Date: 25-Oct-2009 From: Ulrich Lueders <lincom.europat-online.de> Subject: The Decline of the General Hakka Accent in Hong Kong: Lau E-mail this message to a friend
Title: The Decline of the General Hakka Accent in Hong Kong
Subtitle: A Comparison of "Old-Style" and "New-Style" as spoken by the indigenous
inhabitants of Hong Kong
Series Title: LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 40
Published: 2009
Publisher: Lincom GmbH
http://www.lincom.eu
Author: Chunfat Lau
Paperback: ISBN: 3895866776 Pages: 272 Price: Europe EURO 89.60
Abstract:
This thesis is a field work collection of the existing variety of Hakka dialect spoken by the indigenous population of Hong Kong and a comparison of the Old- and New-Style. The comparison enables us to see how the Cantonese dialect has affected its phonology, vocabulary and grammar. Hakka was widely spoken in the rural area of Hong Kong before the city developed into a metropolis after the seventies. In the last 50 years, Hong Kong emerged as a metropolis with Cantonese dominating the school, the media and later also the Government. Hakka is now restricted to remote settlements, old people and only in the family or village domain. Therefore, this is the last minute to catch a picture of the vanishing Hakka dialect in Hong Kong.
The author's analysis shows that Hakka as spoken in Hong Kong is strongly affected by Cantonese, and almost every Hakka speaker is subject to with different degree of Cantonese influence. This is an interesting picture of a vanishing dialect, so far unreported, not at least with such a breadth and depth. It serves as a record of how a weaker language confronting a stronger language dies out in a matter of two generations.
2nd printing 2009.
Linguistic Field(s):
General Linguistics
Sociolinguistics
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