More about Code-mixing Types in Hong Kong

Since Hong Kong is an international city and a cultural melting pot with many schools of different language standards, code-mixing can be split into the following categories and forms:

Native Hong Konger

The Native Hong Konger code-mixing category belongs to the majority of people who grew up in the local schools of Hong Kong. This type of code-mixing has the longest history and dates back to the colonial days of Hong Kong. The words also tend to have unique meaning and conform to the sound system of Cantonese. Below are some examples:

Overseas Educated Hong Konger

The Overseas Educated type of code-mixing refers to the Hong Kongers who have been educated overseas or attended school with English as the medium of instructions. This type of code-mixing is characterised by English words that are usually longer and more sophisticated than the Cantonese counterpart, in order to show the speaker's level of academic knowledge. Moreover, the word choice of English over Cantonese is often due to having precision and certainty of the subject matter at hand. Some examples include:

Fake ABC Hong Konger

According to a legend in Hong Kong, once upon a time, there was a local Hong Kong student who went overseas to Australia to study at a university. When he came back to Hong Kong, he jokingly said to his friends and family, "I forgot how to speak Chinese!"

The Fake ABC (American/Australian Born Chinese) code-mixing is characterised by pretentiousness and grammatical errors, which can be rather unpleasant for anyone to hear. It also tends to be complemented with a fashion trend, such as wearing certain brands like A&F, certain styles of shirt, pants, and sunglasses, etc, in order to act like a real ABC. Below are examples:

Upper Class Hong Konger

The Upper Class Hong Konger code-mixing type comprises the group of Hong Kongers at the top of the social hierarchy in Hong Kong. Famous celebrities such as Janice Man, Derek Chung, and certain TVB actors, Miss Hong Kong, etc, also belong to this group. The words also tend to reflect the speaker's luxurious lifestyle and high aesthetic tastes, as well as a high level of English knowledge, which can be relative sometimes. Below are some examples:

Working Class Hong Konger

The Working Class Hong Konger code-mixing category basically comprises the English terms that are often used in a workplace setting in Hong Kong. This type of code-mixing is generally used by the native Hong Kongers and also shared among overseas educated Hong Kongers and upper class Hong Kongers. With the current investigation of whether the concept of class can be incorporated into Hong Kong Cantonese through code-mixing, this raises the question of whether it is equivalent to the Cockney accent of English that represents the working class of England in the UK. Below are examples:

Grassroots Class Hong Konger

The Grassroots class Hong Konger code-mixing type refers to the group of native Hong Kongers who had little or no English education growing up in Hong Kong. They tend to pronounce English words in a very Cantonese style, but not necessarily improper from the perspective of linguistics as they are still very understandable, and can be comparable to Pidgin English. Below are some examples:

Local Student Hong Konger

The Local Student Hong Konger code-mixing refers to the native Hong Kongers who grew up in the local schools and universities of Hong Kong. It is often characterised by the truncation of English academic terms to fit the sound system of Cantonese such as 'semester' -> 'sem', 'compromise' -> 'com', 'dancing society' -> 'dan so'. As instant messaging has become a daily necessity nowadays, a code-mixing style called Kongish is also becoming more popular, which involves the direct translation and transliteration of English terms. Below are the examples:

Westernised Hong Konger

The Westernised Hong Konger code-mixing comprises the expats and Asians who grew up in international schools and have more than a regular habit of speaking English. Hence, their level of English is generally very high, resulting in clear perfect English pronunciation. Therefore, they may either be mixing words of western culture while speaking Cantonese, or using romanised Cantonese expressions through transliteration while speaking in English medium. Some examples include:

English & Cantonese

The English & Cantonese code-mixing is the most commonly used form of conversation in Hong Kong and is spoken by the majority of native local Hong Kongers. It is characterised by the insertion of English words into a Cantonese conversation that can replace different parts of speech including verbs, adjectives, nouns, and even adverbs and prepositions. Below are some examples:

Kongish

Kongish is the second most commonly used form of code-mixing in Hong Kong and is becoming more popular among the young generation nowadays. It is characterised by direct translation of Cantonese words into English and transliteration of Cantonese words that is different from the traditional romanisation of Cantonese such as Jyutping. While it is most likely originated from the textspeak medium in instant messaging, it is also spoken among friends and family as well. The following are some examples:

Textspeak

Since the advent of instant messaging, textspeak has become a very popular form of code-mixing in Hong Kong. It is characterised by the transliteration of Cantonese words into English and numbers, and is also different from the traditional romanisation of Cantonese like Jyutping. Sometimes, they are rather like acronyms than words that people would actually use in a spoken conversation. Below are examples:

Romanised Cantonese

This is the romanised form of Cantonese adopted by the Hong Kong government since the colonial days and is mostly used by foreigners and tourists as the transliterated words are pronounced in an anglicised manner. While there are other romanisation systems of Cantonese, this is the one that is most commonly used in speech as it is the most straightforward and does not contain any numbers for tones like in Jyutping. The following are examples: