城市之聲西關音: 由省至港及滬

This article proposes a more dynamic approach to looking at the dichotomy of “Hong Kong Cantonese” and “Guangzhou Cantonese”. Adopting a historical perspective, the author maintains that, with regards to sounds and tones, both “Hong Kong Cantonese” and “Guangzhou Cantonese” evolve from the “baak waa” spoken in the provincial city of Guangdong in the Qing period, of which the “standard” was identified as the “West End speech”. Addressing a variety of factors including economic development, human movement and migration, musical traditions, and the development of modern media in particular the gramophone and radio broadcast, this article illustrates how the “West End” evolved from marshlands to a commercial-residential district between the 1700s and 1800s, how “West End speech” was identified as the “standard” speech in the nineteenth century, and how it was amplified via a Cantonese musical culture in Shanghai and elsewhere in the first half of the twentieth century.