I take issue with this article for a number of reasons. First, in any society, ethnic minorities already face immense pressure to learn the dominant language, which goes hand-in-hand with racism. Lowering the proficiency requirement does a lot to relieve that pressure. 1/8 https://twitter.com/HongKongFP/status/1296613058869997568

Not to mention that the proficiency skills of ethnic minorities in the dominant language are seen as inferior to those of the majority ethnic group, even when both are native speakers. This feeds into internalization of one's speech never being fluent or good enough. 2/8

Second, citing statistics that Cantonese is required for the job market plays right into capitalism's commodification of language. According to this perspective, language is not seen as an invaluable cultural heritage, but only seen as useful if it facilitates business. 3/8

And under this utilitarian view, learning the dominant language is seen as more useful, and learning minority languages as pointless. In fact, the very existence of minority languages are seen as an inconvenience. 4/8

Third, the article has an all too common warped view of linguistic equality and equal opportunity as access to education in the dominant language. That is not linguistic equality, that is a fast-track to the destruction of minority languages. 5/8

True linguistic equality is the legitimization of all languages, regardless of their usefulness to capitalism. This is why UNESCO places so much emphasis on mother-tongue education. Everyone's mother tongue should be seen as equal. 6/8

We must respect minority languages. We cannot see language education solely as a way to supply the labor market. We must see that true equal opportunity means treating every language as equal. 7/8

We desperately need to change the current thinking about language education, bc far too many languages and cultures have been destroyed by this thinking. 8/8