64
I am perfectly aware that it is notoriously difficult to ascribe lexical innovations to specific dates or occurrences with any degree of authority or accuracy. But my focus is on Hong Kong English at the present time, the English which is in use among native speakers of English. By 'native speaker', I mean L1 users of English, those who have not had to acquire it as a second language in Hong Kong today. The business of etymology-hunting becomes less tenuous: we have actually witnessed the initial appearance of specific loan words, then the process of their being popularized by the media; for example, mafoo (stable boy), a word which was already current in Shanghai and which gained currency here because of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club's dispute between management and labour in the 1970's and now once more in the news. This time it appears unmarked, unglossed, whereas when it appeared over ten years ago, it was almost inevitably accompanied by an explanation.
Though the borrowing from Chinese to-date has not been very significant, it is evident that, because of the cosmopolitan nature of Hong Kong and the easy movement of people to and from Hong Kong, some of these lexical innovations, such as they are, may find their way outside Hong Kong, gain international currency and eventual sanction by inclusion in reputable dictionaries. Contact between various dialects of Chinese immigrants, in Hawaii, in Chinatowns in New York, San Francisco, Boston, London, and Sydney, etc., has also resulted in mutual lexical borrowing. Some of the immigrants originate from Hong Kong. And since the late 1960's and early 70's, the English-speaking world has had much more direct access to China and to the Chinese language used on the Mainland.
My co-researcher and I have made an investigation of the subject according to the following headings.
I. An outline history of contact between the two languages, with illustrative examples of the loan words resulting from various types of contacts. The focus is on the lexical consequences of historical events, not the events themselves; for example, we are interested more in the popularizing of the term kowtow than in the political or commercial results of the Amherst embassy.
64
am perfectly aware that it is notoriously difficult to ascribe lexical innovations to specific dates or occurrences with any degree of authority or accuracy. But my focus is on Hong Kong English at the present time, the English which is in use among native speakers of English. By 'native speaker', I mean L, users of English those who have not had to acquire it as a second language
in Hong Kong today. The business of etymology-hunting becomes less tenuous: we have actually witnessed the initial appearance of specific loan words, then the process of their being popularized by the media; for example mafoo (stable boy), a word which was already current in Shanghai and which gained currency here because of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club's dispute between management and labour in the 1970's and now once more in the news. This time it appears unmarked, unglossed, whereas when it appeared over ten years ago, it was almost inevitably accompanied by an explanation.
Though the borrowing from Chinese to-date has not been very significant, it is evident that, because of the cosmopolitan nature of Hong Kong and the easy movement of people to and from Hong Kong, some of these lexical innovations, such as they are, may find their way outside Hong Kong, gain international currency and eventual sanction by inclusion in reputable dictionaries. Contact between various dialects of Chinese immigrants, in Hawaii, in Chinatowns in New York, San Francisco, Boston, London and Sydney, etc. has also resulted in mutual lexical borrowing. Some of the immigrants originate from Hong Kong. And since the late 1960's and early 70's the English- speaking world has had much more direct access to China and to the Chinese language used on the Mainland.
My co-researcher and I have made an investigation of the subject according to the following headings.
I. An outline history of contact between the two languages, with illustrative examples of the loan words resulting from various types of contacts. The focus is on the lexical consequences of historical events, not the events themselves, for example we are interested more in the popularizing of the term kowtow than in the political or commercial results of the Amherst embassy.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.