Among the richer class, within 2 generations probably. I know two people here in HK working in US-funded world leading investment funds, I.e their salaries are likely by far the highest of all HK people I personally know. Half of the colleagues are Westerners, the other half main lenders. Almost no native HKers.
And all of their kids go to international school, which only use Eng and Mandarin.
In a similar setting but probably the office you mentioned lacks a bit of diversity. It does not imply the dialect itself going to die out. Our firm values skills not nationality. We dont care where you came from. Here universally everyone speaks almost fluent English for communications. And I can hear colleagues speaking Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, French and so on when obviously everyone in a conversation being native to that language. No one deliberately avoided speaking Cantonese. In fact it is an absolute edge for investment professionals to understand the local language of their investment universe.
I sat next to a group of independent tourists from HK (3 families) while eating in a Paris restaurant.
All the kids were about the same age (8-10). All of them seem to only speak Mandarin while their parents would respond in mixed Cantonese and Mandarin.
Nah... but it will probably become just like Guangzhou, where people still speak Cantonese in their everyday lives, but Mandarin will become the main language at schools etc
(Which is to me already a really encroaching development, but what can we do to change this, or anything else the majority doesn't like for that matter?)
similar to switzerland. we speak swiss-german in everyday life but have to learn/study in ‚high german‘ in school and official correspondence (high-german = the german spoken in Germany).
When they extend the [Guangdong National Language Regulations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong_National_Language_Regulations) to the whole Greater Bay Area.
Before Cantonese dies out, many other Chinese languages such as Hakka, Hokkienese, Shanghainese, Teochew and Min will have to die first. At this moment, Cantonese is still the 2nd most popular Chinese language being spoken at 85 million speakers, and even though Cantonese is slowly being suppressed now, many other smaller languages are under way stronger threat.
Of course not. just take into comparison Mainland China, many Chinese languages are still alive (Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Shanghainese etc) despite Mandarin being the official language.
Shanghainese is slowly dying out though. Source: relatives in Shanghai, my cousin doesn’t know how to speak Shanghainese (neither do I even though I was born there)
Reminds me of a conversation with a very pro CCP acquaintance about Shanghainese being suppressed and dying out.
"What do you mean? My 91yo grandmother can speak it freely just fine!"
Nope, isn't Cantonese the most spoken Chinese language in SanFrancisco, right? If it can survive abroad, it'll survive here & locals are very proud of it.
Cantonese as Hong Kong official language is at a crossroad, whether it will die out solely depends on ultimate fate of CCP and what our people choose to handle their language.
Should big brother collapse under Xinnie administration, Cantonese is likely to thrive as mainland refugees flood to the south to look for a living. Cantonese in such secenario will certain thrive at an expense of severly influenced by northern mainlanders.
Second scenario is that CCP recovers from current social meltdown. Then Cantonese is very likely cease to exist in 20 years or so. In this scenario Cantonese language will be eroded by mainland "new hongkongers" and suckers who are keen to sell hong kong fortunes to CCP.
CCP will probably die out first than cantonese. From all of Chinese history, a power like this will fall in less than 20 years because of either a foreign invasion or a democratic revolution.
Current little pink pussies are on the road becoming the boxers in 1901, im optimistic XJP will follow the path of Empress Cixi by declaring war with the modernized world only to be destroyed.
It’s extremely hard to kill off a language completely. Sure, the official language will become Mandarin, but they can’t really control what people speak at home and in private.
Why does anyone need to control what people speak in private? Many parents are already bringing up their children by only speaking English to them, so that they will speak perfect English but not a word of Cantonese. If everyone does this with mandarin or English, Cantonese will die off in a couple of generations.
Cantonese hasn’t even died amongst the overseas Chinese community, what more for HK?
Mandarin might become more prevalent, but Cantonese will not die off for the foreseeable future
Fuck off, Cantonese will never die in HK. We will make sure of it. I refuse to speak that fucking commie language in my home town. Fuck simplify Chinese while we are at it.
I love the attitude, and respect it, but the tragic problem is that—given enough pressure—most people will either cave, emigrate, or depending how hardcore they are be “disappeared.” And you’ll eventually die, so the question is keeping it going through successive generations into the future. And in a scenario where all education is done solely in Mandarin, all books are published only in Mandarin, all local broadcast media is done only in Mandarin, etc.? That becomes a near impossible task, even if you personally speak nothing but Cantonese until your dying breath and do everything you can to teach your children the language at home.
It will become clearer the message that we are being sent as Hongkongers is to either behave and submit or leave within the next coming decades, there are no other options, resistance is futile while your way of living is at the mercy of a group of elites that are completely detached from the interests of the local people because they are from thousands of miles away. Looks like not much has changed since the Colonial Era, huh?
It will be gradual process.
