data collection index (data | graphs | tables) project index quality assessment

English or languish - Probing the ramifications
of Hong Kong's language policy

Quality Assessment
The Opportunity Cost of English Language Education

Greenberg's Diversity Index

The probability that any two randomly selected citizens
of the same population will have different mother tongues

Table 27a
graph 27 | graph 74a | graph 75a | table 27b | table 27c | table 29 | data collection index (tables)

Table 27a The Greenberg's Diversity Index
Country Diversity
index1 (DI)		 Calculation2
 
China 0.48

DI = 1 - Σ(Pi)2

where
i = 1 to n,
n = the number of languages, and
Pi = the percent fraction of the total population which comprises the ith language group

England and Wales (UK) 0.07
France 0.24
Germany 0.18
Hong Kong3 0.20
Japan 0.03
Korea (South) 0.00
Singapore 0.74
United States 0.35
Source1: Ethnologue.com. Any entry under a particular country.
Source2: Greenberg, Joseph H. 1956. The measurement of linguistic diversity. Language, vol. 32, 1, March.
Note: 3: The diversity index was based on 2001 Hong Kong census data found in table 27b below. The categories Other Chinese and Other were treated as a single language. As the Greenberg index measures the likelihood that any two people who meet in Hong Kong will have different mother tongues, a large number of speakers of a particular language reduces the size of the index. On the other hand, if only a small portion of the entire population speaks a particular language, it will have little effect on the size of the index. Thus, the diversity index estimated using the 2001 census data would be only slightly higer if the categories Other Chinese and Other were more clearly understood.

Table 27b
graph 27 | graph 52a | graph 53 | graph 54 | table 27a | table 27c | table 29 | data collection index (tables)

Table 27b The usual languages of Hong Kong
Usual language 1991 1996 2001
Chinese Actual number Percent Actual
number		 Percent Actual
number		 Percent
 
  • Cantonese
4,583,322 88.7 5,196,240 88.7 5,726,972 89.2
  •  Putonghua
57,577 1.1 65,892 1.1 55,410 0.9
  •  Other
364,694 7.1 340,222 5.8 352,562 5.5
English 114,084 2.2 184,308 3.1 203,598 3.2
Other 49,232 1.0 73,879 1.3 79,197 1.2
Total 5,168,909 100.0 5,860,541 100.0 6,417,739 100.0
Source: Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department. Population Aged 5 and Over by Usual Language, 1991, 1996, and 2001. [online document] (26 October 2001) Hong Kong Statistics / Frequently Asked Statistics / Main tables

Table 27c
graph 27 | table 27a | table 27b | table 29 | data collection index (tables)

Table 27c Cantonese is a diverse language

In 1984 Cantonese (or Yuh Chinese) made up 4.5% of the Chinese mainland including 52,000,000 mainland speakers, somewhat under the total number of French speaking people living in France. In 1999 it was estimated that there were 71,000,000 Cantonese speakers living in the world at large.

Alternate names for Cantonese include:

  • Yuet Yuh
  • Gwong Dung Wa
  • Cantonese
  • Yue
  • Yueyu
  • Baihua

Cantonese dialects and there alternate names include:

  1. Yuh Hai (alternate names below)
    • Guang Fu
    • Hong Kong Cantonese
    • Macau Cantonese
    • Sha Tou
    • Shi Qi
    • Wan Cheng
  2. Siyi (alternate names below)
    • Sei Yap
    • Tai Shan
    • Toi San
    • Hoi San
    • Schlei Yip
  3. Gao Le
  4. Gao Yang
  5. Qin Lian
  6. Gui Nan
Source: Ethnologue.com [online document] Yuh (3 November 2002). There are likely many ways to spell the above mentioned language and dialects in English. Most of the above have been taken from the Ethnologue.com website.
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