Language bans anger Chinese

[true_indian]

Why not have the national language as a second language instead of abolishing an entire language along with its culture. India had done it successfully, why not China? Like us you could be multi-lingual. This would help you in understanding of the world. Because wisdom of a culture is imparted into language. Like the shorthands we use in various languages to convey a complex message.

 

[greatsequence]

Its a right move by the Chinese Government , because while regional languages may be promoted , There should always be a " national language " ...the Language of the majority which is to be used for all official purposes and people should be encouraged to learn the official language along with whatever regional dialect they speak . Apart from better communication amongst people from different regions ,this is is also one of the key ways of national integration.

This is a pretty faulty logic. European Union is working on I dont know some dozen languages. Killing the languages and cultures is not integration. I think it is no big deal to give the regional languages a chance to prosper. Moreover if you are not teaching the regional language, the media is showing programs in the dominant language and you can not communicate with any government authority other than a single official language you are basically killing all other languages. If you really want to save the languages teach them in the schools and give them official status.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

It is not the right move.
There should be a national language, fine. Yes, there should be. Mandarin should be taught in every school, but there should be optional languages being taught in different states. Every state should have a right to be able to teach their mother tongue in their state. This step by the govt would destroy the thousands of years of culture preserved in books, and scripts.

60-70 years from now, no one would be able to understand them, and all of the local culture would be lost.

In India, we have state languages and national languages both being taught. But in Punjab, Urdu and Punjabi both were spoken, now we aren't taught urdu, its been just 60 years, and the language is lost. No one knows how to read or write urdu, not even speak urdu. The poetry, books, biographies, experiences of our ancestors written in urdu are now obsolete. That part of our culture is now destroyed.

But thankfully urdu is still taught in some states of India. But even then I feel we've lost a lot of our culture due to this, even when we're taught at least 3 languages(English, Hindi, state language) in school, with other languages as optional.

The difference is, you are talking about different "languages"... of which I believe there are hundreds in India.

Whereas Mandarin/Shanghainese/Cantonese are all "dialects" of the same Chinese language.

There is no lost culture. Someone who speaks Guangdonghua and someone who speaks Putonghua, they both share the same Chinese culture.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Why not have the national language as a second language instead of abolishing an entire language along with its culture. India had done successfully, why not China? Like us you could be multi-lingual. This would help you in understanding of the world. Because wisdom of a culture is imparted into language. Like the shorthands we use in various languages to convey a complex message.

Shanghainese people are able to speak both Shanghainese and Mandarin fluently. Same applies to other regions, they can speak their local dialect and the national dialect, both fluently.

The local dialects have not been "abolished" at all. In fact, they are widely spoken on a day-to-day basis.

 

[Urbanized Greyhound]

It is not the right move.
There should be a national language, fine. Yes, there should be. Mandarin should be taught in every school, but there should be optional languages being taught in different states. Every state should have a right to be able to teach their mother tongue in their state. This step by the govt would destroy the thousands of years of culture preserved in books, and scripts.

60-70 years from now, no one would be able to understand them, and all of the local culture would be lost.

In India, we have state languages and national languages both being taught. But in Punjab, Urdu and Punjabi both were spoken, now we aren't taught urdu, its been just 60 years, and the language is lost. No one knows how to read or write urdu, not even speak urdu. The poetry, books, biographies, experiences of our ancestors written in urdu are now obsolete. That part of our culture is now destroyed.

But thankfully urdu is still taught in some states of India. But even then I feel we've lost a lot of our culture due to this, even when we're taught at least 3 languages(English, Hindi, state language) in school, with other languages as optional.

Well I sort of meant that Mandarin being the language of the majority should be given first preference i.e made the First language in educational institutes , work , employment etc ( Or second language if English is deemed to be more advantageous ) .....

and while regional languages should be promoted , and preserved as cultural heritage .....in the article the protestors are arguing that

Their regional dialects be given preference over Mandarin ......, like Shanghainese , Cantonese or Tibetan . They are unwilling to give greater priority to the main language in which the work of the state , employment, careers depend i.e Mandarin . That imho is a mistake.

For instance in India , although we all are attached to our mother tongues , we are quite proficient in Hindi since we recognize the need to communicate with people all over India in the course of work , study , travel, other purposes.

Its like similar to the way in which our Parliament in the early days of our independence voted to elect Hindi as our national language with a majority of votes and in later years there were protests on this language issue in South Indian states.

 

[Urbanized Greyhound]

This is a pretty faulty logic. European Union is working on I dont know some dozen languages. Killing the languages and cultures is not integration. I think it is no big deal to give the regional languages a chance to prosper. Moreover if you are not teaching the regional language, the media is showing programs in the dominant language and you can not communicate with any government authority other than a single official language you are basically killing all other languages. If you really want to save the languages teach them in the schools and give them official status.

Well that wasn't quite what I meant.Regional languages may be spoken widely , studied , encouraged etc.

