103-631: Futian Port ( Chinese : 福田口岸 ; pinyin : Fútián Kǒu'àn ) or the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line Control Point ( Chinese : 落馬洲支線管制站 ) is an immigration port of entry / border crossing on the border between mainland China and Hong Kong, located in the Futian District of Shenzhen in mainland China. It is in the same building as Futian Checkpoint station on Shenzhen Metro Line 4 , Line 10 and Huanggang Checkpoint station on Shenzhen Metro Line 7
206-469: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where
309-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and
412-510: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and
515-599: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese
618-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of
721-615: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of
824-714: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only
927-534: A dozen fishing villages. The northern-east part of the island, being known as the Central area is the historical, political, and economic centre of Hong Kong, with many government buildings being in the area, namely the Government House , Central Government Complex , Legislative Council Complex , Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal and High Court of Hong Kong . Many financial institutes and banks such as
1030-594: A link from Sheung Wan to Wan Chai North and the Eastern Corridor beyond Causeway Bay . It was built as part of the Central and Wan Chai Reclamation and is part of Route 4 . The bypass is toll-free. There are no bridges between the island and Kowloon, although two bridges – the Ap Lei Chau Bridge , a road bridge, and Aberdeen Channel Bridge , part of the South Island line – connect
1133-554: A loop linking Causeway Bay and Happy Valley ; the latter is a funicular linking Central District to Victoria Peak . Hong Kong Island has four ferry terminals, them being the Central Ferry Piers , North Point Ferry Pier , Sai Wan Ho Ferry Pier and Wan Chai Ferry Pier . Frequently ferry services are provided from these piers to the Kowloon Peninsula and the outlying islands. A departure terminal,
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#17327828586571236-576: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as
1339-542: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate
1442-508: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin
1545-631: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c. 1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct
1648-575: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than
1751-566: Is 24 hours. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing') is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of
1854-602: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which
1957-654: Is a short walk away. The port acts as the Hong Kong counterpart to the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line Control Point. On the Hong Kong side, it is connected to the Lok Ma Chau station in Lok Ma Chau , Hong Kong through a pedestrian footbridge. It has been in operation since 15 August 2007 and is the second border crossing along the border with a railway connection, after Luohu Port / Lo Wu Control Point . The Shenzhen subway at Futian Port
2060-427: Is an island in the southern part of Hong Kong . The island, known originally and on road signs simply as "Hong Kong", had a population of 1,289,500 and a population density of 16,390 per square kilometre (42,400/sq mi), as of 2023 . It is the second largest island in Hong Kong, with the largest being Lantau Island . Hong Kong Island forms one of the three areas of Hong Kong , with the other two being Kowloon and
2163-490: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,
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#17327828586572266-589: Is connected to the East Railway Station in Lok Ma Chau, Hong Kong by Futian-Lok Ma Chau Pedestrian Bridge. This is a double-deck bridge with a cable-stayed on the top, which is novel and unique worldwide. Its length is 211 metres (692 ft), the depth of the deeper side is 87 metres (285 ft), and the width is 16.5 metres (54 ft). The upper and the lower layers are both unidirectional, to ensure that passengers do not meet those crossing in
2369-478: Is heavily concentrated along the northern shore. The combined population of Central and Western, Wan Chai, and Eastern is 925,200, giving this urbanised part of the island a density of around 22,500 per km , or 58,000 per mi , in its approximately 41.3 km (15.9 sq mi). The residents living in the Central and Western District and Wan Chai District have the highest median household income compared with
2472-603: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of
2575-569: Is often referred to locally as "Hong Kong side" or "Island side". The suffix "-side" is also applied to other locations in Hong Kong (e.g. China-side and Kowloon Walled City -side), the sole remnant of which being the "Kowloon side" when referring to the two sides of the Victoria Harbour. Human settlement of the area dates back 6,000 years ago, as evidenced by Neolithic artifacts discovered in Stanley , Hong Kong Island. In 214 BC,
