Simplifications to written Chinese in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, the Cantonese language is commonly used in daily life. Traditional Chinese characters have always been used as the de facto standard character set in Hong Kong since Imperial China era till the present day. This article discusses the simplifications performed on written Chinese that could be found in informal communications in Hong Kong. It should be noted that the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been ongoing for some time.

Background information

The Communist Government of the People's Republic of China has been promoting the use of simplified Chinese characters in mainland China since their inception in 1949, and adopted the character set as the standard writing system of PRC from 1956 onwards. Nevertheless, since Hong Kong was a British crown colony before 1997, and was granted high degree of autonomy after 1997, simplified Chinese character has never been officially recognised in Hong Kong. Traditional Chinese character has always been used as the de facto standard character set in Hong Kong since Imperial China era till the present day.

Like other written languages, informal written communication sometimes develops into its own method of writing such as shorthand. In Hong Kong, the proliferation of local restaurants (especially "cha chaan teng"s) has pushed a shorthand system used by waiters. English words or other symbols are sometimes used as substitutes for complex characters. Since the above practice is not officially regulated, the method of simplification varies from person to person, and may be incomprehensible to other Chinese readers.

Types of simplification

# The simplification can be done by replacing a complicated traditional Chinese character with another simpler traditional Chinese character that has a similar pronunciation in Cantonese Chinese.
# The simplification is often done by using English letters to make up a "word" that sounds like the Chinese word.
# The simplification can also be done by incorporating regulation simplified Chinese characters into text made up of traditional Chinese characters.

Examples of simplifications

Note: () sounds like (); the simplification to "0" is very common and can be seen on bottled drinks and receipts.

ee also

* Simplified Chinese character
* Bilingualism in Hong Kong