋ˨˩/, 女 = 呂 /lui˧/
- they also have the tone 2 diminuative change

(examples from Zhuang 2009)

27/

Tanka's situation is even more grim I'd say, as most Tankas have come ashore and have already assimilated into mainstream HK society. The tiny minority of older speakers who do speak it have decided against passing it on, and Tanka probably won't make it to 2050 :/

28/

Hoklo is another minority language spoken in HK, and is a Southern Min variety from Shanwei (汕尾) spoken by Hailufeng Hokkiens (海陸豐人). Like the Tanka, they were also fishermen, but have mostly come ashore. Like other Southern Min varieties, there's no initial f-,

29/

there's extensive tone sandhi, nasalized vowels, and a glottal stop coda in addition to -p/-t/-k.

Hoklo is the healthiest out of all of the ones we've discussed, with people born after 1990 reportedly still able to speak it, but its future is still uncertain.

30/

Tingkok (汀角話) and Tung Ping Chau (東平洲話) are two varieties of Dapeng Yue (大鵬話), which is considered a branch of Guanbao Yue (same branch as WT). Most notably, they have some Hakka influence in their tones. Tingkok villagers had to marry outside their villages,

31/

and ended up marrying Hakkas from nearby villages; these two communities lived together bilingually for several hundred years.

TPC is an island that was inhabited until the 1980s, when its inhabitants spread around the world; there's now a group of speakers in Germany!

32/

Language vitality for these two varieties drops sharply when you encounter speakers under the age of 50, most of them being monolingual Cantonese speakers.

33/

holy jeebus this ended up being so long LMFAO I chose not to touch on other ethnic minority langs in HK (Hindi, Nepali, Tagalog, Javanese, Indonesian, etc) just bc this would be WAY too long if I did

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert whatsoever, I'm just summarizing what I know

34/