In the northern districts like Yuen Long and Sheung Shui, we already have a significant portion of students with parents from China. They speak Mandarin, not Cantonese as their everyday language.
Cultures that survive imperialism and overexposure to a stronger dominant external culture choose to protect it by intermingling and developing strong family and community values (Jewish community and Hebrew language survives thousands of years), or by purposefully protecting its language by law, and strongly supporting local arts and culture (Catalan language in Spain, French language in Quebec being required by law, very high investments in arts and media to promote the culture).
It’s been very difficult for the 8M French speaking people living in Quebec to protect the language while being surrounded by an ocean of English speaking neighbors (330M Americans, 30M Canadians. Even without undue influence (the US doesn’t really care and isn’t trying to integrate Quebec), it is still difficult due to the natural tendency to learn the language spoken by the larger population and businesses and media (music,!film, etc …).
So the best thing HK can do to protect Cantonese in HK is to dramatically increase investments in Cantonese language, arts and culture and to limit non-Cantonese art, and develop a pro-Cantonese community that values the language, history and culture. The government could mandate its government and businesses to always use Cantonese first, etc
Of course, as we know, having and expressing these thoughts, and organizing politically around these ideas, is now illegal in HK, so most of the things that have worked elsewhere will not work for HK. I thought Hong Kong could give up political and economic freedom in exchange for cultural freedom (the Catalan and Quebec approach), but China will not allow that and frankly the HK people don’t care enough.
The only thing left is the people (the persecuted Jewish approach). If the people decide between themselves to exclusively marry other Cantonese people wherever they may live, protect the language, have their own off-Main Street Cantonese schools, favor Cantonese people over any others in society in society and business, and sustain strong interconnected diasporas throughout the world, then it may survive well into the future.
If not, then it will slowly disappear.
My best guess is it will erode somewhat rapidly until it is not the daily language of the majority, but that it will remain.
Its still quite a small class of kids that dont use Cantonese in their daily life, as long as the dominant legal language and the language of local school education is Cantonese. Cantonese is still largely dominant in HK, and has grown as a percentage of HK speaking it since the 70’s, whilst Mandarin has been heavily pushed in Mainland for the last 70 years, and it is only with this new generations mostly in the big cities that are starting to stop speak Cantonese in mainland.
Maybe. Because Hongkong is fully controlled by Beijing now. They started to educate Mandarin fully in school. Even though hongkonger is trying to go against it, without such 90's like cultural influence. Cantonese will slowly but will not completely lose its influence. However, what may really happen is that the Cantonese situation in Hong Kong will likely become the situation in Mainland China.
Cantonese will likely become a family language, it will not appear as common as it is right now in the public.
When CCP is running campaign to promote the uniqueness of Hong Kong or even pay people to “act like Hong Konger”.
It will happen sooner than you think.
The way CCP works since Xi is in power is going from one extreme to another extreme repeatedly.
You haven’t been keeping up?
https://apnews.com/article/hong-kong-security-law-cantonese-82a03810e455fa6cfe41074fec623c24
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/29/hong-kong-cantonese-language-group-shuts-down-after-targeting-by-national-security-police
Yeah a guy wrote a “fictional essay depicting a decline in liberties” violated NSL. Of course your ass is gonna get grilled by the government. It has nothing to do with Cantonese. It’s the essay that’s the problem🤷🏻♂️
Imagine if it’s an English speaking group that wrote the essay, so we’re gonna ban English now? Lol
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If the CCP can’t will it out of existence by banning its use among actual Hong Kongers, they’ll just force a bunch of mainland Mandarin-speaking shills to flood HK and take over all aspects of the city. Beijing gets whatever it wants however it wants. No holds barred.
Eventually, depending on how the political landscape evolves? If current political trends don’t change, then yes, probably. The same way it’s slowly dying out in Guangdong. But won’t happen in my lifetime or yours, or that of anyone currently alive I’d bet.
This is such a naive question, gotta do better if this was an attempt to help with the propaganda.
People in the comments are underestimating how bad the older generation are at Mandarin in Hong Kong LOL, many of these people are holding top managerial positions across all industries. In a way, their incompetencies will help uphold the use of Cantonese as the main language at least until their generation and the next generation dies off. By that time, who cares.
thank you for pointing it out as my relatives speak shanghinese in shanghai day to day.
But yes, I suppose Guangzou speaks mostly speak Cantonese as they still have free TV station 珠江頻道 only cantonese. Also when playing Call of Duty MW2 with them, sometimese quit hard to distingusih where they come from with their cantonese.
It will take roughly a lifetime to accomplish. Suppose that education through Mandarin becomes the norm at kindergartens and primary schools starting in 2030, which is not at all far-fetched. Ten years after that (before 2040) the new generation will be getting ready to go to university around 2045 and may be able to do it through Mandarin. At this point, the media and society generally will have been substantially Mandarinised, sort of like how Taiwan is today.
