"I won’t speak local dialect"
Those words were on a sign hung around the necks of students who spoke their native Austronesian dialects at school in Taiwan 50 years ago, according to this BBC article (h/t Eye on East Asia). Something like this:
Sadly, there’s nothing singular about Taiwan here: this sort of language crime has been perpetrated by all sorts of groups across all sorts of civilizations. Even though the obliteration of Austronesian in Taiwan sounds pretty complete in the article, the article discusses efforts at revival and SIL shows that at least some do not have the dreaded “nearly extinct” label.
Without trivializing the topic but as an aside: I sure wish we had the original quote that got translated into “I won’t speak local dialect.” Based on the pic above, though, it appears the phrase was “我不说方言”. In that, the key word would be 方言 fāngyán, which we spend a lot of time discussing here at Sinoglot and which often gets translated as “dialect” even when it doesn’t really have the same meaning as “dialect” in English. (That we don’t have the original quote is just another argument for eliminating dubbing in print.)
This use of fangyan would be a good example of something a bit sinister in the word. To be specific, it seems that, sometimes, the term “fangyan” can be used to marginalize a local language by designating it just a bastardization of real speech.
In the case in question, Taiwan in the ’50s and ’60s, the presumably Sinitic-speaking educators who referred to an Austronesian language as a “fangyan” could not possibly have been bothered by the fact that it had no resemblance to Mandarin or Minnan. Their point wasn’t linguistic relationships at all, it was to stamp out a backwards form of speech.
A few years ago I might not have believed in the existence of this usage of fangyan. After all, DeFrancis extolled the virtues of the word, saying it clearly referred to the major Sinitic languages: Mandarin, Cantonese, etc. And that may well be the formal usage. But informally I’ve heard people use fangyan in other non-Sinitic situations, and it sometimes seems to have that unsavory “oh, listen to the barbarian yapping” kind of connotation.
But don’t worry: I’m not coining yet another dialofangyanolect word to try to render the complexity of Chinese in English.
“I’m not coining yet another dialofangyanolect word to try to render the complexity of Chinese in English.”
The traditional signs of senility in a Sinologist are publishing a new translation of the Daodejing and creating a new system of Romanization. Perhaps we can add a third criterion: New translation for fangyan?
Carl: lol. exactly
Not to be the senile responder, but in our uni course ‘Introduction to Chinese Culture’ the course mentioned the possible term ‘regionalect’ for different 方言 like Wu or Mandarin. The term ‘dialect’ was used for (e.g. Mandarin) Beijingdialect etc.
Thomas
Yellowcard: ha. that doesn’t sound senile to me. “Regionalect” is a pretty common translation for fangyan I think. And then “dialect” is used for, say, variations of Mandarin, as you mention.
I’m just pointing out here that fangyan in Chinese may be loaded in unexpected ways.
I attended Normal U (师大) in Taipei in 1978, and the official policy was to discourage speech in Minnanyu, and to fine those who spoke it on campus. At that time, one NEVER heard Minnanyu on the radio, TV or in a movie. Forbidden.
Under the Minjindang after 2000, a radically new language teaching policy was proposed and, I believe, partially implemented at least before the KMT came to power again recently. Under that policy, middle/high school students were required to study Mandarin, and had to study at least one other language native to Taiwan. That “other” one could include Minnanyu, but more significantly, it often included options for whatever ones were being spoken in the region, including non-Sinitic ones.
This is a mind-blowing departure from anything ever proposed on the Mainland, and was heavily criticized there as part of the “de-sinification” of Taiwan (去中国化).
I don’t know how far this proposal went on the ground, but it certainly did sound like a great way to do two things: 1) Sensitize young Taiwan residents to the linguistic diversity of their island; 2) Increase the feeling of distance between Taiwan residents and their people living on the Mainland.
The practice of referring to minority languages in China as “dialects” apparently lives on in the media in 2010.
“Cultural Heritage of China at Risk with Decline of Dialects” runs the headline in a July 24, 2010 piece by Vera Yu at Hong Kong’s “South China Morning Post.”
The opening 3 paragraphs then cite the situation of the Miao language:
“Jiang Yalin, 35, is one of the few people of her age back home in Guizhou who can still speak the Miao minority language. Brought up by her ethnic Miao grandmother, she is proud of her heritage, yet when she talks to her three-year-old daughter, she uses Putonghua, also known as Mandarin.
“When I tried to speak to my daughter in Miao, her dad complained that he felt like an outsider,” said Jiang, who married a northerner and lives in Zhejiang . “And there is simply no one else to speak Miao with here.”
Throughout the rest of the article, references are made mainly to dialects of Chinese, such as Cantonese and Minnanyu, as if their declining usage is equivalent to the situation faced by speakers of Miao and other languages. My understanding is that while Miao is classified generally as a Sino-Tibetan language, professional linguists do not consider it anything like a “dialect” of Chinese.
The recent spike in the appearance of articles lamenting that regional dialects have become endangered species is directly related to the fact that the PRC central authorities have announced that Guangzhou must run TV programming ONLY in Putonghua during prime time in the upcoming Asian Games. Some Cantonese speakers are up in arms about this announcement, and what it could mean for the future of their dialect.
To my mind, equating the state of usage of southern dialects, particularly Cantonese and Chaozhou, to that of distinct languages spoken by ethnic groups like the Miao is utterly misleading. The huge number of speakers of Cantonese and Chaozhou, their concentration in the richest part of China and throughout some of the wealthiest cities in Asia (Manila, Singapore, Bangkok, etc), and their wide use in electronic media such as radio, TV and film, makes their situation — and that of the languages they speak — very different to that of non-Han ethnic groups like the Miao.
“PRC central authorities have announced that Guangzhou must run TV programming ONLY in Putonghua during prime time in the upcoming Asian Games.”
Are you sure? Where can I find this announcement? It’s hard for me to imagine that the central authorities would directly interfere the job of the language committee of a prefecture-level city. They are at least four level apart.
Southern Chinese Oppose Ban on Cantonese TV
Thousand rally to support Cantonese
I’ve been following the controversy from the beginning. All the sources point to a proposition of Guangzhou’s PPCC, which is only a local advisory body holding no legislative power even on paper. Of course people have a right to react to such a proposition. I just can’t see how misrepresenting it as an announcement by the “central authorities” could benifit the preservation of Cantonese in any way.
Looks like you are all right to be questioning my choice of words. The newspaper reports I have seen lately such as the NY Times report (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/world/asia/27cantonese.html?_r=1&ref=world) “Move to Limit Cantonese on Chinese TV is Assailed” clarify that this was the suggestion of Ji Kekuang, a member of the local committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Thus my description of the announcement as coming from the “PRC central authorities” is incorrect.
An interesting pair of articles on the passions aroused has just appeared in SMW (南都周刊)，issue 2010.7.26, comparing the state of 21st-century Cantonese and Shanghainese: 《保护方言双城志》. It should be up online next week.
Here’s the part on Cantonese (粤语保育中的著先锋):
http://www.nbweekly.com/Print/Article/10817_0.shtml
And the other re: Shanghainese (上海人衰落上海话？):
http://www.nbweekly.com/Print/Article/10818_0.shtml
“I’ve heard people use fangyan in other non-Sinitic situations”
For more on this, see Mair’s What Is a Chinese “Dialect/Topolect”? Reflections on Some Key Sino-English Linguistic Terms, esp. pp. 4-5 (PDF).