ABSTRACT
This chapter describes Hong Kong as a global city, looking at its evolution from a British colony to a Special Administrative Region within the People’s Republic of China. It examines language use in Hong Kong, from the colony’s inception and migration flows to the current situation in which the vast majority of locals are native Cantonese speakers, but where we also find a wide variety of foreign nationals using their native language within their communities as well as English as a lingua franca. The chapter then delves into the situation of Spanish in Hong Kong, its expansion at all educational levels, as well as the arrival of citizens from Spanish-speaking countries who have made Hong Kong their home. It presents the results of two exploratory studies undertaken with two different communities: Spanish-speaking families living in Hong Kong and students of Spanish as a foreign language.
