April 2025
On 13th April, the sun was shining brightly. Yet, a small group of children gathered for Canto+Eng storytime in Cork City Library.
One little child spoke fluent Cantonese — it was clear parents had put a lot of love and effort to help keep the mother tongue. It was the first time for another child to learn Cantonese, the child beamed with pride reading out the new Cantonese words. The young helper sat listening with a beautiful smile to the story about the Peak Tram in Hong Kong and told mum how enjoyable the story was afterwards.
After story time, the children used their fingers to draw a tree, tapping and sketching as they listened to a few adults admiring their artwork — all in Cantonese.
An hour drifted by, calm and full of joy.
四月十三號，陽光普照，高基市圖書館內幾個小朋友人少少聽故仔。一位小小朋友一口流利粵語，爹哋媽咪真係俾咗好多心機幫小朋友KEEP住母語。又有小朋友初學粵語，每讀到一個粵語詞彙都一面自豪。小助教笑咪咪聽住一個關香港山頂纜車小高嘅故事，事後同媽咪話好鍾意個故仔。故事之後，小朋友用手指點點點畫樹，一邊畫一邊聽住幾個大人用粵語讚嘆佢哋嘅大作。輕輕鬆鬆一個鐘頭悠然而過。
Angela and her team represented Cantonese in Ireland at a consultation held in University College Cork on 10th April. The consultation was part of the development of the UCC Race Equality Action Plan 2025.
At the session, we raised the following points:
We hope there will be greater awareness of the diversity within ethnic Chinese and Asian communities. Cantonese is a distinct language within the broader Sinitic language family. Our heritage and culture differ from those associated with Mandarin, and as such, our community has unique needs.
We advocate for the use of Cantonese and Traditional Chinese characters when different languages are included in official materials, to better reflect linguistic diversity.
Angela 同佢嘅團隊代表「粵語愛爾蘭」，喺4月10日參加咗高基大學舉辦嘅《2025年種族平等行動計劃》諮詢會。
喺會議入面，我哋提出咗以下幾點意見：
我哋希望大眾可以更加認識華人／亞洲族群之間嘅多樣性。粵語係漢語語系入面其中一種語言，我哋嘅語言文化同華語雖相近但亦有很多分別，因此之故，我哋社群嘅需要亦跟華語社群唔一樣。
如果官方材料當中會包含多種語言，我哋希望材料會有粵文及繁體字嘅版本，以更準確反映愛爾蘭社群嘅多樣性。
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