Talk:Hong Kong English

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Darceyguffey.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:50, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

"Open the door, see the mountain"

Sorry I've never heard anyone saying this. Should we put it here even it's not a popular 'Hong Kong English' phrase? Hermesw (talk) 21:19, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree to that. A search on Google yielded 2 counts on mandarin and one attributed to Hong Kong English but this phrase has not crossed my path save for an entry in a joke book concerning 'Chinglish'. The sources on Google are personal blogs only, however, so they aren't really credible. Maybe it should be moved somewhere else anyway? Erikwesley (talk) 16:30, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

• Seems like original research. Now removed. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 03:59, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Add on to background and consonant plus grammar

I plan adding to the article which seems rather lacking in general information. I will use some academic source because the article has a few citation. I found one article that discusses lexical stress. Reading some of comments I will try to be neutral as possible because that seems to be a problem with this article. I also notice that the article is rather messy and does give a proper citation to any material that was used in the article itself.

bibliography

Alice Y. W. Chan. (2004). Syntactic Transfer: Evidence from the Interlanguage of Hong Kong Chinese ESL Learners. The Modern Language Journal, 88(1), 56-74. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy1.library.arizona.edu/stable/3588718

Eoyang, E. (2000). From the Imperial to the Empirical: Teaching English in Hong Kong. Profession, 62-74. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy1.library.arizona.edu/stable/25595704

Setter, J. (2006). Speech Rhythm in World Englishes: The Case of Hong Kong. TESOL Quarterly, 40(4), 763-782. doi:10.2307/40264307

Sewell, A. (2017). Pronunciation Assessment in Asia’s World City: Implications of a Lingua Franca Approach in Hong Kong. In Isaacs T. & Trofimovich P. (Eds.), Second Language Pronunciation Assessment: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (pp. 237-255). Bristol; Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters / Channel View Publications. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy1.library.arizona.edu/stable/10.21832/j.ctt1xp3wcc.17

--user: Darceyguffey (Darceyguffey) 2:06 11 March 2018. —Preceding undated comment added 21:07, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for contributing, and especially for citing reliable sources. These URLs with "library.arizona.edu" in them are only available to UA library patrons, though. If you have a non-local web address or DOI, you can add that. But URLs aren't really necessary for journals, so you could just leave it out. Happy editing, Cnilep (talk) 04:12, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Dialect of English

There have been repeated changes to this article regarding a dispute over whether English is a full dialect of English, or a spoken form only. This change has implications for the use of Hong Kong English on other articles on Wikipedia (such as Talk:Election Committee). I would suggest that Hong Kong English, though rooted in British English, is a full dialect with a written form as well as a spoken form in the same way that Australian English, Indian English, Singaporean English are. All these forms of Commonwealth English share an almost identical set of conventions regarding spelling. However, differences in vocabulary, grammar, etc owing to localisation and influence from the other local languages mean it differs slightly. I suggest that articles pertaining particularly to Hong Kong continue to be marked as "Use Hong Kong English" as per the Manual of Style regarding the national varieties of English. Interested to gain some consensus on this issue. Kdm852 (talk) 06:25, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

What would be helpful would be for you to go a bit deeper than simply saying "Manual of Style, go away." What precisely in the Manual of Style supports your view that these articles must be marked with a warning to editors to use what you suggest is Hong Kong English? Please be clear: the first hurdle is not whether or not there is something, a written form, which is capable of identification as an appreciable entity called Hong Kong English; the first hurdle is whether the Manual requires that editors be so constrained in these Hong Kong articles. I simply cannot see it. You have quoted one part of the manual and dropped it there. That phrase explicitly excludes such language constraints when the language relied upon is colloquial. The Hong Kong English page lends no support to the idea that it goes beyond the colloquial so what is your basis for departing from the Manual? So that's the technical issue and you need to deal with it if you wish to pursue your mission. But, even having done that and succeeding in convincing the whole world that there is a full-blown (or even half-baked) written form of English we can identify and name "Hong Kong English", the next step is to ask yourself whether, in warning editors they must use it, you are helping or hindering them. If Wikipedia does not help them (because the Hong Kong English page gives no useful clue whatsoever as to what the written form of that beast is (and I repeat I have no qualm with the idea that the spoken form is to some extent identifiable)), then where are they to go for guidance before they start contributing to such an article? Then, the third stage in the problem here is that, even if you can provide a source which defines the state of written Hong Kong English, do you suggest that editors must seek out that source and bone up on it before they can contribute? And what, at the end of the day, will have been achieved, even if you have cleared all three of these hurdles? Absolutely nothing, because the reality is that the prevalent form of written English in Hong Kong is simply British English (see Hong Kong English which currently tells us that). sirlanz 07:27, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

sirlanz, I have done so in the previously quoted discussion with you, several times. However, I shall try to make myself clearer:

