“Wei?” (Photo: istolethetv via Flickr)
An HKU study about language use and proficiency in Hong Kong has revealed that slightly less than half of residents over the age of 12 (45.2 percent) think that Cantonese is “endangered”, while over half can barely speak English, with only six percent speaking English well or at a near-native proficiency.
When the survey asked respondents “how seriously endangered is Cantonese at present”, only 23.1 percent said that the local language is “not at all” endangered. Meanwhile, 31.8 percent say that Canto is “a little” endangered and 30.1 percent think it is “moderately” so.
A small proportion (11.7 percent) think that Cantonese is endangered “a lot”, while only 3.4 percent think it is “critically” threatened.
After assessing the English proficiency of 175 respondents, the scholars also found that over a quarter (27.9 percent) couldn’t speak a lick of English, while almost an equal number (27.1 percent) could speak just “a few sentences”.
Less than a fifth (18.4 percent) speak “a little” English, while over a fifth (20.6 percent) speak it “quite well”. Then there’s a sharp drop off in the next two categories, with only 4.4 percent speaking the language “well”, and 1.5 percent speaking it “very well”.
In contrast, over half (52.3 percent) of respondents could speak Putonghua “well” or “very well”, with only 36.4 percent able to speak “a little” or less.
We guess everyone needs to start speaking Cantonese and English more, la. Great job with the Mandarin, though!
