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Lisa Lim

What is your mother language? Do you speak it on a regular basis?
Mother tongue or mother language usually refers to the language first acquired by a person from birth – their native language.
While it is a straightforward concept for those from monolingual backgrounds, it is more complex for the majority of the world’s population who exist in multilingual environments. Some grow up with two, three, or even half a dozen language varieties spoken or signed around them.
Yet state policies mean that a few languages are officially sanctioned and supported while others, many of which are mother languages of a proportion of the population, are not.
Many minority-language communities thus shift from their heritage or community language, their mother tongue, to the dominant language(s) where they live or to a language more widely used, such as English, for reasons of assimilation and opportunity.
Ironically, early schooling in one’s mother language has been shown to enhance comprehension, engagement, and critical thinking – but 40 per cent of learners lack this opportunity.

In extreme situations, languages become endangered; 50 to 90 per cent of the more than 7,000 languages spoken globally at present are predicted to become extinct within the next half-century.
With language loss comes the loss of intangible cultural heritage, including rituals, oral traditions, performing arts, traditional ecological knowledge, and alternative systems.
The value of linguistic diversity and multilingualism has been long recognised by the United Nations, which in 1999 established International Mother Language Day (IMLD), observed on 21 February.
The date is significant: it commemorates the day in 1952 when university students in Dhaka, demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bangla, as one of the two national languages of what was then East Pakistan, were shot dead by police.
IMLD aims to affirm the importance of linguistic diversity and multilingualism in fostering dignity, peace, and understanding. In line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, IMLD underscores the urgency of accelerating progress on linguistic diversity to build a more inclusive and sustainable world by 2030.

Hong Kong may appear to an outsider to be largely homogeneous and monolingual, but it is home to many minority language communities: a recent public policy report, by the University of Hong Kong’s John Bacon-Shone and colleagues, enumerates 36 mother tongues among their respondents.
These communities’ everyday existence involves a negotiation between their mother languages and more dominant languages. Given Hong Kong’s “trilingual and biliterate” language policy (TaB, 三語兩文) – promoting reading in English and Chinese and speaking English, Cantonese and Mandarin – Chinese dialects such as Chiuchow, Hakka, and Weitou are no longer transmitted as mother tongue to the younger generations, while ethnic minority students with home languages such as Urdu, Nepali and Filipino face learning challenges in their Chinese-language-based classrooms.
Scholarly work on Hong Kong’s linguistic diversity has included documenting minority communities’ languages, and, crucially, making such material easily accessible and appealing to a wider audience in digital format – a significant contribution to language maintenance and revitalisation.
Examples include early work on Hong Kong’s linguistic minorities in the University of Hong Kong’s Language and Communication programme (by your columnist and her students), and Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Telling Stories: Linguistic Diversity in Hong Kong database, led by Jette Hanson Edwards.
Champions for specific indigenous language varieties include the Association for Conservation of Hong Kong Indigenous Languages,, which, among other achievements, successfully campaigned in 2014 for the inclusion of Weitou and Hakka in Hong Kong’s first list of intangible cultural heritage.
More recently, Education University Hong Kong’s Lau Chaak-ming compiled a collection of stories in Hakka and Waitau of cultural practices, related by speakers of these language varieties accompanied by visuals.
In the days and weeks ahead, take a moment to peruse these resources or tell some stories of your own, in your own language – because support for languages goes beyond just the one day.


How Mid-Autumn Festival lanterns are traditionally made and an artisan defending the craft

How a Hong Kong-style milk tea shop in Tokyo has customers queuing out the door

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A guide to Hong Kong’s bitter herbal teas and how Gen Z is reviving the health tradition

Chinese culture

Why minority languages matter for learning and culture, yet many are at risk of dying out

Ethnic-minority children in Hong Hong receive Chinese-language tuition. Dozens of mother tongues are spoken in the city, but the government promotes literacy in Chinese and English. Photo: Cindy Sui

More than 7,000 languages are spoken globally. Illustration: Shutterstock

Between half and nine-tenths of the world’s languages are expected to die out this century, despite evidence that learning in a mother tongue improves educational outcomes. Photo: Shutterstock

How ‘snake’ entered the English language and what Singaporeans mean by ‘eat snake’

The root words of the English snake and serpent mean “a creeping thing”, and most sayings that incorporate snake have a negative meaning, including the Singapore English “eat snake”. Photo: Shutterstock

The Slytherin logo is seen on cups in the store of a touring Harry exhibition in Barcelona, Spain. Photo: Getty Images

A 16th century Flemish engraving depicts men setting fire to undergrowth in which snakes are trapped. Photo: Getty Images

A banded krait, a snake native to Hong Kong. The name krait is borrowed from Hindi. Photo: Shutterstock

Why Hong Kong’s fire dragon dances, part of Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations, are so vital

Members of the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance team spin balls of joss sticks as the “dragon” winds through Tai Hang on September 29, 2023. Photo: AFP

Members of the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance team spin balls of joss sticks as the “dragon” winds through Tai Hang, Hong Kong, during Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations on September 29, 2023. Such events are vital in preserving the city’s intangible cultural heritage, including its language traditions. Photo: AFP

Crowds watch the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance on September 28, 2023. Photo: Sam Tsang

The Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance has its origins in the 1880 plague in Tai Hang. Photo: Sam Tsang

The wonderful history of the word ‘tariff’ before Trump makes us all sick of hearing it

Then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump touts a plan to revive the US auto industry through aggressive tariffs on foreign imports and other measures during a speech to the Detroit Economic Club On October 10, 2024. Photo: TNS

Visitors look at an electric vehicle made by Chinese carmaker BYD at the Paris Motor Show on October 15, 2024. There is already a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese electric vehicle imports to the US. Photo: AFP

From Seven Swords to Sword Master, how Chinese wuxia films got an update in 21st century

Lin Gengxin as Third Master in a still from Sword Master. Photo: Bona Film Group

Donnie Yen in a still from Seven Swords, Tsui Hark’s 2005 sword-fighting epic and one of three notable wuxia films shot this century. Photo: Handout

Martial arts master Lau Kar-leung (front) in a still from Seven Swords. Photo: Handout

Charlie Young in a still from Seven Swords. Photo: Handout

Chang Chen in a still from Brotherhood of Blades. 

Wang Qianyuan in a still from Brotherhood of Blades. 

Peter Ho in a still from Sword Master.

Lifestyle

Arts

Culture

Most people grow up hearing two or more languages spoken around them, yet many abandon their mother tongues for languages used more widely


Most people grow up hearing two or more languages spoken around them, yet many abandon their mother tongues for languages used more widely.


Ethnic minorities in Hong Kong

Language Matters

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

Why minority languages matter for learning and culture, yet many are at risk of dying out

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Most people grow up hearing two or more languages spoken around them, yet many abandon their mother tongues for languages used more widely

Most people grow up hearing two or more languages spoken around them, yet many abandon their mother tongues for languages used more widely