Language bans anger Chinese

[below_freezing]

this article claims about half of the population speaks mandarin..... can any one tall what the other half of population speaks??

The article is bullshitting again and counting Mandarin speakers as "Beijing standard" probably.

Mandarin Chinese - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look at the map. Mandarin covers almost the whole map of China. The different versions are just "sounding" different but with different grammar; they are not dialects the way Cantonese and Shanghainese are, but why should 886 million people accomodate less than 1 million? If you add in dialects significantly influenced by Mandarin such as Xiang and Gan, then there are over 1 billion speakers.

Do you know how many people living in Shanghai right now, lived there 20 years ago? Maybe 5%. In Guangzhou, a city of 10 million, there are about 300,000 (3%) native Cantonese. Why should the lives of 95-97% of the residents be made more inconvenient by forcing them to learn non-Mandarin?

And what's even funnier is how the girl that claims to want to protect her "cultural identity" will protest to "protect" Cantonese, but has the English name Michelle.

 

[below_freezing]

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.

We can all understand each other as long as we're speaking some form of mandarin. I can also understand Xiang. I absolutely cannot understand cantonese or shanghainese but there's no need to, most people in Shanghai or Guangzhou speaks Mandarin.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

We can all understand each other as long as we're speaking some form of mandarin. I can also understand Xiang. I absolutely cannot understand cantonese or shanghainese but there's no need to, most people in Shanghai or Guangzhou speaks Mandarin.

My grandma spoke Jianghuai mandarin, since she was from Jianghuai area of Jiangsu province. Since most old Shanghainese did look down on people from Jianghuai area and they were forced to learn Shanghainese and were assimilated into the Shanghainese population.

Nowadays, the most popular Mandarin in Shanghai is the standard Mandarin(Nothern Mandarin), since the conformity is important to follow.

President Hu's mandarin has a thick accent of the Jianghuai area, which sounds familiar to me. Since he is from the same city "泰州" as my grandma came from.

 

[below_freezing]

My grandma spoke Jianghuai mandarin, since she was from Jianghuai area of Jiangsu province. Since most old Shanghainese did look down on people from Jianghuai area and they were forced to learn Shanghainese and were assimilated into the Shanghainese population.

Nowadays, the most popular Mandarin in Shanghai is the standard Mandarin(Nothern Mandarin), since the conformity is important to follow.

President Hu's mandarin has a thick accent of the Jianghuai area, which is familiar to me. Since he is from the same city "泰州" as my grandma came from.

Yes, I can tell that Hu's Mandarin is not from Beijing. The important thing is grammar and vocabulary, Cantonese and Shanghainese have different terms for "I" "You" "We" etc.

 

[chinautumn]

fake news!

 

[Parashuram1]

Personally, if it is true that the government is outrightly banning the language dialects, then this is wrong. But if it simply an attempt to make public level language as one national language, there is nothing wrong since all regional languages can exist.

For instance, we have four official languages: Deutsche, French, Italian and Romanish all existing simultaneously despite Deutsche being the largest spoken language regionally. Also, these days a lot of younger generation is willing to learn English and speak alongside our traditional languages. One national level language for unity is good but other dialects must be allowed to flourish as well.

 

[duhastmish]

if this is true news - china is one figgin funny country.

but i doubt it - i think its more of west created propaganda - about the IMAGE THEY WANT TO CREATE .

THE EVIL COMMUNIST , because they cant prove anymore that its a failure because - chinese are developing in all fields. they come up with this bullshyt.

 

[oct605032048]

Personally, if it is true that the government is outrightly banning the language dialects, then this is wrong. But if it simply an attempt to make public level language as one national language, there is nothing wrong since all regional languages can exist.

For instance, we have four official languages: Deutsche, French, Italian and Romanish all existing simultaneously despite Deutsche being the largest spoken language regionally. Also, these days a lot of younger generation is willing to learn English and speak alongside our traditional languages. One national level language for unity is good but other dialects must be allowed to flourish as well.

Personally, I hated when I people talking in hindulish japiglish or mississippi english. What's wrong with standardization of all these dialects? We are people who need to communication with other people we are linguists or philologists.

No one really 'ban' the regional dialects. It is just simply that people don't use it in schools, hotels, airports or on TV and especially young people don't use it. Some seniors may felt worrisome but we don't and we don't care.

If some one really likes shanghainese why not save the hypocritical pity and start to learn it yourself ?

 

[applesauce]

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.

hey genius, chinese books and script is the same regardless of the dialect. and this doesnt BAN other languages from being taught or learned

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.

see response above

at least try to understand a little about the topic, just a little okay?

 

[username]

Dear fellow Indians, I see a lot of you people write that India has a national language. THAT IS A MISCONCEPTION, INDIA DOES NOT HAVE A NATIONAL LANGUAGE. Even the Home minister of India does not know Hindi (he is from South, and I am damn sure he does not know).


India has only 2 official languages, Hindi and English at federal level and only different states have different official languages, and still this is one country, which is one of the great things about India.

The day India has a national language, I will denounce my Indian Citizenship, I cannot be forced to learn a language which is not going to be useful for me, and which will slowly replace my own mother tongue.
On topic :
People you have to understand one thing. It is absolutely wrong to say that we will teach only xyz language and if you want you can speak your mother tongue at home. When you stop teaching a language at schools and enforce one language the other languages will naturaly die slowly.

 

[jagjitnatt]

hey genius, chinese books and script is the same regardless of the dialect. and this doesnt BAN other languages from being taught or learned

No they are not genius. Don't even tell me Tibetan is similar to Chinese. There are more than 5 languages that I can tell that have a different script. Uyghur language, mongolian language, Kyrgyz language, and manchu language. I am sure if I look up the internet, I can find more, but I think this is enough to enlighten you.

And don't resort to personal insults when you cannot prove your point. You don't know anything about me. I could be a student, I could be a father of two or even a retired general. So better stick to logic, reasoning, and healthy discussion.

 

[Manas]

"People don't have time to safeguard the Shanghainese dialect," bemoaned Shanghai-born Miao, a smartly dressed young banker, shrugging her shoulders.

Wow,it looks like the material greed among young of this communist run country has over taken any capitalistic society.

 

[Manas]

Here in india the exact opposite every other year we see demands from some small state or ethnicity to get his language recogsied as national language .We have so far more than a dozen national languages in india.

 

[Manas]

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.

what about Tibetan language??
Is its just a dialect or a totally different language with own script??

 

[oct605032048]

Wow,it looks like the material greed among young of this communist run country has over taken any capitalistic society.

Isn't the wisdom of pragmaticism great?