2678-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate
2781-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles
2884-489: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,
2987-402: Is the second-largest island of the territory, the largest being Lantau Island . Its area is 78.59 km (30.34 sq mi), including 6.98 km (2.69 sq mi) of land reclaimed since 1887 and some smaller scale ones since 1851. It makes up approximately 7% of the total territory. It is separated from the mainland of the territory ( Kowloon Peninsula and New Territories ) by
3090-501: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because
3193-500: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for
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3296-552: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it
3399-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while
3502-753: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system
3605-569: The Cape D'Aguilar Marine Reserve , is located on the southern tip of the island in Cape D'Aguilar . It was opened in July 1996 and has a sea area of approximately 20 hectares. The reserve was set up for the purpose of the conservation of marine resources, scientific studies and education for the appreciation of precious marine resources. Visits to the marine reserve by the public is discouraged, with water sports and costal recreational activities prohibited in
3708-736: The Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal is located in Sheung Wan to provide turbojet ferry services to Macau . A tourist sightseeing ferry service, branded as the "Water Taxi" is also offered. The ferry service travels in the Victoria Harbour to sightseeing attractions of Hong Kong, such as the Hong Kong Observation Wheel , International Financial Centre , Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade, West Kowloon Cultural District and Kai Tak Cruise Terminal . It has 4 drop off points. Public piers are also alongside
3811-703: The Hong Kong Stock Exchange , Hong Kong Monetary Authority , HSBC and Bank of China are also based in the area. The northern coast of the island forms the southern shore of the Victoria Harbour , which is largely responsible for the development of Hong Kong due to its deep waters favoured by large trade ships. The island is home to many famous tourists sights, such as " The Peak ", Ocean Park , Former Central Police Station Compound , Murray House , and many other historical sites and various large shopping centres. The mountain ranges across
3914-583: The Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Forces resisted the Japanese invasion commanded by Sakai Takashi , which began eight hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor . However, the Japanese took control of the Hong Kong skies on the first day of attack and outnumbered the defenders, which retreated from the Gin Drinkers Line and consequently from Kowloon under heavy aerial bombardment and artillery barrage. On 18 December,
4017-533: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in
4120-461: The Leisure and Cultural Services Department . Due to the early development of Hong Kong Island, many historical buildings can be found on Hong Kong Island. As of 2023, the population of Hong Kong Island is approximately 1,188,500, making up approximately 15.8% of the 7,536,100 in Hong Kong . Its population density is higher than the whole of Hong Kong , c. 18,000 per km . However, the population
4223-710: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with
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4326-595: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and
4429-696: The New Territories . In 1842, following the Qing dynasty 's defeat at the First Opium War (1839–1842), Hong Kong Island was formally ceded in perpetuity to the United Kingdom under the Treaty of Nanking . The City of Victoria was then established on the island by British forces in honour of Queen Victoria . At the time, the island had a population of about 3,000 inhabitants scattered in
4532-544: The New Territories . The Lok Ma Chau transport interchange is located to the east of Lok Ma Chau station and is connected with the station via footbridges. The entrance and exit between the station and the interchange are guarded by the police as the area is located within the Frontier Closed Area. The checkpoint has 2 road public transport services both to/from the West (MTR trains to the checkpoint run to/from
4635-651: The Qin dynasty defeated the Baiyue , and absorbed areas of what is now Guangdong , Guangxi , and northern Vietnam . Hong Kong Island was part of the annexed land and was listed under the jurisdiction of Panyu County ( 番禺縣 ) of the Nanhai Commandery ( 南海郡 ). On the sixth year of the Eastern Jin dynasty (AD 331), Hong Kong Island was listed under the jurisdiction of Baoan County ( 寶安縣) . Copper coins from
4738-559: The Sui , Tang and Song dynasty were unearthed in where the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club is presently located at, on where Kellett Island would have been prior to the land reclamation connecting the island to Causeway Bay in 1969. This suggests that during these periods of times, the island already had its own commercial activity. Song dynasty copper coins served as universal currency in transregional trade. During
