Abstracts of Keynote Talks

“Traditional Poets from Guangdong and one Poet who Composed in Cantonese” (David Honey)

This presentation will introduce the most important historical poets from Guangdong. Although composing in the traditional  literary language, these poets celebrated in verse the clime and culture, mountains and streams, and notable worthies of the province. I close with introducing Jiu Ji-yong招子永 (Mandarin Zhao Ziyong), whose dates are 1793-1846. His singular contribution to both Cantonese literature and linguistics is the fact that he composed in Cantonese some 97 songs of love ranging from nine to sixteen lines, and employing various meters. 

“Managing Variation in Cantonese Lexical Items and Orthographic Conventions for Dictionaries and Keyboards.” (Lau Chaak Ming)

Cantonese has become increasingly popular in informal written communication in Hong Kong, yet it lacks a standardized writing system. Variations in character choice for Cantonese-specific morphemes are widespread due to the absence of standardization. Regional differences in glyph standards also result in multiple ways of writing or typing certain characters. Although the sound system of Hong Kong Cantonese is relatively stable, ongoing phonological changes continue to arise. Despite a gradual convergence, these variations remain significant and must be carefully considered when compiling any lexicon.

This talk draws insights from two lexicon projects, words.hk (a collaborative online Cantonese dictionary) and TypeDuck (a Cantonese input method tool), to explore how we address various levels of variation—phonological, orthographic, grammatical, and regional. We will discuss the numerous decisions required to balance the language’s diverse written and phonetic forms with practical usability. While these projects do not aim for top-down standardization, they strive to reduce variation by promoting and respecting usage that is already widespread, while curbing unfounded etymological claims. Our guiding principles are designed to accommodate a wide range of users, ensuring our solutions are both inclusive and practical. We hope that these efforts will better support the development of Cantonese and other Yue varieties in the long term.