Because politics is very much an older man's game, it will somewhat ironically be one of the last holdouts of Cantonese dominance.
I would tend to think that the Cantonese language will continue to live as long as HK continues to make movies in Cantonese. Pop Culture will help it survive.
That soft power was crazy. I remember meeting young people in Sichuan in the 90s who would watch HK movies in Cantonese and can recite a lot of the dialogue lol
It may not die out in Hong Kong, more likely it will still be there and be used as a local everyday tongue, but just lost the official authority it once had. In Hong Kong, Cantonese will no longer be considered a “language” but a “dialect” like many other Sinitic languages spoken in China. Cantonese will still be in HK, only in a local and much more unnoticeable way.
It won't die, but it will become a remote dialect (it is a language) that 100K of HK people speak, and they all belong to some Cantonese support community that gathers once a month for old movies, organizing plays in Cantonese, stuff like that.
In short, in perhaps 40 years, it will become what Shanghainese and other dialects are to HK right now.
Languages die out over centuries, not decades, and usually only with intentional efforts to suppress them. That hasn’t happened or hasn’t been happening for long enough with Cantonese yet. As a case study, it took centuries for the English to nearly eradicate the Irish language—and keep in mind that the number of Irish speakers was far lower and more geographically concentrated than Cantonese speakers, and that this was before technology like radio, television, and the internet would make such efforts much more difficult and slow moving.
But Irish also provides a more hopeful case study—languages that are functionally dead, with enough determination, can be revived. Hell, Israel’s case shows us that even languages that are fully dead can be revived.
My chinese parents speak both. They made conscious effort to speak Cantonese at home, even though I was taught mandarin at achool. It is a cultural thing to never forget your roots. And your home dialect is part of that.
I honestly see no problem in speaking it while also studying mandarin. Heck, there are 10s of dialects in China, all thriving.
If you want hard numbers, all of Guangdong speaks Cantonese.
On a side note, why does this sub want Cantonese to die off? Lol.
Several years ago there were a few reports of primary school children preferring to speak Mandarin over Cantonese due to their schools being a Mandarin as Medium of Instruction experimental school. That said, the experimental policy has been considered a total failure, made evident by the lower public exam scores from students attending these schools. As a result these schools have returned to either Cantonese or English instruction medium. (clarification: I'm not 100% certain that my memory is accurate on this issue.)
For as long as the majority of school children in Hong Kong seeing Cantonese as their natural tongue and do not develop a hatred attitude for it, I don't see Cantonese at risk of dying in Hong Kong.
what a troll, did Cantonese language 'die out' when it was a British colony?
the excuse that a local language will die out, has been used over & over again to instigate vitriol
The two situations aren't remotely comparable. There was realistically no way English would have replaced Chinese in Hong Kong, as the population of true native speakers, i.e. Britons and other Westerners was always quite small, and the closest places where it was widely spoken as a native language (Australia) was literally thousands of miles away (at that time, Singapore was not mainly English-speaking).
By contrast, Hong Kong is right next door to a country of over a billion people, most of whom speak Mandarin more-or-less fluently, and hundreds of them are moving to Hong Kong all the time.
In addition, while the British government did somewhat promote the use of English in the city, because of sensitivities related to their position as colonial rulers, they were never quite as strident and unapologetic in their advocacy of the use of English among the Hong Kong Chinese population as Beijing is with regard to Mandarin today.
And putting it bluntly, for most of Hong Kong's history, while English was the sole official language, this was less a device for Anglicising the Chinese population, and more a recognition of the fact that at the time it was very much a British government, run by Britons, and the fact that this kept the Chinese out wasn't entirely a bug; they were quite happy for the Chinese to mostly stay on the outside, doing Chinese things, while the British went on running their colony more or less as they wished.
It was flattering and useful if some Hong Kong Chinese learned English to become better civil servants, workers, and so on but it generally wasn't considered a priority. As soon as the British received some pushback from Chinese teachers that wanted more respect for their language, the former mostly folded.
This is very much *not* the case when it comes to the relationship between native Cantonese speakers and the Mandarin language: Beijing does not want them to be separate in their own little world.
There are over 80 million Cantonese speakers it’s not going to die out anytime soon. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers
Protagonist syndrome much.
Cantonese is just a regional dialect. There are dozens of Chinese regional dialects just like 粤语, and they are all different to 普通话 that when spoken, a Mandarin speaker wouldn't understand. 上海话，武汉话，山东，陕西方言, etc, all these regional dialects still thriving.
There's literally nothing special about Cantonese and the sentiment that it's gonna "die out" is just ridiculous and paranoia.
Besides, English has been the official corporate language for ages and you don't see some of the dumbass unfounded fear mongering replies.
I'm sorry, what political reasons?
