Macau’s mother tongue now has a strong competitor: Mandarin is becoming widely spoken in the streets and is being used as medium of instruction in some classrooms. There are some who fear that Cantonese might be a dying language.
“If the government does not protect the language, it will progressively disappear,” said Stephen Matthews, professor of linguistics at the University of Hong Kong and expert on the development of Cantonese.
“Macau and Hong Kong were predominantly dominated by Cantonese. This started to change in the past 10 to 15 years. Before, we hardly heard Mandarin; it was a minority language. Now it’s not like that at all,” he said.
In the streets, shops and schools, Cantonese had always been the main language. After Macau’s handover to China in 1999, the city developed a closer relationship with the mainland, and as Macau’s tourist arrivals and economy surged, a new language emerged.
According to the 2011 census, 83.3 percent of Macau’s population regards Cantonese as their everyday language, but linguists and professors say that this is changing. “The community is progressively changing from one language to the other,” said Matthews.
The researcher claimed that Mandarin is now more present in Macau than in Hong Kong because of the influx of tourists. In 2014, Macau received 31.5 million visitors, with a vast majority from mainland China.
“I think Mandarin will rapidly become the lingua franca in shops and taxis. That will happen in Hong Kong, but first it will happen in Macau,” he added.
The professor recalled that linguistic change takes an average of three generations to be completed, and that Macau’s youth is halfway through that process.
“It’s a gradual and insidious process. Cantonese will become a language [that is] only spoken at home; that is one step in the process. People might not realize that Mandarin is taking over the city because this is a subtle change,” he acknowledged.
Matthews explained that one of the reasons behind this language migration lies in schools, which are now focusing on Mandarin. Mathematics teacher Jack Ng shared a similar opinion: “More and more schools are using Mandarin as a medium of instruction, not only for Chinese, but also in other subjects. There are many teachers who come from China and only speak Mandarin.” He stated, “There’s an atmosphere implying that Mandarin should enjoy a higher status.”
However, he also noted, “Officially, nothing tells us that [Mandarin] should be the medium of instruction to teach Chinese, but I think it will be seen as the norm,” he stressed.
Data provided by the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) shows that 77 out of 120 schools in Macau teach Mandarin – eight of which use it as the medium of instruction, either partially or totally.
Linguist Brian Chan, from the University of Macau, acknowledged that Mandarin has become a more common language here, but remains optimistic that Cantonese will prevail due to its cultural strength. “People value Cantonese very much. I have been asking my students, and they say that they love the Cantonese [language] and want to preserve it. Without the language, they think their sense of identity fades away.”
Chan acknowledged that the neighboring SAR seems more preoccupied with the possibility of Cantonese disappearing than Macau is. “In Hong Kong, people fear that they’ll lose their language to Mandarin. In Macau, people do not express [their opinions on that matter] that much,” he recognized.
For now, Chan does not find an obvious indicator that Cantonese is indeed disappearing. “But who knows what will happen in the future? It might happen all of a sudden,” he said. MDT/Lusa
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