Journal of Advances in Linguistics Vol 11 (2020) ISSN: 2348-3024 https://rajpub.com/index.php/jal 47 https://doi.org/10.24297/jal.v11i.8691 Multilingualism in Hong Kong’s formal and informal settings: A brief historical review of the development from the early 1900s to the late 2010s Bernie Chun Nam MAK, PhD School of Continuing Education, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China bcnmak@staff.hkbu.edu.hk Abstract This article aims at tracing back the making of multilingualism in Hong Kong from a socio-historical viewpoint. It primarily illustrates the linguistic profiles of Cantonese, English, and Putonghua in official domains throughout the colonial period and after the 1997 handover, secondarily describing their roles in Hongkongers ’ daily life. The situation of other minor languages is mentioned in passing. The snapshots reveal that a) Cantonese has developed to be a powerless lingua franca of Hongkongers, b) English has become a powerful second language with high economic value that hugely outweighs Cantonese, and that c) Putonghua has been similar to a foreign language despite its official status on the mainland. Other heritage languages of ethnic minorities have existed since the early colonial period, but they have never entered the mainstream or vastly impacted the three dominating languages. The discussion concludes that Hong Kong has yet to be a typical multilingual metropolis where citizens are fluent or native in multiple languages. It is still fluctuating in between monolingualism and multilingualism, however, showing an inclination to the latter. Keywords: Hong Kong, linguistic situation, multilingualism, language planning, language attitude 1. Introduction While academics and commentators have seldom reached a consensus on Hong Kong students ’ language standards, few people will disagree that nowadays, the three languages of the city are Cantonese, English, and Putonghua. This linguistic situation, together with the occasional mix with other languages, has made Hong Kong a potential multilingual society where various languages play their roles in different contexts. Academic discourses about Hong Kong multilingualism have concentrated on the educational and interactional sociolinguistic aspects. Although multilingualism does not just concern people’s linguistic competence (Grosjean 2010; cf. Bloomfield 1933), studies on Hong Kong multilingualism have been tied up with education, especially the medium of instruction (MoI) (e.g., Lin & Man 2009). As multilingualism presupposes the use of mixed code (Pennington 1998), there has also been a considerable amount of research on Hongkongers’ code-switching (e.g., Chen 2008). The importance of multilingualism in the city has been magnified beyond its actual interplay with broader historical reality and the development of Hongkongers’ lifeworlds. This paper aims at giving a longitudinal, illustrative account of Hong Kong multilingualism from a socio-historical perspective. It primarily focuses on the development of the three languages in formal aspects, secondarily on their whereabouts in daily life. The sources to be used are mainly from historical reality and authoritative monographs, including credible scholarly publications and official reports from the Hong Kong government. While it mentions education in passing, the body draws attention to various levels of social events and collective lifestyles in Hong Kong, arguing that the city is leaving monolingualism but has yet to achieve multilingualism. Since the history of diglossia (or triglossia) in Hong Kong spans more than a century, the discussions below are selective.