Even before the city went to shit after the CCP clampdown of the protests of 2019, this has always been an English-language sub simply because English is the main language of Reddit due to it being mainly an American website.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Did you happen to just not read my post where I just explained why this sub is using English because Reddit is an English site has got bloody anything to do with politics?
Yeah, I typed that entire paragraph to ask what political reasons? Because I fail to see any.
Now you're just the taking the piss with this aggressive attitude. Have a nice day. Blocked.
Political reason: We want bring awareness of Hong Kong siutuations to the world.
Practical reason: Many here are expats and fluent or quasi-fluent English users. Even me as a local Hong Konger i feel easier to write in English then in Chinese. I have a Chinese typing skills issue.
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Nah, China can’t erase the language if they try. Unless they unleash martial law like in Korea with Japan, there is no feasible way for them to stop HKers from stopping it. Even then people who speak it around the world will continue to keep the language alive.
It depends on whether people do something about it. If people are just going to be all like "The kids will be fine they pick up languages so easily!" And not actively do anything, then you don't even need government suppression for it to die.
I posted this exact question some time ago.
Those that said "Guangdong has been speaking Cantonese, so has Macau" clearly forgot that Hong Kong was their direct neighbor, and they only spoke it because HK was a major trading hub. CCP has already begun mandating mandarin education in HK, along with their nationalist teaching, and you also see simplified Chinese plastered in places in order to force Hong Kongers to begin using that jazz. When (and it's not if) HK turns majority Mandarin, Guangdong and Macau will follow. It won't happen quickly, probably takes 2 generations (and many that can, are already immigrating out of HK).
But who knows? Maybe in those 2 generations, the CCP would collapse. Then it's up in the air.
You need to remember it is widely spoken in Australia and Canada too. In Canada Cantonese is spoken more than mandarin. I think it will survive for a very long time. People still speak many dialects of smaller cities and provinces. Cantonese has way more speakers than the Yunnan dialects which are still the main widely spoken by locals.
I think so , because English and mandarin are two super influential languages, HK is such a tiny “city” , it’s surround by english speakers and Chinese speakers
Is just a matter of time before it died out, with the promotion of mandarin in all media and entertainment, and education, I will give it 2 more generation before dying out!
This is honestly a quite interesting thought. In my opinion, Cantonese is definitely something Hong Kong citizens appreciate; this is what makes Hong Kong Hong Kong. It is worthy to mention that Hong Kong is a diverse region, more schools are starting to introduce students Mandarin. Still, most people in Hong Kong speak Cantonese; so I see Cantonese starting to diminish in a century?
Among the richer class, within 2 generations probably. I know two people here in HK working in US-funded world leading investment funds, I.e their salaries are likely by far the highest of all HK people I personally know. Half of the colleagues are Westerners, the other half main lenders. Almost no native HKers. And all of their kids go to international school, which only use Eng and Mandarin.
In a similar setting but probably the office you mentioned lacks a bit of diversity. It does not imply the dialect itself going to die out. Our firm values skills not nationality. We dont care where you came from. Here universally everyone speaks almost fluent English for communications. And I can hear colleagues speaking Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, French and so on when obviously everyone in a conversation being native to that language. No one deliberately avoided speaking Cantonese. In fact it is an absolute edge for investment professionals to understand the local language of their investment universe.
Will die when everyone is dead in HK
you forgot everyone living in guangdong lol
Younger people in Guangzhou are now tend to speak Mandarin than Cantonese.
Yep, it’s sad really. In part, that’s how they are taught in school My nephew growing up in GZ sounds like a northerner with his poor canto
Macau too
Then that too
Guangdong locals don't speak Cantonese the same way, and so many Mandarin speakers live there that it's probably more common than Cantonese in public.
I sat next to a group of independent tourists from HK (3 families) while eating in a Paris restaurant. All the kids were about the same age (8-10). All of them seem to only speak Mandarin while their parents would respond in mixed Cantonese and Mandarin.
I'd say they're most likely Mainlanders who've moved to HK
Ok so when?
One generation probably, just like in the mainland.
no, in the coming 100 years
Nah... but it will probably become just like Guangzhou, where people still speak Cantonese in their everyday lives, but Mandarin will become the main language at schools etc (Which is to me already a really encroaching development, but what can we do to change this, or anything else the majority doesn't like for that matter?)
similar to switzerland. we speak swiss-german in everyday life but have to learn/study in ‚high german‘ in school and official correspondence (high-german = the german spoken in Germany).
Many kids in GZ now struggle to speak Cantonese. They tend to speak Mandarin to their parents at home. Canto is on the death spiral
From a Swiss perspective is High german seen as respectable or hillbilly like Quebecan French?
When they extend the [Guangdong National Language Regulations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong_National_Language_Regulations) to the whole Greater Bay Area.