But the first priority should always be the national language ....if it is Mandarin .At least at the government level a uniformity of 1 language is required. For official purposes , public service , government employment etc ....The national language needs to be aggressively encouraged - for many reasons - Bureaucratic compulsion , National integration... most importantly ease of communication.

And for this the first priority should be given to the national language even if it means certain compromises on the part of other regional languages.


The European Union as it is a well integrated bloc with a number of member states having a dozen different languages eg Portugese , French , German etc may seem similar to a huge country with many different states like India , China etc.

But it is not exactly the same. There are many bureaucratic issues , other matters at the government level like National programs, national employment , other such organized services which are planned uniformly across all regions in a single country, just once by the centre .Use of More than one language for all this would be a bureaucratic nightmare for a single country.

This is different in the case of the EU .Even economically well integrated as they are , in effect they are still different countries with different governments , different civil services ,etc and most importantly they have different budgets to cater to their needs.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

This is a pretty faulty logic. European Union is working on I dont know some dozen languages. Killing the languages and cultures is not integration. I think it is no big deal to give the regional languages a chance to prosper. Moreover if you are not teaching the regional language, the media is showing programs in the dominant language and you can not communicate with any government authority other than a single official language you are basically killing all other languages. If you really want to save the languages teach them in the schools and give them official status.

The thing is, the European Union is not one country, it is 27 countries.

With individual countries in Europe like the UK, they standardize one language. In the UK for example... England, Scotland, Wales and North Ireland all speak English.

How many Scottish people in Scotland speak native Gaelic? Only around 1%!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Gaelic

 

[KS]

Not a good move, especially imposing one's language on others.

But May be it will wok in China because it is ethinically more homogenous than India.

P.s.: It was already tried in India way back, but was a spectacular failure.

 

[casual]

there is no alternative. it is better to standardize. it's unrealistic to expect a country to teach classes in 2 or more different languages.

also the title of this article is misleading. when people read language ban, they think that people will get punished for speaking a language. that is not the case.

 

[greatsequence]

If the rally is just to save the "dialect" then it does not make any sense. According to wikipedia tibetean and mangolian have official status in the corresponding areas. If this is the case i think it is good enough and the structure could be applied to other areas which have different languages. Wikipedia also says china has some 292 living and 1 dead language. I think it is a duty to save these languages it is a part of the culture and identity of the country and Once a language is lost you can not revive it again.

 

[ZhengHe]

Why not have the national language as a second language instead of abolishing an entire language along with its culture. India had done it successfully, why not China? Like us you could be multi-lingual. This would help you in understanding of the world. Because wisdom of a culture is imparted into language. Like the shorthands we use in various languages to convey a complex message.

I agree...

Mandarin should be the standard language in China but also keep other dialects/languages alive too.. it's part of Chinese culture!

 

[Jigs]

These people should learn to speak the language of their nation. That being said i hope it doesn't come at the cost of losing their own language it must be preserved.

 

[中国万岁-ProsperThroughCo-]

Is it a special reason why the authors are writing this article now? As far as I know, all this relates to an incident in July when the authorities in Guangzhou wanted the TV and radio channels speak in Mandarin so it would be helpful for the tourists out of Guangdong. Perfectly fine for me, as a Cantonese as well - though some people misunderstood the policy, thinking that the government wanted to ban the language.

It was a policy with good intention, interpreted wrong by some. The trend is Cantonese, Tibetan and Shanghaiese people speaking their language/dialect, but also able to speak Mandarin fluently.

My 14-year old cousin in Hong Kong speaks excellent Mandarin (as well as Cantonese, English and now learning German..)

 

[below_freezing]

There is no official language of the US on a federal level. On a state level there are a significant amount of states with official language laws, but there are also states/territories without those laws, or with bi/tri-lingual language laws. Basically its up to the states to decide, its not the purview of the federal government.

That said English is the defacto standard language in all states of the United States due to its history as the mother tongue of the country.


I'm surprised that the CCP would destroy a part of China's culture so.

Giving priority to teaching Mandarin is fine, but wouldn't it appease sensibilities to have other languages as an optional class to take?

Its good that they kept Official stations/ channels for cantonese, but would also seem a good idea for other languages as well imo.

Perhaps some sort of vote by region whereby the people of a region or province could decide whether they wanted a language kept in curriculum or channels for a language.

Obviously this thinking is based on my own experiences of state's rights

But this could be an area where such thinking could benefit China's people as well, without detriment to the CCP as far as I can see.

Take a look at China's money. Tell me how many languages there are on there (hint it's more than 3).

Take a look at the US money. Tell me how many languages there are on there.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

Chinese language is much older than English language, therefore there is a much greater diversification.

There are four sub-dialects; Northern Mandarin, Northwest Mandarin, Southwest Mandarin, Jianghuai Mandarin.

In Shanghai, the most popular Mandarin is the Jianghuai Mandarin, which was also the official dialect of the Ming Dynasty.