Protection of the varieties of Chinese

Protection of the varieties of Chinese (Chinese: 保护方言) refers to efforts to protect the continued existence of the varieties of Chinese (including Yue Chinese, Wu Chinese, Gan Chinese, Min Chinese, Xiang Chinese, Hakka Chinese, varieties of Mandarin, and others) in Mainland China and other places against pressure to abandon these languages and use Standard Chinese.[1][2][3][4][5] The Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China has proclaimed to be taking active measures to protect ten varieties of Chinese.[1] However, a large majority of the citizens of China speak a dialect of Mandarin Chinese, a standardized form of which has been enforced and promoted by the government of China for the last sixty years.[5] The Constitution of the People's Republic of China calls on the government to promote Putonghua as the common tongue of the nation,[6] but this policy has caused conflict to a certain extent with plans to preserve local varieties of Chinese. Education and media programming in varieties of Chinese other than Mandarin have been discouraged by the governments of the People's Republic of China, Singapore, and Taiwan.[7][8] Teaching the varieties of Chinese to non-native speakers is discouraged by the laws of the People's Republic of China in favor of Putonghua.[9] The Guangdong National Language Regulations are a set of laws enacted by the Guangdong provincial government in the People's Republic of China in 2012 to promote the use of Standard Mandarin Chinese in broadcast and print media at the expense of the local standard Cantonese and other related dialects. It has also been labelled a "pro-Mandarin, anti-Yue" legislation (废粤推普 or 推普废粤).[10]

A school in Guangdong with writing "Please speak Standard Chinese. Please write standard characters" on the wall.

For forty years following the arrival of the Kuomintang government in Taiwan, the Taiwanese, Hakka and Taiwan aboriginal languages were suppressed by the government in favor of Mandarin Chinese, until the mid-1990s.[11]

Examples

Min Nan

In June 2007, China created a zone for the protection of Min Nan culture, the first of its kind in mainland China. In March 2010, eighteen elementary schools and ten kindergartens in Amoy (Xiamen) became Min Nan study centers, complete with Min Nan educational materials, including training in pronunciation, colloquialisms and history. On March 5, 2011, the Xiamen Experimental Elementary School implemented the "Min Nan Day" activity, encouraging students to study Min Nan culture.[12][13]

In Taiwan

The native language of many inhabitants of the Matsu Islands (Lienchiang County), ROC (Taiwan) is the Matsu dialect, which is one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the county.[14] It has been compulsory in primary schools in the area since 2017.

In an amendment to Article 14 of the Enforcement Rules of the Passport Act (護照條例施行細則) passed on August 9, 2019, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Taiwan) announced that Taiwanese can use the romanized spellings of their names in Hoklo, Hakka and Aboriginal languages for their passports. Previously, only Mandarin Chinese names could be romanized.[15] Since 2017, Taiwanese language classes have been compulsory in all primary schools except those in predominantly Hakka or Aboriginal areas and the Matsu islands.