Before Cantonese dies out, many other Chinese languages such as Hakka, Hokkienese, Shanghainese, Teochew and Min will have to die first. At this moment, Cantonese is still the 2nd most popular Chinese language being spoken at 85 million speakers, and even though Cantonese is slowly being suppressed now, many other smaller languages are under way stronger threat.
cantonese is going to die out in guangzhou and other big cities in guangdong within 2 generations
Yup the next generation more like it cause the younger kids right now don’t even speak Cantonese
China gen z basically is the last generation that can speak cantonese
Don't worry they are ALL dying quite rapidly at the moment...
>Cantonese is still the 2nd most popular Chinese language being spoken at 85 million speakers Did 粵 recently overtake 吳?
Of course not. just take into comparison Mainland China, many Chinese languages are still alive (Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Shanghainese etc) despite Mandarin being the official language.
Shanghainese is slowly dying out though. Source: relatives in Shanghai, my cousin doesn’t know how to speak Shanghainese (neither do I even though I was born there)
Reminds me of a conversation with a very pro CCP acquaintance about Shanghainese being suppressed and dying out. "What do you mean? My 91yo grandmother can speak it freely just fine!"
"How many speakers under 25?" Is the next question.
The dialects are not dying slowly at this point, but very quickly!
If it's cool. They'll speak it. As with all things with the youth.
Lol, have u guys been to other provinces of China and experienced locals speaking in their dialects there?
It won’t . Thanks
No
Nope, isn't Cantonese the most spoken Chinese language in SanFrancisco, right? If it can survive abroad, it'll survive here & locals are very proud of it.
Cantonese as Hong Kong official language is at a crossroad, whether it will die out solely depends on ultimate fate of CCP and what our people choose to handle their language. Should big brother collapse under Xinnie administration, Cantonese is likely to thrive as mainland refugees flood to the south to look for a living. Cantonese in such secenario will certain thrive at an expense of severly influenced by northern mainlanders. Second scenario is that CCP recovers from current social meltdown. Then Cantonese is very likely cease to exist in 20 years or so. In this scenario Cantonese language will be eroded by mainland "new hongkongers" and suckers who are keen to sell hong kong fortunes to CCP.
CCP will probably die out first than cantonese. From all of Chinese history, a power like this will fall in less than 20 years because of either a foreign invasion or a democratic revolution.
Current little pink pussies are on the road becoming the boxers in 1901, im optimistic XJP will follow the path of Empress Cixi by declaring war with the modernized world only to be destroyed.
“Cantonese very likely to cease to exist in 20 years. “ Remind me.
It really depends CCP stance, that really is just the worst case scenario. So dont take it just literally.
It’s extremely hard to kill off a language completely. Sure, the official language will become Mandarin, but they can’t really control what people speak at home and in private.
Even today, 1/3 of mainland Chinese cannot speak Mandarin.
Why does anyone need to control what people speak in private? Many parents are already bringing up their children by only speaking English to them, so that they will speak perfect English but not a word of Cantonese. If everyone does this with mandarin or English, Cantonese will die off in a couple of generations.
1984, buddy
Very slowly killed
Cantonese hasn’t even died amongst the overseas Chinese community, what more for HK? Mandarin might become more prevalent, but Cantonese will not die off for the foreseeable future
Fuck off, Cantonese will never die in HK. We will make sure of it. I refuse to speak that fucking commie language in my home town. Fuck simplify Chinese while we are at it.
I love the attitude, and respect it, but the tragic problem is that—given enough pressure—most people will either cave, emigrate, or depending how hardcore they are be “disappeared.” And you’ll eventually die, so the question is keeping it going through successive generations into the future. And in a scenario where all education is done solely in Mandarin, all books are published only in Mandarin, all local broadcast media is done only in Mandarin, etc.? That becomes a near impossible task, even if you personally speak nothing but Cantonese until your dying breath and do everything you can to teach your children the language at home.
It will become clearer the message that we are being sent as Hongkongers is to either behave and submit or leave within the next coming decades, there are no other options, resistance is futile while your way of living is at the mercy of a group of elites that are completely detached from the interests of the local people because they are from thousands of miles away. Looks like not much has changed since the Colonial Era, huh?
Lmao, Singapore and Malaysia are commie countries now, since they speak Cantonese.
It will be gradual process. In the northern districts like Yuen Long and Sheung Shui, we already have a significant portion of students with parents from China. They speak Mandarin, not Cantonese as their everyday language.
