Thanks to dedicated efforts of early missionaries, pedagogues, and linguists, we can trace back the evolution of modern Cantonese-one of the most spoken dialects in China, Southeast Asia, and globally-while differences in sounds, words, and grammar distinguish the old from contemporary speech today. Not much was recorded in official documents or gazetteers about the early history of Hong Kong where Cantonese is its most popular dialect. The knowledge of Cantonese is likewise quite limited except for occasional mentions of its culture and customs in writings here and there. For a long time,...