Shenzhen - Languages

Languages

Prior to the establishment of Special Economic Zone, the indigenous local communities could be divided into Cantonese and Hakka, which were two cultural and linguistic sub-ethnic groups vernacular to Guangdong province. In particular, the Cantonese variety spoken locally was called Weitou dialect, whereas now the younger generations of the Cantonese communities are being assimilated into the more prestigious variety, known as standard Cantonese, probably because of the influence of Hong Kong's broadcasting. Today, the original inhabitants of indigenous Cantonese and Hakka communities are dispersing into more recently built urban settlements (e.g. apartments and villas), but a large proportion of them are still clustering in their traditional urban and suburban villages.

Since 1980s, the unprecedented influx of immigrants drastically altered the linguistic landscape, in which Shenzhen as a whole has undergone a language shift towards Mandarin, which was both promoted by China's Central Government as a national lingua franca and natively spoken by most of the out-of-province immigrants and their descendants. Since then, the Cantonese and Hakka indigenous populations were diluted into trivial proportions. Despite the ubiquity of Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Hakka and Teochew are still spoken among people of in-province ancestries in private occasions to a lesser extent than Mandarin. Hokkien and Hunanese are also sometimes observed.

Generally speaking, in most circumstances, people who are monolingual in either Cantonese, Hakka or Teochew are senior citizens of in-province ancestries; people who are bilingual in both Cantonese and Mandarin are the middle-aged and youngsters of Cantonese ancestry; people who are trilingual in Cantonese, Mandarin and either Hakka or Teochew are of either Hakka ancestry or Teochew ancestry; and people who are monolingual in Mandarin only are those of out-of-province ancestry.

Mandarin native speakers, whose majority is out-of-province immigrants and their descendants are found unwilling to learn any of Cantonese, Hakka or Teochew, probably due to Mandarin's dominance, advantages, administrative legitimacy, educational priority, societal bias and official statuses at national, provincial and municipal levels, as well as those languages' inherent complexities and difficulties.