Education Bureau Claims Cantonese is not an Official Language

(Credits: Yahoo! Hong Kong)

On January 24, an article was posted on the Learning Support section of Education Bureau’s website, stating that "Cantonese is not an official language", sparking public outcry. The article was aimed to promote multilingualism as China continues to rapidly grow and the daily use of Mandarin in Hong Kong becomes increasingly common. 

The article stated: “Even though the Basic Law provides that Chinese and English are the two official languages of Hong Kong, nearly 97% of the population learn Cantonese (a Chinese dialect that is not an official language) as their commonly used daily language.

Lawmaker Ip Kin-Yuen of the educator sector said it was not the place of the Education Bureau to define what language is official. Assistant Chinese Professor at Lingnan University, Horace Chin Wan-Kan, also noted that the bureau has fuelled PRC-Hong Kong tensions.

Online, the reaction was more extreme, with some users blasting the government for creating a second “national education” saga. There is also a facebook group that urged the public to ask the bureau to admit their blunder and issue an apology.

Eric Cheung Tat-ming, principal law lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, said the law referring to official languages only applied to the written word. Cheung noted that there has never been an attempt to define what official languages mean in the oral context, and that Cantonese is the preferred spoken language in official circumstances on the basis of commonality. He adds that there is no legal justification to say Cantonese was not an official language therefore had no legal justification.

The bureau has since posted an update, stating it had made an inaccurate interpretation and apologized for any misunderstanding. The controversial article has also been removed from the Learning Support webpage.