Some 55 per cent do not expect Putonghua to take the place of Cantonese and become the most commonly spoken language in city within the next 20 years
SHIRLEY.ZHAO@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Wednesday, 04 May, 2016, 9:19am
Primary One pupils in a Putonghua class at Hon Wah College, Siu Sai Wan. Photo: SCMP Pictures
Hongkongers are divided on the use of China’s official spoken and written languages, with a survey finding that half did not support the teaching of simplified characters in the city’s primary and secondary schools.
Only 41 per cent of the 700 respondents were in favour of teaching the simplified characters used on mainland China, according to Chinese University’s Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, which conducted the telephone survey of people aged 18 and above from April 19 to 22.
It also found that while 84.6 per cent of respondents agreed with teaching Putonghua as a subject – against 10.4 per cent who disagreed – only 51.5 per cent supported the use of Putonghua alone to teach Chinese, against 37.6 per cent opposed to the idea.
About 32 per cent said they felt resistance to using simplified characters, 10 per cent were happy to do so, and 56 per cent said they were indifferent.
About 14.4 per cent resisted using Putonghua, while 14.3 per cent said they were happy to use it.
Some 55 per cent did not expect Putonghua to take the place of Cantonese and become the most commonly spoken language in Hong Kong within the next 20 years, while 6.6 per cent said it would happen.
And 61 per cent of respondents did not think simplified characters would become the city’s main written language in 20 years’ time, with about six per cent predicting the opposite.
In terms of usefulness of the languages, 36.4 per cent did not find simplified Chinese characters useful at all, while a similar proportion felt they were somewhat useful. About 26 per cent found the system quite useful or very useful.
Some 14.5 per cent said Putonghua was not useful at all, while 84 per cent saw different levels of usefulness.
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1940996/language-barrier-half-hongkongers-against-citys
