Hong Kong Cantonese

Hong Kong Cantonese is a dialect of the Cantonese language (廣東話，粵語), which is in the Sino-Tibetan language family. Cantonese is lingua franca of populations living in the Guangdong Province of mainland China, in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, as well as in many overseas Chinese communities. Hong Kong Cantonese shares a recent and direct lineage with the Guangzhou (Canton) dialect of Cantonese (廣州話); decades of separation have led to some deviations between Hong Kong Cantonese and Guangzhou Cantonese in terms of vocabulary and other noticeable speech habits, although Hong Kong officially maintains the Guangzhou dialect and pronunciations as the official language standard. Hongkongers refer to the language as "Cantonese" (廣東話).

Over the years, Hong Kong Cantonese has also absorbed foreign terminology and developed a large set of Hong Kong-specific terms. Code-switching with English is also common. These are the result of being both a British colony and a British Dependent Territory between 1841 and 1997, as well as the closure of the Hong Kong–mainland China border immediately after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949.