Asian Insider Podcast

Is Cantonese dying out in Hong Kong?

mfletter24 - Jyuttois Mr Jeffrey Wong working in a printed hoodie with his illustrated idiom.

Mr Jeffrey Wong is among many globalised and tech-savvy Hong Kongers who are making Cantonese more accessible to the world. PHOTO: COURTESY OF JEFFREY WONG

Li Xueying

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Synopsis: The Straits Times chats with ST’s global correspondents about life as it goes on, amid the screaming headlines and bubbling crises.

Want to pick up Cantonese? Some Hong Kongers - from a software engineer to a playgroup teacher based in Britain - have created new ways of learning the Chinese dialect such as through apps, videos and social media accounts.

This surge in a grassroots effort is coming at a time when many Hong Kongers are feeling unmoored by the political turbulence of the past decade. As more migrate to non-Cantonese speaking societies, they are holding fast to their identity and language in a foreign environment.

There are also growing fears that Cantonese in Hong Kong and Guangdong is a dying language with people abandoning it for English or Mandarin.

In this episode, ST’s foreign editor Li Xueying speaks with Hong Kong correspondent Magdalene Fung on how true such concerns are, and her assessment of these new Cantonese-language tools.

Highlights (click/tap above):

2:00 Why Hong Kongers are championing the use of Cantonese

5:20 How these new tools are different from traditional methods

9:50 A living and constantly changing language

13:00 The situation in Guangdong

Read Magdalene Fung’s article here:

https://str.sg/AfVW

Read Li Xueying’s articles:

https://str.sg/iqmR

Follow Li Xueying on LinkedIn:

https://str.sg/ip4x

https://str.sg/stnewsletters