Being a local in Hong Kong, I am always fascinated by the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the city but I have never thought about interviewing a Chiu Chownese family with three generations in San Po Kong.
I am very impressed by the intimate bonding between the family members. Not only does Chiu Chownese serve as a means of communication, but also a bridge between generations in the family. It is a pity that Cantonese appears to replace Chiu Chownese in the family, yet the story of the Wu family has shown me how important and influential parents can be in transmitting a language to the next generation.
Prior to the interview, I felt that the government alone is very much responsible for preserving a language. However, the Wu family has made me see things from another perspective. Although we cannot change the languages in the external environment such as the workplace, we can decide the languages in our home environment. While society can hardly allocate resources to every minority language, we can construct a home environment in where chances to learn and practice a language are provided to children. Intergenerational transmission is crucial to the sustainability of a language, particularly those spoken language varieties such as Chiu Chownese. How parents or elder generations treat and pass on a language does affect the fate of a language.
Perhaps language maintenance should start with ourselves.
