Category Archives: literacy

Zhuang writing

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An article from Xinhua discusses writing in Zhuang. The Zhuang, China’s largest “national minority” group, live mainly in Guangxi. Their language is written with the Roman alphabet.

The first paragraph discusses a prize for literature in Zhuang. One of the winners was a folk song, the other a novella. While I have nothing against folk songs, I find the novella potentially far more interesting as it wouldn’t necessarily fit within the framework of what multiculturalism has come to be in today’s China: “We love minorities as long as they wear colorful costumes, have some songs and dances, bring in tourists, and don’t spout other than the Party line.” (It wasn’t always so. In the period just after the 1949 revolution, the Communist authorities initially worked to give real support to minority groups — to the extent of registering many people as Zhuang who insisted that, no, they were Han!)

The novella, though, has a rather folksy title, Shorty A-he, so it may be just more in the colorful, old-fashioned-countryside-folk mode. Although there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, I hope there’s more to Zhuang literature than this. Otherwise, it’s going to end up a museum piece.

我国首届壮文文学奖日前揭晓，李从式的山歌《深情重如山》和陆登的中篇小说《短脚阿和》等５篇以壮文创作的作品获奖。众多语言学专家认为，文学艺术给壮文普及插上一对翅膀，对传承壮族文化起着重要作用。”民族语言文字在传播、培育民族文化中发挥着重要作用，以艺术形式推广不仅有利于普及壮文，还能更加鲜明地体现出壮族文化的内涵。”广西少数民族语言文字研究处主任杜宰经说。

壮族是我国人口最多的少数民族，１１月２９日是壮文诞辰４８年纪念日。壮族文化源远流长，壮文早在隋唐时期就有了雏形，但过去一直没有形成统一使用的民族语言文字，直到１９５７年国务院才经过语言文字专家仔细研究，通过了以拉丁字母为基础的拼音壮文方案。据统计，我国壮语人口已经超过１７００万人。作为中国学者和壮文研究者集体智慧的结晶，壮文已经在广西、云南文山等一些地方得到普及和应用。现行的标准壮语是以广西武鸣音为标准音、以壮族北部方言为基础方言的壮民族共同语。

广西贝贝特文化传播有限公司副总经理李庭华说：”过去壮文普及仅仅依托教育模式，通过设立壮汉双语教学学校，培养了数以十万计的壮文教育人才，但是文学艺术才是一个民族文化特色的本质所在，通过艺术表现力才能更好地展现一个民族的魅力。”

“今年广西在第五届壮族文学奖里增设了壮文文学奖，以文学艺术竞赛模式促进了壮文文学创作队伍的扩大，有益于建立独特的壮文文学读者群，从而推动壮语普及和壮族文化发展。”李庭华说。

为了普及壮文，广西之前还举办过农民学壮文学科技等一系列颇具特色的壮文培训班，将壮文扫盲与脱贫致富相结合。”过去学壮文学科技致富脱贫，现在学壮文学艺术陶冶情操。”李庭华笑着说。

source: Shǒujiè Zhuàngwén wénxué jiǎng jiēxiǎo　Zhuàngyǔ pǔjí dāchéng yìshù kuàichē, (首届壮文文学奖揭晓　壮语普及搭乘艺术快车), Xinhua, November 4, 2005.

Taiwan to introduce Mandarin test for prospective foreign students

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Beginning next June, Taiwan will require that foreign students and overseas Taiwanese-Chinese applying to study in universities take a newly developed Mandarin proficiency text, according to the Taipei Times. Those who do not pass will be required to take Mandarin lessons to supplement their studies.

Here are the proficiency test levels:

  • Elementary
    Level 1
    can understand simple instructions and basic dialogues
    Level 2
    can understand the main points of topic and read ads, posters, etc.
  • Intermediate
    Level 3
    can understand general conversation and short texts
    Level 4
    can pick up the main points of a discussion and understand longer texts
  • Advanced
    Level 5
    can discuss specialist subjects and understand simple classical Chinese texts and proverbs
    Level 6
    can expound upon and discuss topics and understand news reports at native speed
    Level 7
    native speaker fluency

source: Foreign students face Mandarin test, Taipei Times, Thursday, Nov. 3, 2005.