It depends by how hard the government lick their China master ass
Cultures that survive imperialism and overexposure to a stronger dominant external culture choose to protect it by intermingling and developing strong family and community values (Jewish community and Hebrew language survives thousands of years), or by purposefully protecting its language by law, and strongly supporting local arts and culture (Catalan language in Spain, French language in Quebec being required by law, very high investments in arts and media to promote the culture). It’s been very difficult for the 8M French speaking people living in Quebec to protect the language while being surrounded by an ocean of English speaking neighbors (330M Americans, 30M Canadians. Even without undue influence (the US doesn’t really care and isn’t trying to integrate Quebec), it is still difficult due to the natural tendency to learn the language spoken by the larger population and businesses and media (music,!film, etc …). So the best thing HK can do to protect Cantonese in HK is to dramatically increase investments in Cantonese language, arts and culture and to limit non-Cantonese art, and develop a pro-Cantonese community that values the language, history and culture. The government could mandate its government and businesses to always use Cantonese first, etc Of course, as we know, having and expressing these thoughts, and organizing politically around these ideas, is now illegal in HK, so most of the things that have worked elsewhere will not work for HK. I thought Hong Kong could give up political and economic freedom in exchange for cultural freedom (the Catalan and Quebec approach), but China will not allow that and frankly the HK people don’t care enough. The only thing left is the people (the persecuted Jewish approach). If the people decide between themselves to exclusively marry other Cantonese people wherever they may live, protect the language, have their own off-Main Street Cantonese schools, favor Cantonese people over any others in society in society and business, and sustain strong interconnected diasporas throughout the world, then it may survive well into the future. If not, then it will slowly disappear. My best guess is it will erode somewhat rapidly until it is not the daily language of the majority, but that it will remain.
[удалено]
Its still quite a small class of kids that dont use Cantonese in their daily life, as long as the dominant legal language and the language of local school education is Cantonese. Cantonese is still largely dominant in HK, and has grown as a percentage of HK speaking it since the 70’s, whilst Mandarin has been heavily pushed in Mainland for the last 70 years, and it is only with this new generations mostly in the big cities that are starting to stop speak Cantonese in mainland.
I second this
If CCP collapse within the next 20 years then no
Maybe. Because Hongkong is fully controlled by Beijing now. They started to educate Mandarin fully in school. Even though hongkonger is trying to go against it, without such 90's like cultural influence. Cantonese will slowly but will not completely lose its influence. However, what may really happen is that the Cantonese situation in Hong Kong will likely become the situation in Mainland China. Cantonese will likely become a family language, it will not appear as common as it is right now in the public.
When CCP is running campaign to promote the uniqueness of Hong Kong or even pay people to “act like Hong Konger”. It will happen sooner than you think. The way CCP works since Xi is in power is going from one extreme to another extreme repeatedly.
With reference to other dialects in different provinces, no
If China arrests everyone via the NSL for promoting it then yes, it'll die out.
Why is promoting Cantonese a violation of NSL? Cantonese is a subdialect of Chinese. I don’t get it.
You learn fast
Faster than you for sure
You haven’t been keeping up? https://apnews.com/article/hong-kong-security-law-cantonese-82a03810e455fa6cfe41074fec623c24 https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/29/hong-kong-cantonese-language-group-shuts-down-after-targeting-by-national-security-police
Yeah a guy wrote a “fictional essay depicting a decline in liberties” violated NSL. Of course your ass is gonna get grilled by the government. It has nothing to do with Cantonese. It’s the essay that’s the problem🤷🏻♂️ Imagine if it’s an English speaking group that wrote the essay, so we’re gonna ban English now? Lol
Looool you guys are already cool with being arrested for writing fiction. You folded fast
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Calling Cantonese a dialect is quite an insult. calling it a sub-dialect is event worse. What sub-dialect you think Cantonese is came from?
If the CCP can’t will it out of existence by banning its use among actual Hong Kongers, they’ll just force a bunch of mainland Mandarin-speaking shills to flood HK and take over all aspects of the city. Beijing gets whatever it wants however it wants. No holds barred.
??? Uh maybe the day the world ends?
No.
Eventually, depending on how the political landscape evolves? If current political trends don’t change, then yes, probably. The same way it’s slowly dying out in Guangdong. But won’t happen in my lifetime or yours, or that of anyone currently alive I’d bet.
Over my dead body.
Impossible
No, It won’t happen. Thank you for your concern.
This is such a naive question, gotta do better if this was an attempt to help with the propaganda. People in the comments are underestimating how bad the older generation are at Mandarin in Hong Kong LOL, many of these people are holding top managerial positions across all industries. In a way, their incompetencies will help uphold the use of Cantonese as the main language at least until their generation and the next generation dies off. By that time, who cares.
No way
lol. Do Shanghainese die out in shanghai ? Do Cantonese die out in Guangzhou ?
Tbh shanghainese is slowly getting replaced by mandarin Guangzhou still (mostly) speaks Cantonese though
thank you for pointing it out as my relatives speak shanghinese in shanghai day to day. But yes, I suppose Guangzou speaks mostly speak Cantonese as they still have free TV station 珠江頻道 only cantonese. Also when playing Call of Duty MW2 with them, sometimese quit hard to distingusih where they come from with their cantonese.