4841-604: The Treaty of Nanking and the territory became a Crown colony . At the time, the island's population was only 7,450. The Second World War was a dark period for Hong Kong. In the 1930s, the British anticipated a Japanese attack on Hong Kong. As Wong Nai Chung Gap was a strategically important location of defence, large-scale defensive works were constructed there, including anti-aircraft batteries , howitzers and machine gun nests. The Battle of Hong Kong began on 8 December 1941. British , Canadian and Indian armies and
4944-632: The Tseung Kwan O line and road traffic in separate parallel conduits). Besides these harbour crossing tunnels, Hong Kong Island also has two tunnels travelling across the island itself, the Aberdeen Tunnel and Central–Wan Chai Bypass , which were opened in March 1982 and January 2019 respectively. The Aberdeen Tunnel provides a link from Happy Valley and Wong Chuk Hang , with the toll fee being HK$ 5. The Central–Wan Chai Bypass provides
5047-832: The Victoria Harbour . Most hills across the middle of the island are included within the country parks . The main hiking trail on Hong Kong Island is the Hong Kong Trail , which is 50 kilometers long and is divided into 8 sections. The trail starts in Victoria Gap on the peak and ends in Big Wave Bay . Sections 1 and 2 of the Wilson Trail across the New Territories of Hong Kong and Kowloon also passes through Tai Tam Country Park and its Quarry Bay Extension . The only marine reserve in Hong Kong,
5150-638: The Wanli period of the Ming dynasty (1573), Hong Kong Island belonged to the territory of Xin'an County , and remained so until 1661, when the great clearance was issued by the Shunzhi Emperor of the Qing dynasty , forcing residents in coastal areas of Guangdong , Fujian , Zhejiang , Jiangnan , and Shandong to move in-land, to prevent the loyalists of the Ming dynasty in Formosa from approaching
5253-478: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c. 1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded
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#17327828586575356-596: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at
5459-748: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Hong Kong Island Hong Kong Island ( Chinese : 香港島 ; Jyutping : Hoeng1 gong2 dou2 ; Cantonese Yale : Hēunggóng dóu )
5562-1135: The Allies. As a result, the unemployed were deported to the Mainland , and the population of Hong Kong had dwindled from 1.6 million in 1941 to 600,000 in 1945. The population of Hong Kong Island grew exponentially after the Second World War and the Communist revolution in China . It became apparent that the lands in the old Central District were insufficient to accommodate the population. Many undeveloped or underdeveloped areas Hong Kong Island such as North Point , Shau Kei Wan , Aberdeen and Wong Chuk Hang began its development and urbanisation. These areas initially started off as industrialised areas, with some areas such as Quarry Bay , Wan Chai and Causeway Bay later becoming new commercial centres when Hong Kong moved away from its period of industrialisation , as these areas provided relatively cheaper rent than
5665-719: The East). Those road services are: Both run to/from Yuen Long town centre from where other destinations in Western New Territories can be reached by road and rail. Among public transport destinations from Yuen Long is also bus 968 to Hong Kong Island via the Western Harbour Crossing . Bus B1 and green minibus 75 operate via San Tin PTI. San Tin PTI offers many more connections than Lok Ma Chau Spur Line Checkpoint. KMB bus routes 76K, 276B, B1, N73, A43P, R41, X43, 178R (R41, X43 and 178R available Events Only) and all serve San Tin Public Transport Interchange. 06:30 to 22:30 every day. Later pedestrian crossing can be made at Lo Wu Control Point , until 00:00 or Lok Ma Chau Control Point which
5768-405: The Hong Kong island to Ap Lei Chau . The Ap Lei Chau Bridge is a combination of two bridges, built separately in 1980 and 1994. It was built to accommodate the growing population in Ap Lei Chau, which the residents could only access the island by boats prior to the construction of the bridge. The Central-Mid Levels escalator and walkway system is the longest outdoor covered escalator system in
5871-427: The Japanese had conquered North Point , reaching the Wong Nai Chung Gap on the following day. English, Scottish forces and the Canadian Winnipeg Grenadiers vigorously defended the crucial point of Wong Nai Chung Gap, and for a while successfully secured the passage between Central and the secluded southern parts of the island. Japanese casualties were about 600. However, Allied forces there were ultimately defeated by
5974-420: The Japanese on 23 December, and Wong Nai Chung Reservoir was lost. As Wan Chai Gap had also fallen that same day, the British had no choice but to surrender. Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese on 25 December 1941, thereafter often called " Black Christmas " by locals as the surrender was on Christmas. The Governor of Hong Kong , Mark Young , surrendered in-person at the temporary Japanese headquarters, on
