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HK Book Fair 2023 | #HKUP Author Event | Richard Van Ness Simmons [相約在書展，小聚那一刻]

Don't miss the opportunity to chat with the author of Studies in Colloquial Chinese and Its History: Dialect and Text at this grand annual event in #HomeKong - a celebration of books and a special occasion to gather like-minded academics.

The Author

Richard Van Ness Simmons is Professor and Director of Chinese Language Centre (CLC) and Chinese Language Enhancement Programme (CLEP) in the School of Chinese (香港大學中文學院) at Faculty of Arts, HKU.

Ask anything from the behind-the-scenes of writing the book, Professor Simmons' favourite chapters, latest findings in the field, tips on writing edited volumes or monographs, to future fireside chat ideas and so much more!

Ticketing Info

Hong Kong Book Fair tickets are HK$30 per adult; ready your Octopus Card, Alipay app, or get e-tickets in advance. Check out the ticketing details at https://hkbookfair.hktdc.com/en/Visitor/Ticketing.html.

Meet Up

On 22 July (Saturday), simply head to the #hkupress booth 1D-B26 at the University Square around 15 minutes earlier, the activity will start at 10:15 am sharp. We'll be waiting by the cashier where this informal meet & greet takes place.

The Book

Published just last year, this book presents cutting-edge research into issues regarding prestige colloquial languages in China in their spoken forms and as well as their relationship to written forms and the colloquial literary language. These include the standard regional languages and prestige dialects of the past, the influence of historical forms of spoken Chinese on written Chinese, the history of guānhuà and the history of báihuà, proto-dialects and supra-regional common languages (koines), and their relationship to spoken dialects.

The various studies in this collection focus on the dialect groups with the most substantial written tradition, including Mandarin, Wu, Min, and Cantonese, in north, central and eastern coastal, and southern China respectively.

More on https://hkupress.hku.hk/Studies_Colloquial_ChiNHistory