LinguisticMinorities.HK

oject, supported by the KE Funding Exercise 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16 University Grants Council, Hong Kong. Principal Investigator: Dr. Lisa Lim, School of English, The University of Hong Kong; Research Assistant: Theodore Lee. The knowledge encompassed in this website encompasses (a) various national surveys and statistics, governmental and non-governmental, on ethnic minorities, language use, etc. (b) published research in the field; (c) research from fieldwork-based research projects on HK linguistic minorities conducted by students and faculty in courses and research projects in HKU. Amongst other things, it brings together all the complementary teaching and research that goes on in the Faculty of Arts of The University of Hong Kong, in the programmes of English Studies, Language and Communication, and Linguistics, thus creating a consolidated platform and showcase for the exceptional research and knowledge generated at HKU. LinguisticMinorities.HK旨在提供讀者有關香港少數族裔語言使用的情況，是一個結集了各類相關資訊、資源及嶄新研究成果的網頁。我們研究及討論的對象囊括了因種種歷史原因而遷徙或被逼遷徙至香港的族群，例如曾飽受國共內戰影響而逃至香港的內地難民、歷經並懼怕英國殖民統治的亞裔人士、以及為改善拮据生活而擇木而棲於香港的東南亞裔族群：以船艇和江海為家的蜑家、自建圍村高牆用以防衛自保的圍頭人、以及早至上世紀初已移居香港的潮州人、客家人、福建人和上海人；南亞裔則包括來自尼泊爾（大部分屬廓爾喀族的後裔）、印度、巴基斯坦和孟加拉等地的人士；東南亞族群包括在港積極拓展飲食業務的泰國人、大量投身家庭傭工行業的菲籍和印尼籍人士；以及飄洋過海為尋求貿易夥伴的流散非洲裔族群。

他們均被視為香港的言語少數族裔，原因除包括他們的身份是由自身的出生地或語言背景（包括除廣東話、英語和普通話外的語言）所決定，這些言語少數族裔亦同時佔了本港約5%人口。更關鍵的是，這些群體正面對像如何於香港這個環境下協商他們的語言選擇等壓力和挑戰。這個現象能夠體現在他們母語傳承的情況中，尤其現今越來越多生長於香港的年輕一輩已轉用以廣東話為主的溝通方式，他們大多數均已棄用上一代的語言，目的為求融入華人社會或期望被視作本地華人的一份子。在那些被歸類為「中國人」的社群，除了家庭和社區方面面對語言轉變的情況外，在教育上使用本地語言作教學語言並不被視為一個問題。相反，如南亞裔族群等其他群體，他們正面對的挑戰不止於家庭或自身社群的語言轉變，亦包括母語教學和中文教學間取捨的困難。語言轉變也可能導致弱勢社群的語言面臨瀕危滅絕的危機，例如傳統以船艇為家的蜑家族之蜑家話。另外，每當他們進行日常社交和溝通時，亦面對如何在這個言語多樣化、多語言、語言轉變和滅絕及言語全球化的環境底下將自身的母語定位於一些像廣東話、普通話和英語等強勢語言中的挑戰。

LinguisticMinorities.HK brings together information, resources and state-of-the-art research on the linguistic situations of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. These include the following communities, who moved or were moved from mainland China or other Asian countries as a result of historical events or periods such as China’s civil war, and British colonisation, as well as more contemporary economic migration: Chinese minorities like the traditional boat-dwellers known as Tanka, and the Weitou community in their New Territories walled villages, and other Chinese immigrant groups of the early 1900s like the Chiu Chau, Hakka, Hokkien, and Shanghainese; South Asians, including peoples from Nepal (many of whom are descendants of the Gurkhas from 1948), India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh; Southeast Asian groups, including the Thai community, many of whom are in the restaurant business, and the Filipino and Indonesian communities, of whom a large proportion comprise domestic workers; and newer immigrants of the African diaspora largely involved in trade. They are considered linguistic minorities in Hong Kong, not only because linguistic minority status[1] is granted to those people whose language background, determined by country of birth or home environment, includes languages other than Cantonese, English and Putonghua – and this group comprises some 5% of the Hong Kong population – but more crucially because, in one way or another, these communities face tensions or challenges as they negotiate their linguistic choices in the context of Hong Kong. This may manifest in the common phenomenon of language shift across generations, where the younger generations, born and/or raised in Hong Kong are Cantonese-dominant, and who no longer actively use the language of their grandparents and/or parents. In those communities considered and categorized as ‘Chinese’, apart from the language shift in families and communities, the issue of using Chinese in education is not viewed as a problem. In other communities, in contrast, such as in the South Asian communities, the challenge is not only the shift within the family and community, but also the use of Chinese/Cantonese vs mother-tongue education in schools. Language shift may also lead to language endangerment in the smaller communities, for instance for the Tanka language of the traditional boat-dwelling peoples. Or the challenge may simply be the everyday negotiations in their communicative practices involving their mother tongue(s) as positioned alongside other languages of global and local significance, such as Cantonese, Putonghua, and English, in a multilingual setting in the areas of linguistic diversity, multilingualism, language shift and endangerment, and language and globalization.