111 replies to this topic

[Liang Jieming]

Only half Chinese can communicate in Putonghua
www.chinaview.cn 2005-05-11 14:05:34

BEIJING, May 11 -- According to a survey carried out by the State Languages Committee, only 53 percent of people in China can communicate in Putonghua, or Mandarin.

This means nearly half of the population doesn't use Putonghua in their daily communication.

Moreover, among the 53 percent that speak Putonghua, not all of them use it in their daily work and life.

China is a multi-language and multi-dialect country; a product of its long history and agricultural economy.

But as China develops a socialist market economy, the promotion and popularization of Putonghua in the country is becoming more and more important.

(Source: CRIENGLISH.com)

[General_Zhaoyun]

Most chinese, esp. the south, still communicate in their own dialect instead of putonghua (mandarin). I've travelled to many parts of China, such as Guangdong, Sichuan, Shandong and all these places speak their own dialect instead of mandarin.

The old people in China used to communicate in their own dialect in schools. But new generations of chinese are beginning to speak in putonghua, as they used that in school.

[lobster]

IMO schools should teach both the dialect and Mandarin to preserve the local traditions as well as having a common national language.

[Chris Weimer]

I agree with lobster. It's merely the CCP trying to kill off other Chinese cultures in favor of its own ideology. Take a look at European colonisation in the Americas and Australia. The first things they go after is language and religion.

[lobster]

Keep in mind that this is what Chiang Kai-shek and his KMT did in Taiwan as well.

[Spc4]

It's merely the CCP trying to kill off other Chinese cultures in favor of its own ideology.

Ignorant nonsense.

Although I am a native Shanghai speaker, I favor a gradual transition to mandarin-only. Dialects are merely unstandardized stronger versions of accents, a relic of a previous era before the current level of communication and transportation technology.

[nishishei]

http://en.wikipedia....ions_of_Chinese

The CCP has actually promoted the learning of local dialects in Schools while beginning intruction in mandarin in secondary schools.

That's complete propaganda.

We were reprimanded with physical punishment and detention for speaking dialects (our mother tongue) in primary schools.

[nishishei]

Ignorant nonsense.

Although I am a native Shanghai speaker, I favor a gradual transition to mandarin-only.  Dialects are merely unstandardized stronger versions of accents, a relic of a previous era before the current level of communication and transportation technology.

Who's ignorant? Appears to be you.

You are basically saying French is a dialect of Spanish or Italian, and non-standardized "dialects" like Catalan are relics that ought to die away. So people from Catalonia (which includes Barcelona) ought to speak only Castillian Spanish?

By your reasoning we ought to speak only English to prepare for what's to come, even greater communication and transportation technology in the future. Why even bother with Putonghua? English is far more important scientifically, technologically and culturally. Which has a greater literary tradition? English or Putonghua? What will give me more earning power? English only or Putonghua only? I'm not trying to bash Putonghua here, but where do you draw the line?

[Spc4]

We were reprimanded with physical punishment and detention for speaking dialects (our mother tongue) in primary schools.

Where was this? I toiled through 1st grade in Shanghai. My teacher would use mandarin for official speaking (such as teaching) but would use the Shanghai dialect when helping some students with their pronouciation or when speaking to parents. We did get some slaps on the hand for misbehavior, so I can imagine if you purposely tried to speak a dialect when the teacher was trying to teach someone mandarin. Everyone in my class already knew mandarin, anyway, from radio, TV, and most parents, who would use the dialect but also teach their children mandarin.

You are basically saying French is a dialect of Spanish or Italian

Please think this through. It's not hard. One is a strong accent (with the exception of Cantonese), while the ones you mention here are completely different languages with different written forms from different countries. French has dialects. I'm sure many Frenchmen would want their countrymen to speak standard French.

[nishishei]

Please think this through.  It's not hard.  One is a strong accent, while the ones you mention here are completely different languages with different written forms.  French has dialects.  I'm sure many Frenchmen would want their countrymen to speak standard French.

You need to learn more before wise-cracking.

First, Wu (to which Shanghainese belong) has independent written forms. Much of it has been banned or censored.