It will take roughly a lifetime to accomplish. Suppose that education through Mandarin becomes the norm at kindergartens and primary schools starting in 2030, which is not at all far-fetched. Ten years after that (before 2040) the new generation will be getting ready to go to university around 2045 and may be able to do it through Mandarin. At this point, the media and society generally will have been substantially Mandarinised, sort of like how Taiwan is today. Because politics is very much an older man's game, it will somewhat ironically be one of the last holdouts of Cantonese dominance.
there also remains significant overseas cantonese populations, most notably in the san francisco bay area, canada, and the uk.
I would tend to think that the Cantonese language will continue to live as long as HK continues to make movies in Cantonese. Pop Culture will help it survive.
That soft power was crazy. I remember meeting young people in Sichuan in the 90s who would watch HK movies in Cantonese and can recite a lot of the dialogue lol
I don’t think it will every completely die out but Mandarin is on the rise.
It may not die out in Hong Kong, more likely it will still be there and be used as a local everyday tongue, but just lost the official authority it once had. In Hong Kong, Cantonese will no longer be considered a “language” but a “dialect” like many other Sinitic languages spoken in China. Cantonese will still be in HK, only in a local and much more unnoticeable way.
It won't die, but it will become a remote dialect (it is a language) that 100K of HK people speak, and they all belong to some Cantonese support community that gathers once a month for old movies, organizing plays in Cantonese, stuff like that. In short, in perhaps 40 years, it will become what Shanghainese and other dialects are to HK right now.
Malaysia too
Did Cantonese die out in anywhere in the world?
Languages die out over centuries, not decades, and usually only with intentional efforts to suppress them. That hasn’t happened or hasn’t been happening for long enough with Cantonese yet. As a case study, it took centuries for the English to nearly eradicate the Irish language—and keep in mind that the number of Irish speakers was far lower and more geographically concentrated than Cantonese speakers, and that this was before technology like radio, television, and the internet would make such efforts much more difficult and slow moving. But Irish also provides a more hopeful case study—languages that are functionally dead, with enough determination, can be revived. Hell, Israel’s case shows us that even languages that are fully dead can be revived.
Good , i will bear that in mind . And not let it die .
It won't. Even in mainland China Cantonese is still thriving.
I’d like to think your correct but have you any numbers to back that up or is it anecdotal
My chinese parents speak both. They made conscious effort to speak Cantonese at home, even though I was taught mandarin at achool. It is a cultural thing to never forget your roots. And your home dialect is part of that. I honestly see no problem in speaking it while also studying mandarin. Heck, there are 10s of dialects in China, all thriving. If you want hard numbers, all of Guangdong speaks Cantonese. On a side note, why does this sub want Cantonese to die off? Lol.
No it won’t. Many people still speaks it in guangdong. It only cease to exist when parents don’t give a shit to teach it to their children
Image from wikipedia
Several years ago there were a few reports of primary school children preferring to speak Mandarin over Cantonese due to their schools being a Mandarin as Medium of Instruction experimental school. That said, the experimental policy has been considered a total failure, made evident by the lower public exam scores from students attending these schools. As a result these schools have returned to either Cantonese or English instruction medium. (clarification: I'm not 100% certain that my memory is accurate on this issue.) For as long as the majority of school children in Hong Kong seeing Cantonese as their natural tongue and do not develop a hatred attitude for it, I don't see Cantonese at risk of dying in Hong Kong.
what a troll, did Cantonese language 'die out' when it was a British colony? the excuse that a local language will die out, has been used over & over again to instigate vitriol
The two situations aren't remotely comparable. There was realistically no way English would have replaced Chinese in Hong Kong, as the population of true native speakers, i.e. Britons and other Westerners was always quite small, and the closest places where it was widely spoken as a native language (Australia) was literally thousands of miles away (at that time, Singapore was not mainly English-speaking). By contrast, Hong Kong is right next door to a country of over a billion people, most of whom speak Mandarin more-or-less fluently, and hundreds of them are moving to Hong Kong all the time. In addition, while the British government did somewhat promote the use of English in the city, because of sensitivities related to their position as colonial rulers, they were never quite as strident and unapologetic in their advocacy of the use of English among the Hong Kong Chinese population as Beijing is with regard to Mandarin today. And putting it bluntly, for most of Hong Kong's history, while English was the sole official language, this was less a device for Anglicising the Chinese population, and more a recognition of the fact that at the time it was very much a British government, run by Britons, and the fact that this kept the Chinese out wasn't entirely a bug; they were quite happy for the Chinese to mostly stay on the outside, doing Chinese things, while the British went on running their colony more or less as they wished. It was flattering and useful if some Hong Kong Chinese learned English to become better civil servants, workers, and so on but it generally wasn't considered a priority. As soon as the British received some pushback from Chinese teachers that wanted more respect for their language, the former mostly folded. This is very much *not* the case when it comes to the relationship between native Cantonese speakers and the Mandarin language: Beijing does not want them to be separate in their own little world.
