phonology. language documentation/revitalization. university of toronto. talks way too much about cantonese. 🇨🇦🇭🇰🏳️🌈 (he/him)
Dec 18, 2020 • 35 tweets • 7 min read
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/
Dec 2, 2020 • 17 tweets • 8 min read
I feel like doing a thread on #HK place names and the absolute treasure trove of cool historical snippets of 1800s #Cantonese that we can see in their romanizations bc not enough ppl talk abt this
also I miss Hong Kong a lot so this is an excuse to look at pics of HK :^)
1) Hung Hom (紅磡) and Om Yau (菴由) - what's with the "om"?
around the mid 19th century, -om in cantonese shifted to our modern day pronunciation /ɐm/, but the older pronunciation stuck around in the romanization
咁 was also pronounced like "gom" back in the day :^)