6077-490: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though
6180-489: The Lok Ma Chau Spur Line Control Point is often referred to as a railway crossing, it is in fact a pedestrian crossing, unlike the Lo Wu Control Point, where no bus or any other public transport can reach. Furthermore, there is no through-train service, as the railway line is not connected with the railways in mainland China. And although the bulk of the users are train passengers, the Lok Ma Chau pedestrian crossing can also be reached by bus, taxi and mini bus from various parts of
6283-484: The South Island line connecting four stations on Ap Lei Chau and in Wong Chuk Hang to the north shore at Admiralty station . Five MTR lines – the Tsuen Wan line , the Tseung Kwan O line , the Tung Chung line , the Airport Express – connect the north shore with Kowloon and provide onward service to the New Territories , and the East Rail line which provides another cross-harbour connection upon its extension from Hung Hom station to Admiralty station. In future,
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#17327828586576386-489: The Southern District. Major roads on Hong Kong Island include Connaught Road , Des Voeux Road , King's Road , Queen's Road . Hong Kong Island is connected to the Kowloon Peninsula on the mainland by two road-only tunnels (the Cross-Harbour Tunnel and the Western Harbour Crossing ), three MTR railway tunnels ( East Rail line , Tsuen Wan line and Tung Chung line / Airport Express ) and one combined road and MTR rail link tunnel ( Eastern Harbour Crossing , containing
6489-407: The Victoria Harbour, such as the famous now-demolished Queen's Pier in Central and now-relocated Blake Pier in Stanley, which mainly provides passenger pick-up and drop-off services for small barges, yachts and sightseeing boats. Public piers are located mainly along the Victoria Harbour mainly in Causeway Bay, Central, Shau Kei Wan, Wan Chai, and also in Aberdeen, Ap Lei Chau and Stanley, places in
6592-479: The area. It is managed by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department . Many public beaches are also located in the Southern District of Hong Kong Island, which being the Deep Water Bay , Repulse Bay , Middle Bay , South Bay , Chung Hom Kok Beach , St. Stephen's Beach , Stanley Main Beach , Hair Pin Beach , Turtle Cove Beach , Shek O , and Big Wave Bay . These are all popular locations for water sports and activities. Public beaches are managed by
6695-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which
6798-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of
6901-464: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by
7004-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable
7107-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has
7210-419: The global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family . Investigation of
7313-435: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although
7416-517: The historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with
7519-404: The island are also famous for hiking . The northern part of Hong Kong Island, together with Kowloon and Tsuen Wan New Town , forms the core urban area of Hong Kong. Their combined area is approximately 88.3 square kilometres (34.1 square miles) and their combined population is approximately 3,156,500, reflecting a population density of 35,700 people/km (92,000 people/sq mi). The island
7622-586: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into
7725-528: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses
7828-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including
7931-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with
8034-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in
8137-406: The opposite direction. Also, there is an immigration control point at both sides of the bridge. There are separate passages for the blind on the bridge. On the east of the bridge is the united checking building and on its west is the united checking building of Lok Ma Chau, Hong Kong. Because of the subway and the united checking building, and the subway and the ground transportation together carrying
8240-634: The other districts in Hong Kong. Affluent districts on Hong Kong Island are The Peak , Western Mid-Levels ( Conduit Road / Robinson Road / Magazine Gap Road / Kotewall Road etc.), Eastern Mid-Levels ( Happy Valley / Tai Hang / Jardine's Lookout ), Tai Tam , Deep Water Bay and Repulse Bay . As of 2021, 85% of Hong Kong Island's residents are of Chinese descent. The largest ethnic minority groups are Filipinos (5.6%), Indonesians (2.6%), and White people (2.5%) As of 2021, 80.4% of Hong Kong Island's residents use Cantonese as their usual language, while 10.6% use English and 3.3% use Mandarin . 2.8% of
8343-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of
8446-513: The passengers entering and exiting, it will become a three-dimensional transportation thoroughfare between underground and ground. Squares, lawns and roads will be built around the stations and united checking building, according to regional planning. Once completed, the daily passenger capacity will be 190,000. Passengers from Hong Kong and Macau will spend only 15 seconds entering. Public transit access MTR East Rail line : Lok Ma Chau station The control point
