MCLC: 400 million Chinese can't speak Mandarin (4)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Robert Eng <robert_eng at redlands.edu>
Subject: 400 million Chinese can't speak Mandarin (4)
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Like Magnus Fiskesjö, I too would like to know what are "the best
linguistic & sociolinguistic studies of the ongoing demise of major
southern Chinese languages, such as Wu (Shanghainese)." This thread on
"400 million Chinese Can't Speak Mandarin" and the earlier thread on
"Cantonese novels" are really related.

One pertinent observation crops up in Victor Mair's blog entry
<http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=6786> and the comments (via the
link sent by Han Meng): Mair states: "When people dare to raise these
issues with regard to the various varieties of Chinese / Sinitic, it can
lead to volatile reactions." One commenter states his feeling that a
Chinese chemist considers him to be a "splittist" when he contradicts her
view "that Chinese dialects, properly called, differ only in pronunciation
and all have the same grammar" and therefore should not be considered
separate languages. Another commenter who is overseas Chinese states:
"Whenever I venture the opinion to my educated Chinese friends that
Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Taiwanese are not just dialects but
languages, I have the feeling I get classified as either a traitor or a
barbarian. I can sense a chill in the air and a tightness in the throat."

The flip side of the concern that too many Chinese cannot speak (proper)
Mandarin is the fear on the part of many speakers of Cantonese,
Shanghainese etc. that their languages/topolects are in danger of
extinction because of the central government's language and education
policies and the influx of non-speakers of the local topolect into
Guangzhou, Shanghai etc. Some are fighting back to preserve their
linguistic and cultural heritage.

I have not made a systematic study, but occasionally one will find reports
of this phenomenon in the press: e.g. this Financial Times story on
"Reviving lingua Shanghainese

<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/ae9f6244-5703-11e1-be5e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2e
W0HWPox>." 

Back in in the summer of 2010, a series of demonstrations in
Guangzhou was sparked by an official's proposal to replace Cantonese with
Mandarin in two television channels. Although triggered by the protesters'
perception that their native tongue of Cantonese is in danger of
extinction, these demonstrations reflected deeper sources of social
discontent: the loss of cultural heritage and social dislocations
resulting from massive urban renewal in Guangzhou in advance of the 2010
Asian Games. Social and cultural activists used the Internet and the
digital media as tools of social mobilization, cultural preservation and
message delivery, as evinced in online debates and forums, digital art,
visual parodies, rap songs, and video documentaries. I have a detailed
analysis of this episode
<http://chinamusictech.blogspot.com/2010/08/is-cantonese-in-danger-of-extin
ction.html> on my personal blog.

Bob