See also

References
  1. Wang, Keju (2019-02-22). "Language diversity protection highlighted in UNESCO proclamation". China Daily. Retrieved 23 July 2019. According to the Ministry of Education, China－as a country with more than 130 ethnic minority languages and 10 major Chinese dialects, has been taking active measures for the protection of languages resources.
  2. 中国语言资源保护工程汉语方言用字规范 [Guidelines of Dialect-Specific Character in the Chinese Language] (PDF). 2014. Retrieved 22 July 2019. 目前各省区正在进行"中国语言资源保护工程"或"中国语言资源有声数据 库建设"，在汉字记录各地方言的时候，可以拿各分区《方言字表》和《全国汉 语方言用字总表》作为参考，决定取舍，斟酌使用，以减少失误。{...}根据这些资料，分别编制官话、晋语、吴语、闽语、粤语、湘语、赣语、客家话、徽语、平话土话等 10 类方言的分区《方言字表》······
  3. 芒果台主持人 推方言保護行動 [Hunan Presenters Launches Local Language Protection Project]. The China Times (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 25 September 2015. Retrieved 22 July 2019. 在湖南，湘南、湘西集中了比較多的瀕危方言，會說的人越來越少。1983年，湖南師大一位教授曾去懷化沅陵縣調查過當地的方言。過了20多年，當這位教授的博士生再去調查時，有些字詞已經找不到人發音。 (Xiang Chinese are mostly common in the western and southern parts of Hunan province, which some of them are endangered. Local linguists conduct a field research in rural parts of Huaihua on 1983, but 20 years later the team learns that local Xiang Chinese speakers in that part of the area were dwindled.)
  4. "Race against time to save endangered languages and dialects". 5 October 2018. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
  5. Bai, Yun (2017). "THE STUDY ON LANGUAGE ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE PROTECTION OF DIALECTS". Retrieved 22 July 2019. The research will be conducted on the relationship between people's language attitude (LA) and the protection of dialects in China, where a great variety of dialects and Standard Chinese (SC) used by the speakers from 56 minorities co-exist and implement each other. With Standard Chinese promoted for 60 years, migration led by the development of social economy after the adoption of reform and opening-up policy, urbanization further promoted since 21st century, the status of Standard Chinese is rising while that of dialects is on the decline, and to some extent regional dialects in some ethnic minorities are dying out, resulting in the disappearance of their unique cultures and cultural forms, such as operas.{...}Although SC plays a significant role in China's economic development and urbanization, dialects are heritage of regional cultures; therefore, with the promotion of SC, dialects must be sustained and further developed.
  6. "CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA". Retrieved 22 July 2019. The state promotes the nationwide use of Putonghua (common speech based on Beijing pronunciation).
  7. "The Worrying Cross-Strait and Linguistic Messages of 'Crazy Rich Asians'". 2018-08-24. Retrieved 22 July 2019. Repressive government initiatives to solidify Mandarin as the region's common tongue have been so successful in Singapore, Taiwan, and China that Hokkien and Cantonese are now routinely mistaken in popular culture as mere dialects of Mandarin. Mandarin thus functions in the movie just as it does in government policies: as an artificial marker of class and sophistication. Cantonese, and especially Hokkien, are used as signifiers of marginality and lower status.
  8. Presse, Agence France. "China Is Forcing Its Biggest Cantonese-Speaking Region To Speak Mandarin". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-07-21.
  9. "《广东省国家通用语言文字规定》全文" [Full Text of Guangdong National Language Regulations]. Phoenix New Media. 18 December 2011. Retrieved 6 January 2012. 对外汉语教学应当教授普通话和规范汉字。 (Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language shall be in Putonghua and Simplified Chinese.)
  10. 廣東出臺通用語言文字規定 無任何條款限制方言播出 [Guangdong's New Language Law "Will Not Limit Local Languages"] (in Simplified Chinese). 24 December 2011. Archived from the original on February 21, 2014. Retrieved 24 July 2019. 最近個別媒體又在炒作所謂的"推普廢粵"之類的報道。記者從今天（12月24日）下午召開的省政府新聞發布會獲悉，我省將于明年3月起實施《廣東省國家通用語言文字規定》，沒有任何限制使用方言的條款。(Recent media reports claim the Guangdong National Language Regulations is a "Law that oppresses the Cantonse Language". This claim was debunked in a press conference by the Province of Guangdong in 24 December, where the province's spokesperson claim that the new legislation would not ban or limit the use of local languages.)
  11. "LOCAL DIALECTS REGAIN RECOGNITION AFTER LONG SUPPRESSION IN TAIWAN". Dialects including Taiwanese and Hakka are regaining status in Taiwan after 40 years of suppression by the government in favor of Mandarin Chinese.{...}"Taiwan should follow the multilingual Swiss model and declare Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka and Ami aboriginal languages as national languages," he said.
  12. 我省18所小学10所幼儿园试点闽南语教学 [18 Primary Schools and 10 Nurseries Starts Teaching Hokkien in Fujian Province]. xmnn.cn (in Chinese (China)). 8 March 2010. Archived from the original on 31 August 2014. Retrieved 21 July 2019.
  13. 廈門實驗小學開設“閩南語日”活動 (Hokkien Day Opens in Xiamen/Amoy's Schools)
  14. 大眾運輸工具播音語言平等保障法
  15. Jason Pan (16 August 2019). "NTU professors' language rule draws groups' ire". Taipei Times. Retrieved 17 August 2019.


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