8549-654: The planned North Island line infrastructure project would extend both the Tung Chung line and the Tseung Kwan O line to connect them to each other, forming a route parallel to the middle section of the Island line. Two other rail systems, Hong Kong Tramways and the Peak Tram , also run exclusively on Hong Kong Island. The former runs mostly parallel to the Island line between Kennedy Town and Shau Kei Wan , with
8652-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,
8755-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for
8858-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without
8961-458: The residents use Chinese dialects other than Cantonese and Mandarin as their usual language and 2.9% use languages not listed above as their usual language. Seven of the MTR rapid transit system's ten lines service Hong Kong Island. The Island line and South Island line run exclusively on the four districts of Hong Kong Island, with the Island line serving the north shore at 17 stations, and
9064-495: The shores of the Mainland and seek help from residents of the coastal areas. The ban was lifted when the remnants of the Ming dynasty were exterminated in 1669, though not many original residents of Hong Kong Island returned to the area. Piracy was rampant in the area until the island was ceded to the United Kingdom in 1842. Following the First Opium War (1839–1842), Hong Kong Island was ceded to Great Britain in 1842 under
9167-517: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by
9270-511: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language
9373-507: The station building on both ends of the bridge. Electricity to the Hong Kong half of the bridge is provided by CLP Power, and Hong Kong's jurisdiction and law enforcement on the bridge also terminate at the midpoint, as on the Lo Wu Bridge . The control point is open between 06:30 and 22:30, unlike the 24-hour vehicle Lok Ma Chau Control Point nearby. Later pedestrian crossing can be made at Lo Wu Control Point , until 00:00. Although
9476-530: The third floor of the Peninsula Hotel , thus beginning the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong . Isogai Rensuke became the first Japanese governor of Hong Kong. Hyper-inflation and food rationing followed; and the Japanese declared Hong Kong Dollars illegal. The Japanese enforced a repatriation policy throughout the period of occupation due to the scarcity of food and the possible counter-attack of
9579-623: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to
9682-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in
9785-604: The traditional commercial district of Central. On 1 July 1997, the sovereignty of Hong Kong Island was transferred to the People's Republic of China alongside Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories , ending 156 years of British rule on Hong Kong Island. Despite Hong Kong Island being an island, it is not part of the Islands District . Four districts of Hong Kong are located on the island: Since 2021, Hong Kong Island West and Hong Kong Island East have been
9888-669: The two Legislative Council geographical constituencies in Hong Kong Island. Between 1997 and 2021, Hong Kong Island was one geographical constituency of itself . Between 1995 and 1997 however, Hong Kong Island consisted of four geographical constituencies, with them being Hong Kong Island Central , Hong Kong Island East , Hong Kong Island South and Hong Kong Island West . In the previous council from 1991 to 1995 , Hong Kong Island consisted of two geographical constituencies, Hong Kong Island West and Hong Kong Island East , similar to current arrangements. Hong Kong Island
9991-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese
10094-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until
10197-513: The world. It was opened in 1993 with the initiative of providing relief to traffic in the Mid-Levels . It travels from Queen's Road Central to Conduit Road , with the total horizontal distance being over 800 m (2,600 ft) and total vertical distance being over 135 m (443 ft). It consists of covered walkways, 16 reversible one-way escalators and 3 reversible one-way travelators. Restaurants, bars and shops can be found alongside
10300-517: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with
10403-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,
10506-485: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half
10609-682: Was opened on 15 August 2007 together with the opening of the KCR Lok Ma Chau Spur Line between Lok Ma Chau and Sheung Shui station . The crossing consists of a cable-stay double-deck pedestrian bridge across the Sham Chun River , which forms the border between Hong Kong and the rest of the PRC. The lower deck handles pedestrians heading from Hong Kong to Futian Port, while the upper deck handles those coming from Futian Port to Hong Kong. Immigration facilities are located within
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