China says 400 million can't speak national language

Clivebenss SG

dun think there is anyway anyone or any group can bring back the vigour of dialects, the govt still so persistent, even the last one will eventual fall.

there is someone who want to speak hokkien may be you can join him. Dunno he want Sg hokkien or taiwan hokkien?

http://sgforums.com/forums/8/topics/477163?page=1#posts-10935447

BanguIzai SG

dun think there is anyway anyone or any group can bring back the vigour of dialects, the govt still so persistent, even the last one will eventual fall.

there is someone who want to speak hokkien may be you can join him. Dunno he want Sg hokkien or taiwan hokkien?

http://sgforums.com/forums/8/topics/477163?page=1#posts-10935447

How about u? U joining ar?

Taiwan Hokkien as so far there are still many usage preserved from China, vocabulary wise quite authentic enough (apart from those new influences from Mandarin Kuo-Yü) which I may be keen to learn from the Taiwanese.

As for Singaporean Hokkien, I feel the cultural mix with Teochew & Malay (via Baba) has resulted in a special variety which deserves to be preserved as well.

However having been in touch with Singaporean Hokkien for such long time, I am used to our Amoy / Tang-UaN / Lam-UaN type of accent. I am even okay with the Penang / Medan-type of Chiang-Chiu accent. But I still have difficulty accepting the Taiwanese accent (based on 70:30 Chiangchew:Amoy) that reverses some important vowel differences that our Singaporean Hokkien has.

I am usually rather reserved about getting involved into this kind of activities as I don't know whether would it turn out to be awkward with people whom I am not familiar with.

Clivebenss SG

wun be there, I'm no longer in Sg.

BanguIzai SG

wun be there, I'm no longer in Sg.

u no come back anymore?

Clivebenss SG

probably not for the longest time.

Gun SG

The language that is best suited to the kids is their mother tongue.

So Cantonese would be better off speaking Cantonese, Teochew would be better off speaking Teochew, Malays would be better off speaking Malay, whatever

Instead of asking people to learn non-mother tongue languages to be pretended as the real mother tongue ah

Title is about China's national langauge, not about mother tongue,

There is a distinct official differences.

Gun SG

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/china-says-400-million-cant-speak-national-language-104542822.html

What do you think?

I think the Reuter journalist who filed the report need to learn Mandarin.

Clivebenss SG

daman stress.

BanguIzai SG

Title is about China's national langauge, not about mother tongue,

There is a distinct official differences.

China's policy of teaching the "national language" has gone till the extent of destroying the mother tongue of different segments of people.

What the government propagates is that "teaching of the national language (i.e. Putonghua) is not to exterminate the regional languages, but to promote social mobility through intralingual communication".

What the teachers do in the schools are often as below:

Clivebenss SG

bang why bother with these huan ai ah?

Gun SG

China's policy of teaching the "national language" has gone till the extent of destroying the mother tongue of different segments of people.

What the teachers do in the schools are often as below:

Do you have source about China's national langauge forcing minorities or dialect speaking communities to drop and even ban them from speaking ?

For Okinawans, well, let's say they are not as fortunate under the Japanese for over last 100 years. Till today, they unofficially discouraged from using their mother tongue and even directly told that their language "corrupts" the Standard Japanese!

http://japanfocus.org/-Patrick-Heinrich/1596

Okinawa Times on December 3rd 2004, a government official opposed the idea of reviving the Ryukyuan languages and having them taught in school. She writes: ‘I have come across the misunderstanding that the Okinawa dialects are believed to constitute language systems of their own because terms such as Okinawan or island language and the like exist. As a matter of fact, they are merely instances of corrupt accents and Old Japanese words which have not vanished but continue to be used in Okinawa. (…) Although there have recently been voices calling for teaching the dialects as languages to children, such a practice would be dreadful. What is the idea of teaching corrupt accents? If pupils are not taught to speak proper Japanese they will face humiliation when grown up because of the language ba -

See more at: http://japanfocus.org/-Patrick-Heinrich/1596#sthash.TOzpfbHU.dpuf

charlize SG

Clivebenss SG

now speak okinawan.

At the Bed SG

SBS 7603R SG

At the Bed SG

laurence82 SG

break

SBS 7603R SG

Clivebenss SG

okinawa break.

BanguIzai SG

Do you have source about China's national langauge forcing minorities or dialect speaking communities to drop and even ban them from speaking ?

http://japanfocus.org/-Patrick-Heinrich/1596

See more at: http://japanfocus.org/-Patrick-Heinrich/1596#sthash.TOzpfbHU.dpuf

Poor languages and dialects had been suffering under the hands of Nationalist policies:

http://travel.cnn.com/shanghai/life/you-think-youre-speaking-shanghainese-not-so-fast-666815

The Shanghai government is facing a problem it never thought it would have: finding Shanghainese speakers

22 November, 2010

Important quotes to note from the article:

The city is now trying to preserve the language for research, preservation and promotion activities, a 180-degree change from a national push in the 1990s that tried to eliminate the local dialect, banning its use in the media and in school.

“This is sad, but the loss of a local dialect is not just a problem in Shanghai, but also a problem of the whole south China where there are many local dialects,” posts Laisinanning on Kuandaishan. “If there are no actions taken, it’s just a matter of time that all dialects in southern China will be extinct, including Shanghainese.”

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