Singapore to allow electronic Chinese dictionaries in exams

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Students in Singapore will be able to use certain government-approved handheld electronic Mandarin dictionaries in national exams beginning in 2007. Some printed dictionaries are already allowed for ‘O’ level mother tongue composition exams and, from next year, will also be permitted in PSLE mother tongue composition exams.

The electronic dictionaries will be allowed in the Chinese language composition part of the PSLE and GCE ‘N’, ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels.

I’ve written to the company that makes one of the approved electronic dictionaries, the Hansvision Handheld Dictionary PX2051, for details but have not received a response. The product costs S$24 (about US$14).

The move to allow the electronic devices is in response to a report issued last year by the Chinese Language Review Committee that recommended their use.

Basically, students are finding Chinese characters just too much trouble, so Singapore, wisely, has changed its approach to teaching Mandarin to focus more on speaking and listening. Now if it would just place more emphasis on Pinyin….

source: Electronic Chinese dictionaries to be allowed in national exams, Channel News Asia, October 25, 2005.

meeting in Kunming on ‘national minority languages’

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The Yunnan Ribao (Yúnnán Rìbào) reported on Wednesday that a gathering related to what in China are called “national minority languages” (i.e., non-Sinitic languages) recently concluded in Kunming.

Zuórì, quánguó shǎoshù mínzú wénzì jiàocái biānyì, shěnchá hé chūbǎn guǎnlǐ gōngzuò jīngyàn jiāoliú huì zài Kūnmíng jǔxíng. Láizì Xīnjiāng, Nèiměnggǔ, Qīnghǎi, Sìchuān děngděng １０ yú ge shěng, shì, zìzhìqū de mín wén jiàocái zhuānjiā xiānghù jiāoliú jīngyàn, wèi zhìdìng mín wén jiàocái “十一五” guīhuà jísīguǎngyì.

Jù liǎojiě, quánguó bāokuò Nèiměnggǔ, Xīnjiāng, Xīzàng jí Yúnnán děngděng １０ yú ge shǎoshù mínzú bǐjiào jízhōng de shěng jí zìzhìqū, réng zài shíxíng bùtóng chéngdu de shuāngyǔ jiàoxué, fùgài dà zhōng, xiǎo xuésheng dàyuē ６００ duō wàn rén. Yǐ biānjí chūbǎn le １０ duō ge mínzú de ２０ yú ge yǔzhǒng de mín wén jiàocái, měi nián chūbǎn de zhōng-xiǎoxué mín wén jiàocái yuē yǒu ３,０００ duōzhǒng, zǒng yìnshù dá １ yì duō cè. Zì ２００１ nián zhì ２００４ nián yǐlái, wǒ shěng cēn shěn mín wén jiàocái yǔzhǒng zhúnián zēngjiā, shěndìng zhìliàng zhúnián tígāo, gòng shěndìng １１ ge mínzú １４ ge yǔzhǒng de １５１ běn mín wén jiàocái, chūbǎn １４ ge yǔzhǒng de １５０ duō wàn cè mín wén jiàocái. Jīnnián, shěng Jiàoyùtīng hái jiāng duì １２ ge mínzú １５ ge yǔzhǒng de sānniánjí yǔwén xīnkè gǎi mín wén jiàocái jìnxíng biānshěn chūbǎn fāxíng. Mùqián, wǒ shěng yǐ shǐyòng yí, bái, Wǎ děng １４ ge mínzú ２１ zhǒng mínzú wénzì zài mínzú dìqū zhōng-xiǎoxué kāizhǎn shuāngyǔ jiàoxué, yǒu １４ ge mínzú yòng ２２ zhǒng mínzú wénzì huò pīnyīn fāng’àn jìnxíng sǎománg.