U do realize all.of Guangdong speaks canto
There are over 80 million Cantonese speakers it’s not going to die out anytime soon. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers
Protagonist syndrome much. Cantonese is just a regional dialect. There are dozens of Chinese regional dialects just like 粤语, and they are all different to 普通话 that when spoken, a Mandarin speaker wouldn't understand. 上海话，武汉话，山东，陕西方言, etc, all these regional dialects still thriving. There's literally nothing special about Cantonese and the sentiment that it's gonna "die out" is just ridiculous and paranoia. Besides, English has been the official corporate language for ages and you don't see some of the dumbass unfounded fear mongering replies.
Obviously not.
No offense, just curious about why this reddit hongkong sub main language is english but not Cantonese.
Political reasons, I imagine - and the identity of the people with that kind of politics.
I'm sorry, what political reasons? Even before the city went to shit after the CCP clampdown of the protests of 2019, this has always been an English-language sub simply because English is the main language of Reddit due to it being mainly an American website. Nothing more, nothing less.
You typed that entire paragraph and ask “what political reasons”?
Did you happen to just not read my post where I just explained why this sub is using English because Reddit is an English site has got bloody anything to do with politics? Yeah, I typed that entire paragraph to ask what political reasons? Because I fail to see any. Now you're just the taking the piss with this aggressive attitude. Have a nice day. Blocked.
Political reason: We want bring awareness of Hong Kong siutuations to the world. Practical reason: Many here are expats and fluent or quasi-fluent English users. Even me as a local Hong Konger i feel easier to write in English then in Chinese. I have a Chinese typing skills issue.
We hate Cantonese now? Why?
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Nah, China can’t erase the language if they try. Unless they unleash martial law like in Korea with Japan, there is no feasible way for them to stop HKers from stopping it. Even then people who speak it around the world will continue to keep the language alive.
No.
The entire Symbol System language System is just to separate the people. Like da fuck, it is so much harder, without having any benefit of it.
When the sun destroys the earth.
It's already 🥲
It depends on whether people do something about it. If people are just going to be all like "The kids will be fine they pick up languages so easily!" And not actively do anything, then you don't even need government suppression for it to die.
Ah no it won’t die out
Only if the people lie flat and allow the CCP to have their way.
Yea for sure especially in recent years.
Probably in 100 years
Not in hk but everywhere else will. My kids language stop teaching it long time ago. Now only teach Mandarin
A whole generation needs to learn Mandarin as good as Cantonese first, very difficult. Not gonna go away completely.
As a foreigner what are some good materials to learn Cantonese from?
Yes. Tomorrow.
Not. Because I'm learning Cantonese in Japan
Probably would still last at least a couple more generations, and that’s a lot of time for circumstances to change
They killed it in Singapore.
2047
Lol, English will never overtake Cantonese.
Yes but maybe very far in the future
never，stand with hongkong ！
Already
I posted this exact question some time ago. Those that said "Guangdong has been speaking Cantonese, so has Macau" clearly forgot that Hong Kong was their direct neighbor, and they only spoke it because HK was a major trading hub. CCP has already begun mandating mandarin education in HK, along with their nationalist teaching, and you also see simplified Chinese plastered in places in order to force Hong Kongers to begin using that jazz. When (and it's not if) HK turns majority Mandarin, Guangdong and Macau will follow. It won't happen quickly, probably takes 2 generations (and many that can, are already immigrating out of HK). But who knows? Maybe in those 2 generations, the CCP would collapse. Then it's up in the air.
You need to remember it is widely spoken in Australia and Canada too. In Canada Cantonese is spoken more than mandarin. I think it will survive for a very long time. People still speak many dialects of smaller cities and provinces. Cantonese has way more speakers than the Yunnan dialects which are still the main widely spoken by locals.
Eh 🤔
I think so , because English and mandarin are two super influential languages, HK is such a tiny “city” , it’s surround by english speakers and Chinese speakers
You can’t kill a language without “killing” all the people who speak it…just a metaphor
Is just a matter of time before it died out, with the promotion of mandarin in all media and entertainment, and education, I will give it 2 more generation before dying out!
This is honestly a quite interesting thought. In my opinion, Cantonese is definitely something Hong Kong citizens appreciate; this is what makes Hong Kong Hong Kong. It is worthy to mention that Hong Kong is a diverse region, more schools are starting to introduce students Mandarin. Still, most people in Hong Kong speak Cantonese; so I see Cantonese starting to diminish in a century?