Why you should stop sharing these infographics about Cantonese history and obscure characters
Cantonese is the very core of Hongkongers’ cultural identity and it is just natural for Hongkongers to feel pride in their mother tongue. Despite the unwavering sense of belonging to the language, the public seems to lack meta-linguistic and historical knowledge about the language, as reflected in the low coverage of any romanization system by native speakers. The school curriculum is definitely to be blamed for its heavy bias towards written or classical language, and probably even teachers do not know enough to discuss Cantonese linguistics or history with their students. The combination of strong pride and lack of knowledge results in a dangerous level of inaccuracies in the public discourse, amplifying stereotypes that label Cantonese as an old and unlearnable language.
These two recurring themes are often beautified, and glorified, and sadly, explained with incorrect descriptions about the language’s history and orthography. Unaware speakers may feel that they are sharing the cultural pride and happily share unverified information, without knowing how these misinformation is already damaging the vitality of the language.
