Hong Kong Cantonese is a form of Yue Chinese commonly spoken in
Hong Kong. Although
The Hong Kong Chinese largely identify this variant of Chinese with the term "
Cantonese" , a variety of publications in
Mainland China describe the variant as
Hong Kong speech . There are slight differences between the pronunciation used in Hong Kong Cantonese and that of the Cantonese spoken in the neighbouring Chinese province of
Guangdong, where
Cantonese (based on the
Guangzhou dialect) is a
lingua franca. Over the years, Hong Kong Cantonese has also absorbed foreign
terms and developed a large set of Hong Kong-specific terms. These differences from the Canton norm are the result of
British rule between 1841 and 1997, as well as the closure of the Hong Kong-China border immediately after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949.