SHAME-FREE thread: ask the dumbest question you have about the Hong Kong protests. I'll try to answer it or loop in a real Hong Konger to answer it for you. No question too ignorant or basic.
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Most Western folk underestimate the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin. They are not mutually intelligible. Cantonese is called a "dialect" of Mandarin only for propaganda purposes. But HKers can *read* Mandarin (more or less) via a clever trick: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=6654
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Incidentally, Taiwan and the Mainland are separated in the other way: they both *speak* Mandarin, but often folks can only read *either* simplified *or* traditional characters. (And those who can read in both scripts often feel unqualified to *write* their non-native script.)
End of conversation
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