Second, Shanghainese when written down is nearly uncomprehensible to Mandarin-only speakers, and must be translated. This was the case to the famous novel, "Flowers of Shanghai" which was written in Wu.

Third, Chinese dialects are linguistically languages, they are only called dialects due to a mistranslation. You see the Chinese word 方言 fangyan merely means "Regional Speech", before 1900's, Japanese, Vietnamese, Tibetan, Korean and even English were also called 方言 fangyan. Due to the lack of a better English equivalent, fangyan was later translated as "dialect", and languages with armies and navies called 语言 yuyan.

[Spc4]

First, Wu (to which Shanghainese belong) has independent written forms. Much of it has been banned.

Fair enough, do you have any documentation about this?

In any case, the fact that 方言 was used instead of 语言 should tell you something.

[nishishei]

Fair enough, do you have any documentation about this?

http://www.chinese-e...g/hshlz/000.htm
http://www.wu-chinese.org/wenxue.htm

In any case, the fact that 方言 was used instead of 语言 should tell you something.

No, it tells me nothing. The two terms (in addition to 言葉) have always been interchangeable in Chinese history. 方言 = 地方之语言，日本方言 = 日本语言，吴方言 = 吴地语言. During the last 80 years, the term fangyan was redefined into the English term of "dialect", and the Sinitic languages came to be called solely fangyan for political expediency. How does 1.2 billion speakers of the Sinitic group of the Sino-Tibetan language family only have one language? Propaganda and official neglect.

Here is what linguists have to say about Chinese dialects:

The term "Chinese" does not refer to a language but to a group or branch of related languages that have less in common than the Romance languages have with each other. Besides Mandarin spoken in the north, Chinese includes six or seven other major languages used in the remainder of the country and abroad, among which Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Min (which includes Taiwanese) are the most prominent. These "southern" varieties are primary languages for tens of millions of Chinese speakers. For Shanghainese it is closer to 100 million. Each has significant differences in phonology, vocabulary, and syntax and all are mutually unintelligible. In any other context these nonstandard varieties would be regarded as different languages. But in China they are treated as "dialects" (fa¯ngya´n) for political expediency and because, with the marginal exception of Cantonese, they lack writing. Orthography, besides its tangible effect on the development of a language and on the psychology of its speakers, confers legitimacy on a language and political status on its users. Since the non-Mandarin varieties of Chinese are mostly unwritten, they are portrayed as less than full-fledged languages, even though they qualify as languages by any linguistic measure. Since Cantonese, Shanghainese, and other nonstandard varieties differ from Mandarin not just in sound but also in vocabulary and grammar, the characters cannot bridge this gap by themselves, even with their relative neutrality toward sound. Much of the core vocabulary of non-Mandarin Chinese has no counterpart in Mandarin and no recognized character representation. Conversely, many Mandarin terms for which characters do exist are foreign to non-Mandarin speakers. The fact that nonstandard speakers can read a text in the standard language simply means that these speakers are bilingual.

-From Writing on the Wall, by William C. Hannas, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press (2003).

[hira]

in scientific terms, two variants of speech are separate languages if they are not comprehensible between them. That is the fact between Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, Hokkien and Hakka, at least. So linguistically speaking there are languages.

Whether this languages deserve preservation is a matter of political discussion. Of course in the long run they will most likely disappear, at least if they remain within a political unity as they are now. I am from Barcelona, and although the government has been preserving Catalan for 30 years reaching the point of forbidding Castillian Spanish in schools, most people speak Spanish here. Is an unavoidable trend, because of immigration, mass media, and plain convenience.

I always like to equate China with the old Roman Empire; the difference between China and Europe is that the Roman Empire disappeared, and lots of different countries resulted, while China remained united. So in Europe we have mostly nation-states which have each standarized their separate languages, and would never surrender them. The only institution that stays (more or less) united from the Roman times, the Catholic church, still used Latin, the common language, until very recently. If the Roman empire had survived, all around Europe people would be taught Italian, because it would be the language that developed from the old common language (Latin) in the place where the government is (Rome).

So, China remains united, and there are enforcing as an united language the language that developed in Beijing.

My guess is that when China becomes a rich country, it will "rediscover" its linguistic variety and people will regain interest in its local heritage. But until then, economical and political conveniency is going to press Putonghua.