Language and writing in Macao

Chinese and Portuguese are the official languages of Macao at present. In terms of language, most residents use Cantonese in their daily life, and some residents can understand Mandarin or Minnan dialect. In addition, English is very popular in Macao as a business language and the teaching language of some schools. As far as writing is concerned, most Macao residents use traditional Chinese characters as common words in society, while Portuguese, a native of Portugal, will use Portuguese as the main writing language. Macao * * * pointed out on June 30, 2006 that the department form of 65438+February 30, 2006 can be filled in not only traditional Chinese and Portuguese, but also simplified Chinese, and the relevant staff will convert it into equivalent traditional Chinese characters for record.

language

Cantonese (officially known as Guangfu dialect). Like Hong Kong, "Cantonese" usually refers to Cantonese, which is the lingua franca and one of the official languages of Macao. Widely used in daily life, work, office, school education, news media, culture and entertainment and other fields.

Portuguese is mostly used by Portuguese, who account for 2% of Macao's population, and is one of the official languages of Macao. However, ordinary Chinese in Macao rarely use Portuguese as their first language. Most of them are popular in * * *, the Ministry of Justice and businesses or bookstores and communities related to Portugal.

Macanese is a mixture of Portuguese, Malay, Cantonese, English, old Portuguese and a little Dutch, Spanish and Italian. Portuguese, known as "Ba Du", was once the common language used by local Portuguese in Macau, but now it has almost disappeared. The last Portuguese writer born and raised in Macao who wrote in Macao dialect was Joseph Santos Ferreira. On June 5438+ 10, 2006, the Macao Local Education Association signed a cooperation agreement with six Portuguese communities, intending to apply for Macao's local language as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage.

In order to explain to foreign tourists, the tourist attractions will also use Cantonese, English and Mandarin in consideration of communication problems; Due to new immigrants, some residents in northern Macao use Minnan to talk; Some immigrants from Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar and other countries will use their mother tongue mixed with Cantonese in their daily lives.

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Traditional Chinese, which is one of the official languages of Macao and the most important teaching language in Macao education, adopts the traditional Chinese character system. Like Hong Kong, Cantonese has an absolute advantage in society, so the Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set has also been adopted by Macao.

Cantonese vernacular, because Cantonese is widely used in Macao, spoken language close to Cantonese is often used in folk written language. For example, "getting off" is written as "getting off" and "loading and unloading goods" is written as "loading and unloading goods".

Simplified Chinese, because the textbook used in Macau is the Chinese mainland version, will also be taught during the teaching period, and the writing of simplified Chinese is simple and fast, and the usage of simplified Chinese is also increasing due to the new immigrants from the mainland.

Portuguese, which is mostly used by Portuguese-speaking people who account for 2% of Macao's population, is one of Macao's official languages, so Portuguese is still the main word in official documents, but Portuguese has little effect on Chinese. The younger generation in Macao usually choose to learn English, followed by Portuguese. However, in recent years, the number of China residents attending Portuguese-speaking courses organized by Portugal's official cultural institution in Australia, Oriental Portuguese College, is on the rise, which is related to the fact that the Administration and Civil Service Bureau stopped cooperating with Macau Polytechnic in 2003 and started to cooperate with it to organize Portuguese-speaking training courses for civil servants.

English is an indispensable language in the international community, so many new generations of young people attach great importance to learning English; Although English is not the official language of Macao, many tourist facilities will choose Chinese and English as the main languages.