Seems like economic viability of the language is seriously having an impact on it, not to mention its constantly being squeezed by China's language policies and the importance of learning english in their context.
I know for a fact there are tons of 香港人 whose English is terrible, the time seriously would have been better applied to Cantonese.
I can understand the motivation of being bi-tri-lingual but it is having a bad effect on the local people and will pressure them to constantly improve or find themselves almost unemployable in some cases.
There really needs to be something economic about the language rather than cultural heritage, otherwise it will eventually die out. Its what happens to all languages that dont make it a necessity to learn so that you can survive.
If someone speaks to you in english, dont respond in english.
If someone speaks to you in mandarin, dont respond in mandarin.
Hong Kong has a serious problem with this, as its become common place to have to know english and mandarin to service foreign clients. Kind of makes me sick that this sort of issue isnt made a bigger deal.
Survival is the key to language longevity, just look at what happened to south america. Most of the local languages have been extinguished to foreign languages like Spanish and Portuguese. English and French took North America. Arabic took the middle east, now Mandarin in the mainland, this is cultural assimilation, eventually Cantonese will be over run, unless the policy is truly taken seriously. The local language should be held as more important than learning any other language for "Survival" reasons, kids ultimately will form their own list of priorities based on their need to survive .
I implore Hong Kong, make Cantonese a higher priority to the work force, and the children will follow.
I know for a fact there are tons of 香港人 whose English is terrible, the time seriously would have been better applied to Cantonese.
I can understand the motivation of being bi-tri-lingual but it is having a bad effect on the local people and will pressure them to constantly improve or find themselves almost unemployable in some cases.
There really needs to be something economic about the language rather than cultural heritage, otherwise it will eventually die out. Its what happens to all languages that dont make it a necessity to learn so that you can survive.
If someone speaks to you in english, dont respond in english.
If someone speaks to you in mandarin, dont respond in mandarin.
Hong Kong has a serious problem with this, as its become common place to have to know english and mandarin to service foreign clients. Kind of makes me sick that this sort of issue isnt made a bigger deal.
Survival is the key to language longevity, just look at what happened to south america. Most of the local languages have been extinguished to foreign languages like Spanish and Portuguese. English and French took North America. Arabic took the middle east, now Mandarin in the mainland, this is cultural assimilation, eventually Cantonese will be over run, unless the policy is truly taken seriously. The local language should be held as more important than learning any other language for "Survival" reasons, kids ultimately will form their own list of priorities based on their need to survive .
I implore Hong Kong, make Cantonese a higher priority to the work force, and the children will follow.