昨日，全国少数民族文字教材编译、审查和出版管理工作经验交流会在昆明举行。来自新疆、内蒙古、青海、四川等１０余个省市自治区的民文教材专家相互交流经验，为制定民文教材“十一五”规划集思广益。

据了解，全国包括内蒙古、新疆、西藏及云南等１０余个少数民族比较集中的省及自治区，仍在实行不同程度的双语教学，覆盖大中小学生大约６００多万人。已编辑出版了１０多个民族的２０余个语种的民文教材，每年出版的中小学民文教材约有３０００多种，总印数达１亿多册。自２００１年至２００４年以来，我省参审民文教材语种逐年增加，审定质量逐年提高，共审定１１个民族１４个语种的１５１本民文教材，出版１４个语种的１５０多万册民文教材。今年，省教育厅还将对１２个民族１５个语种的三年级语文新课改民文教材进行编审出版发行。目前，我省已使用彝、白、佤等１４个民族２１种民族文字在民族地区中小学开展双语教学，有１４个民族用２２种民族文字或拼音方案进行扫盲。

source: Mínzú wénzì jiàocái zhuānjiā jù Kūnmíng jiāoliú (民族文字教材专家聚昆交流)

Taiwan citizenship and Mandarin

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Today’s Taipei Times has the following note:

Citizenship changes proceed

Foreign nationals seeking Taiwanese citizenship will be required to have a basic grasp of Mandarin and an understanding of the rights and responsibilities of being a Taiwanese citizen if an amendment to the Nationality Law (國籍法 guójí fǎ) is passed. The amendment was approved by the legislature’s Home and Nations Committee yesterday and sent for further screening to a legislative plenary session. According to the amendment, the Ministry of the Interior will set the standards regarding basic language ability and knowledge of citizen rights and responsibilities. The ministry will also be responsible for testing applicants. Vice Minister of the Interior Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎) said that the amendment is aimed at bringing naturalization laws in line with those of such English-speaking countries as the US, Canada and New Zealand.

According to an official U.S. government Web site on U.S. citizenship and immigration services, “To be eligible for naturalization, you must be able to read, write, and speak basic English.” (Emphasis mine.)

The few Web pages I’ve scanned about Canadian citizenship are not as specific about the language requirement. I get the impression, though, that being able to read and write French or English is not required as long as speaking ability exists. I didn’t see anything specific about the English-language requirement for New Zealand, either.

Official talk of a language requirement for ROC (Taiwan) citizenship surfaced about a year ago. At the time, I called the Ministry of the Interior to inquire about the situation. If applicants for citizenship are required to be able to read and write Mandarin in Chinese characters, this would be a substantial barrier to naturalization — much more so than being able to read or write a language that is written in an alphabetic script.

I was told that reading and writing Chinese characters would not be required. I hope that is still the intention of the government.

I also inquired whether languages of Taiwan other than Mandarin would be acceptable, and I was told they would be. Thus, someone able to speak Taiwanese (Hokkien, Minnan, Holo…), Hakka, or, rather less likely, one of the languages of Taiwan’s tribes, would be able to meet the language requirement without knowledge of Mandarin. I hope that this, too, is still the intention of the government.

I suspect some of the ambiguity may lie in how Guóyǔ (國語) is translated. Most of the time the word refers to Mandarin. Recently, however, the government has occasionally chosen to translate Guóyǔ not as “national language” (i.e. Mandarin) but “national languages” (i.e. the more than one dozen languages of Taiwan: Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka, and the languages of Taiwan’s tribes).

literacy in China

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The Taipei Times had a story today about Tainan’s Wennan Township offering a program to help foreign spouses who cannot read Chinese. In this case, “foreign spouses” doesn’t mean Westerners like me but rather the modern equivalent of mail-order-brides. (Tainan is in Taiwan, for those who don’t know.)

In order to help foreign spouses who can’t read or write Chinese to pass their written test, during the week-long program, questions are read out loud in Chinese by instructors and the students simply answer yes or no, or pick the right answer on answer sheets….

Additionally, the program has been able to help spouses from China that are unable to take written tests — because of either illiteracy or an inability to read traditional Chinese characters.

This brought to mind the question of (il)literacy in China.

I’ve long been skeptical of the claims of high literacy for China, because “literacy” is seldom defined in any specific and useful manner and because most statistics from the PRC are none too reliable. One definition I saw for literacy in China was the ability to “recognize” 2,000 characters — or just 1,500 characters for people in the countryside. (Perhaps this could be a new ad campaign for relieving population pressures on China’s overcrowded cities. “Are you a city dweller having trouble reading? Move to the countryside and — shazam! — become literate!”) How is this recognition tested? What does this recognition consist of? What does any of this have to do with the ability to write as well as read? Who knows. And then there’s the question of literacy in what language.

