Cantonese more than a dialect of Chinese Proponents of Putonghua as a teaching medium claim to have a wider view of the needs of Hong Kong, but Cheung Siu-ming argues that a strong mother tongue foundation is the basis for further learning.

(From South China Morning Post)

EDUCATORS GLOBALLY recognise the development of children's mother tongue as the vital dimension in their early learning; the strength of a child's mother tongue has a huge influence on their ability to learn additional languages.

No school or government policy is ever going to change the fact that Cantonese is the mother tongue of the vast majority of Hong Kong children.

Our problems begin when people forget or deny that Cantonese is a language; it is not a dialect of a language called Chinese. Two speakers of different dialects of the same language can understand most of what the other is saying without further learning.

However, speakers …