''Punti'' ( zh, t=本地, j=bun2 dei6, l=locals) is a

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

endonym referring to the native Cantonese people of

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

and

Guangxi Guangxi,; officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam (Hà Giang Province, Hà Giang, Cao Bằn ...

. In

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

, ''Punti'' designates Weitou dialect-speaking locals in contrast to non-Weitou speakers such as Taishanese people, Hoklo people,

Hakka people The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...

, and ethnic minorities such as the Zhuang people of Guangxi and the boat-dwelling Tanka people, who are both descendants of the Baiyue – although the Tanka have largely assimilated into

Han Chinese The Han Chinese, alternatively the Han people, are an East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Greater China. With a global population of over 1.4 billion, the Han Chinese are the list of contemporary ethnic groups, world's la ...

culture. ''Punti'' as a group refers in a strict sense to the Cantonese-speaking indigenous inhabitants of Hong Kong who settled in Hong Kong before the

New Territories The New Territories (N.T., Traditional Chinese characters, Chinese: ) is one of the three areas of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of H ...

of Hong Kong were leased to the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

in 1898. Prominently represented by the "Weitou people" () – the Hau (), Tang (), Pang (), Liu (), and

Man A man is an adult male human. Before adulthood, a male child or adolescent is referred to as a boy. Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromosome from the f ...

() – these indigenous ''Punti'' inhabitants were afforded additional privileges in land ownership enshrined in the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory and the Basic Law of Hong Kong. When used to designate a language, "Punti" is equivalent to the Standard Cantonese mainly used in

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

(formerly Canton),

and

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

. "Punti" became a word often used in the legal system of Hong Kong and other official settings; when a defendant chooses to use Punti in court, he/she elects to use Cantonese as the language of the proceedings instead of English. Despite the reference to ''Punti'', in this context the word means nothing more than "Cantonese Chinese" as a spoken language, particularly Hong Kong dialect; there are political and practical reasons for not using the term "Cantonese Chinese". Modern use of the demonym ''Punti'' is promoted by the Hong Kong Museum of History, which maintains an extensive collection of Punti artefacts.

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* * Society of Hong Kong Cantonese words and phrases Asian diaspora in Hong Kong Cantonese people {{HongKong-stub

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