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English is a major working language in Hong Kong, and is widely used in commercial activities and legal matters. Although the sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred to the PRC by the United Kingdom in 1997, English remains one of the official languages of Hong Kong as enshrined in the Basic Law.
Cantonese is unique among non-Mandarin regional languages in having a written colloquial standard, used in Hong Kong and overseas, with a large number of unofficial characters for words particular to this language. [51]
Hong Kong written Chinese (HKWC) [1] is a local variety of written Chinese used in formal written communication in Hong Kong and Macao. [2] The common Hongkongese name for this form of Chinese is "written language" (書面語), in contrast to the "spoken language" (口語), i.e. Cantonese. [3]
Cantonese is a common language in places like Hong Kong and Macau. While the Mandarin form can to some extent be read and spoken word for word in other Chinese varieties, its intelligibility to non-Mandarin speakers is poor to incomprehensible because of differences in idioms, grammar and usage.
In 1974 Chinese was declared as another official language of Hong Kong through the Official Languages Ordinance.The ordinance does not specify any particular variety of Chinese although majority of Hong Kong residents have Cantonese, the language of Canton (now called Guangzhou), as their mother tongue and this is considered the de facto official variety used by the government.
Cantonese is a Chinese dialect spoken by a majority in Hong Kong - some fear China wants to change that.
Like Hong Kong, English was also used as a second language. After Handover of Macau in 1999, the Chinese government began promoting Mandarin in Macau. However, like Hong Kong, where Cantonese remains the dominant language, Cantonese characters are still frequently used in daily life in Macau.
Over the years, Hong Kong Cantonese has also absorbed foreign terminology and developed a large set of Hong Kong-specific terms. Code-switching with English is also common. As of 2021, 88.2% of Hong Kong's population identified Cantonese as their "usual spoken language," while 93.7% reported being able to speak it. [1]