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Hong Kong English is the variety of English used in Hong Kong, ranging from forms close to British, U.S., and Australian usage to those influenced by and mixed with Cantonese, the language of some 98 percent of the population. In Hong Kong English pronunciation "r" is not pronounced in such words as art, door, and worker. It generally shares features with English as used in mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore: e.g. glottal stops replacing the /p, t, k/ consonants at the ends of such words as map, pat, and tack. In grammar, there is a tendency to use the present tense when describing events in the past and future ("When I see him in school yesterday" and "Tomorrow I ask him about it").
Hong Kong English has three sources of distinctive vocabulary. The first is represented by items taken directly from Chinese (especially Cantonese), e.g. gweilo (ghost man/person) for "a European" and feng shui (wind-water) denoting a system of laws that govern spatial relationships with respect to the flow of energy, used in situating buildings advantageously. The second vocabulary source is represented by items that translate Chinese words and phrases, such as dragon boat, a long decorated boat configured as a dragon, used in racing at festivals, and snakehead, a smuggler of illegal immigrants from mainland China. A third vocabulary source is represented by items common to former British colonies, especially in Asia, e.g. expat (English), short for "expatriate," godown (probably from Tamil), "warehouse," and shroff (from Arabic through Indian languages), "cashier."
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