• I disagree that I am simply saying "Manual of Style, go away". However, I think you need to justify your case if you wish to deviate from the Manual of Style. If it were a case of policy for policy's sake, and the policy was not useful at all, I would agree with you. I also think that since you seem to disagree with the idea of using national dialects of English, you should take this up on the manual of style page and have the policy changed. Regional variations of English are used in articles with a particular connection to an English-speaking location, I think for good reason. As I have said previously, the same applies to Australian English, Singaporean English, and the like.
• I also disagree that the marker is meant as a 'warning', as you phrased it. I'm not quite sure why you interpret it this way. As far as I see it, it's a marker to allow future editors to quickly see what style the article is written in so that formatting can be kept consistent. The same applies for the "Use dmy" marker so editors know to use the same date formatting throughout.
• The phrase which you are referring to about excluding 'colloquial' forms actually does not. The exact wording is: "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the (formal, not colloquial) English of that nation", which simply means that the formal version of the written language should be used, not the colloquial form ("going to" vs "gonna", etc). You seem to be suggesting that Hong Kong has no formal written language, or rather, as you have phrased it previously, that the written form of English used in Hong Kong is, that is to say is completely indistinguishable from, British English. In as far as spelling conventions are concerned, you are probably largely correct, however the regional form of English is not limited to merely spelling, but also prefernce for certain terms (eg. 'boot' vs 'trunk' of a car), as well as terminology particular to that region (terms used in Hong Kong English which are not seen in other forms, such as sampan, amah, catty, etc). The fact that Hong Kong English may have derived from British English does not mean it is identical to it. What's more, the language is likely to continue to develop separately from British English now that Hong Kong is no longer a colony, and it is likely, as is the case with Singaporean English that the differences may increase over time.
• I feel that your last concern is fairly well solved by the inclusion of the "Use HK English" marker. If an editor is familiar with the style of Hong Kong English, they can feely edit the article, just as one familiar with New Zealand English could do for an article marked with NZ English styling. An editor who sees the marker and is not familar with the style of English commonly used in Hong Kong knows to be slightly more careful before they make language corrections which may in fact be differences of regional variation, rather than errors. The marker on the Talk page which marks an article as being written in HK English also contains a brief explanation that it is similar to other forms of Commonwealth English, which I feel should be clear enough for anybody who may wish to update an article. Just as, for example, an editor familiar with American English may not be completely familiar with the general conventions when editing an article written in British English is not expected to, as you said, 'bone up' on the language, just advised to be more aware that they may not be completely aware of the differences in the language used. This sort of edit would, one assumes, also be made in good faith and could be easily rectified by an editor more familiar in the particular language style.

I hope that is clearer. Kdm852 (talk) 08:26, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Error in "American/British spelling and word usage" section

The quote "chips[21][22] instead of french fries." Is not true in Hong Kong. French fries (or "potato fires" actually) is a more common term to refer to chips in Hong Kong, If you say chips to a Hongkonger, it is more than likely that they will understand it as "potato chips". The two references in the article [21][22] only refers to "Fish & chips", where arguably is the only place where the word "chips" remained in description for french fries as "Fish & chips" became considered as a proper noun itself to describe that British dish in particular. In fact, I will argue that the term French fries is brought in by McDonald's into Hong Kong, which have developed to become a very popular restaurant with an extremely high density in the city. It would be better to take McDonald's page as a reference to the usage of "French Fries" in Hong Kong.

Source: I grew up in Hong Kong

Removed the reference entirely as it is no more than a selective anecdote of one editor sirlanz 02:18, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

References

Hong Kong vocabulary/expressions

Recent edits have involved removal of terminology from this section without first asking editors for citations, examples, etc. Consensus should be sought before removing information that is not correctly cited (add "citation needed" marker instead), as opposed to incorrect (as in the "fries" vs "chips" debate above). Kdm852 (talk) 05:07, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

There is a total misconception here. Kdm852 has sought to justify the inclusion of the "Lai See" term as an example of HKE on the basis of sources that do not say one word about this characteristic of the term. The only sources provided, after evidently considerable effort by Kdm852, are examples showing that the term exists somewhere and without one word about its role as an example of HKE. The Lancet article is an excellent example of the level of misconception from which the editor suffers: it does not even mention "Hong Kong", it was written and published in Shanghai and talks of a bribery issue in China. There is a level of desperation here in putting forward such patently irrelevant material in support of the material appearing on our page. The material must go. sirlanz 05:31, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

There's no need to resort to insults. The Lancet ref, as I said, is to demonstrate the differentiation form the Mandarin usage; the SCMP article (as an example of use in Hong Kong media) was to demonstrate the use of the term in Hong Kong. If you do feel the references are not suitable (as I said earlier, and you seem to have ignored) you may remove them and add the "citation needed" marker to give editors (including myself) a chance to find better ones. Simply removing the content is unjustified at this stage, especially seeing as "taipan" and "amah" are likewise commonly used terms in Hong Kong English, but they remain on the list. Furthermore, a lack of formal linguistic analysis of their usage is not a justifiable rationale for removing them, since this may simply not have been done. Linguists are a finite resource. The article is trying to illustrate usages in Hong Kong English which may differ form other forms (and do not necessarily have to differ from all other forms), for which, I feel, references to use in public media, such as newspapers, should count as valid refs. Further input on this would be appreciated. Kdm852 (talk) 05:41, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

So, at best, you are conceding what you're doing is offensive to WP:OR, yes? sirlanz 05:59, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

The idea of putting forward the Lancet article with the edit summary "academic ref added for distinction from Mandarin" was a misleading attempt to give the edit some patina of academic authority when it was simply a random article not touching for one moment upon anything relevant to linguistics which just happened to mention in passing that laisee is a Cantonese expression. The edit summary was designed to mislead. sirlanz 06:07, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

To add: section on Konglish

This interlanguage would be a fascinating addition here. See e.g. https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=44232 ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:38, 1 September 2019 (UTC)