I browsed around the Internet and came across some Unesco figures on literacy in China. According to a 1997 survey posted on that site, in Hubei, where I used to live, 22 percent of women are not literate — and that number is better than the national average for women.

the means to literacy that dare not speak its name

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I did a little more looking today for information on literacy in China. I’m amazed — or perhaps not — that so little attention has been paid to it officially, at least if Chinese government Web sites are representative.

I did find a site called China Literacy Online, which features a literacy-related chronology. I looked through that for mentions of Pinyin.

The first is, interestingly, from 1951:

12月15日

教育部在北晾召开“速成识字法”座谈会。会上，中国人民解放军西南军区某部文化教员祁建华同志介绍了“速成识字法”。

“速成识字法”是祁建华在教部队干部、战士学文化的过程中创造的。据中央人民政府人民革命军事委员会，总政治部宣传介绍，祁建华“速成识字班”主要精神是，籍注音符号为辅助识字的工具，发挥我军群众路线的教学经验，采用联系实际的教学方法，展开群众性的识字运动。整个“速成识字法”的教学过程，除思想动员工作外，一般地分为三个步骤来进行：

第一步，学会注音符号和拼音，掌握识字的辅助工具（战士称注音符号为“识字拐棍”）。教注音符号，一般是从易到难，先教介符，然后教单音声符，再教双音声符，最后教韵符。

第二步，突击单字，先求会读与初步会讲。

第三步，教、学语文课本，同时开展大量的阅读、写字、写话活动，巩固所认识的字，并扩大了解字义的范围，作到会写会用。

“速成识字法”教学时间共计近300小时（第一步，20小时～30小时；第二步，100多小时；第三步，150小时左右）。

Here’s one from December 13, 1958:

教育部发出通知，介绍山东、河北两省拼音字母扫盲试点经验。通知说，从两省经验看，一个文盲、半文盲10多个小时就可以学会拼音字母。学会拼音以后，能加快扫盲速度，巩固扫盲成果，提高阅读能力，并为学习普通话打下基础。通知要求各省、市，自治区根据具体情况和条件，考虑开展这项工作。

And another from December 1959:

山西省在万荣县召开推广注音扫盲现场会。山西省专、市、县教育行政干部、共青团干部和中、小学校长、教师共600多人参加会议。中国文字改革委员会、全国妇联的负责同志和黑龙江省、四川省等14个单位的代表80多人应邀参加会议。

会议交流了一些推行汉语拼音方案，采用注音识字的经验。目前这一工作进展情况良好。据不完全统计，全省已经训练出拼音教师67600多人，参加汉语拼音学习的己有328万多人。会议决定，在全省推广注音扫盲的经验，并作出了全面规划，力争在1960年实现无盲省。

That’s it. There are no more mentions of Pinyin after this. A mere three stories out of 189 mention Pinyin.

A search on that site yields but seven hits for “拼音” and none at all for “pinyin”.

book sales in China

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“The World’s Biggest Book Market”, a piece in the New York Times about book sales in China:

They’re poring over cartoons — translations of ”Calvin and Hobbes” and of Japanese manga — and the locally drawn ”Legend of Nezha” books, which held 10 of the top 11 places on a Chinese best-seller list last year. Others turn the pages of a Garfield English-Chinese dictionary, which contains no entry for lasagna, but one for tofu.

Although the author is talking about children at this point, the best-seller list isn’t given as specifically children’s books. So think about it: 10 of the 11 best-selling books in China last year were comic books. I have nothing against comic books, but, under such conditions, figures of high book sales don’t really work to support the idea of a high state of literacy.

The situation isn’t much better in Japan.

But translations into Chinese make up only 6 percent of the 190,000 books printed in China in 2003. Instead, the world’s fastest-growing book market — adding an estimated $300 million in sales annually — is fueled by textbooks, which account for nearly half of all purchases. (This is according to China’s statistical yearbook and a definitive book on publishing, which offer the most reliable figures available on the Wild West atmosphere of the Chinese book market.)

So textbooks — which are required purchases — make up half of sales.

Moreover, I wonder what the percentage of books is in languages other than Mandarin? And of those textbooks, what percent are in or about English?