Hong Kong written Chinese (HKWC) is a local variety of

Standard Chinese Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern Standar ...

used in formal written communication in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. While, like other varieties of Standard Chinese, it is largely based on

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

it differs from the mainland's national variety of Standard Chinese (Putonghua) in several aspects, for example that it is written in

traditional characters Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese characters, Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the libian, clerical change and mostly remained in the ...

, that its phonology is based on

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...

, and that its

lexicon A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Koine Greek language, Greek word (), neuter of () ...

has

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and Cantonese influences.

Lexicon

Lexical differences between HWKC, Putonghua, and Guoyu

Some lexical differences between the varieties of Standard Chinese in the mainland (Putonghua), Hong Kong, and Taiwan (Guoyu):

Semantic differences

Some etymologies appear both in HWKC and Putonghua, but may differ in their semantic value:

Notes

# In Singaporean Standard Chinese, 㤏 / 懂 ''dǒng'' also has the meaning of ''to know''.

References

{{Authority control Languages of Hong Kong Mandarin Chinese Chinese language Cantonese culture