HONG KONG
Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language | Date: 1998
HONG KONG, also Hongkong. An autonomous region of
CHINA, formerly a British colony. Languages: Cantonese, English, and Mandarin Chinese. In 1842, by the Treaty of Nanking, Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain; in 1898, the mainland New Territories were leased to Britain for 99 years. The colony was restored to China in 1997. English is important in Hong Kong for written and printed communication, as a
LINGUA FRANCA between Chinese and non-Chinese, and in international trade, but is not widely used as a spoken medium. Of some 40 daily newspapers, two are in English: the
South China Morning Post and the
Hongkong Standard.
Hong Kong usage includes: (1) Words and phrases from Chinese:
dim sum snacks served in Chinese restaurants,
fung shui (‘wind-water’) geomancy used in deciding the sites, orientation, and design of buildings,
gweilo (‘ghost person’) a European,
hong a large usually long-established non-Chinese trading company,
pak choi Chinese cabbage,
taipan the head of a hong. (2) LOAN TRANSLATIONS from Chinese:
dragon boat a long canoe-like boat raced at festivals,
snakehead a smuggler of illegal immigrants. (3) Terms from other languages:
amah (Portuguese) a maid,
godown (Malay) a warehouse,
shroff (Arabic through Persian and Anglo-Indian English) a cashier in a government office. (4) Local uses of general words:
the mainland China proper;
triad a secret criminal society. See
EAST ASIAN ENGLISH.
© Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language 1998, originally published by Oxford University Press 1998.
Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles from HighBeam Research
 "The Economist (US)")
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Foreign tongues: Hong Kong.(corruption of English and Chinese in Hong Kong)
The Economist (US); 3/2/1996; 695 words
; THE people of Hong Kong have a problem with the English language. If anyone interesting to inquiry more for long-time of this problem, please attention to this journalist. The debate about English in Hong Kong is almost as old as colonial rule. However the issue has resurfaced with Hong Kong's
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Tung constrained. (the New Chinese ruler of Hong Kong, Tung Chee-hwa, has been restrained in making major changes there)
The Economist (US); 3/28/1998; 787 words
; HONG KONG The leader of Hong Kong is discovering the homegrown limits to his power TWO common predictions about the way Hong Kong would be run after China resumed sovereignty last July have refused to come true: the Communists in Beijing are not calling the shots, and the chief executive, Tung
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How to keep Hong Kong's cutting edge
China Daily; 4/14/2006; Zou Hanru; 571 words
; A debate has been raging in Hong Kong over whether it will be marginalized by the rapid development of mainland cities. The debate became intense when Hong Kong's Chief Secretary for Administration Rafael Hui expressed these fears when China's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10) was unveiled. Hui's fears
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Poetry in Hong Kong: The 1990s.
World Literature Today; 1/1/1999; LAM, AGNES; 787 words
; 1: Introduction. Hong Kong literature has often been considered a marginal phenomenon on the fringe of developments in Motherland China, the British Commonwealth, or even other societies (L. Lee, 80). Hong Kong culture has even been identified as a culture of disappearance, transience being its
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Languages and business: the Hong Kong mix.
Business Communication Quarterly; 12/1/1997; Lundelius, Jay Osborn; 787 words
; That English serves as an international language is largely the result of the spread of English worldwide during the age of the British empire. One notable example of this is Hong Kong, a major center for trade, with the third-largest port in the world. A colony of Britain's for over 150 years,
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