From Xinhua
大柵欄的4個公交站牌的拼音都為“DAZHALAN”，這讓許多路人納悶：不是讀“DASHILAN”嗎？
昨天，家住大柵欄、年逾七旬的張大爺說：“我讀了一輩子‘DASHILAN’，從來沒人說我讀錯，是不是站牌寫錯了？”
北京市公交總公司運營部的李女士表示，站牌的拼音是按正確的中文拼音來標注的。
到底哪個讀音是對的？北京師范大學中文系研究現代漢語的週一民教授認為：大柵欄的讀音屬於地名的特殊讀音，歷史悠久的“DASHILAN”讀法屬於保留古音。雖然目前國家還沒有專門的地名名詞規範，但播音教材中都專門談到應讀為“DASHILAN”。從保留民俗民情的角度來說，他更傾向於讀為“DASHILAN”。
From Xinhua
????4??????????“DAZHALAN”?????????????“DASHILAN”??
???????????????????“??????‘DASHILAN’???????????????????”
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???????????????????????????????????????????????????????“DASHILAN”??????????????????????????????????????????“DASHILAN”?????????????????????“DASHILAN”?
There’s some useful information here scattered among the propaganda and party line. It’s also good to know what the other side is thinking.
韩国： 汉字命运新挑战
( 尽管韩国一直尝试用韩文取代汉文。但由于和中国日益密切的联系以及韩文本身的缺陷，汉字在韩国的影响将越来越大。)预计最早从明年开始，韩国国内法律文本中很难看懂的汉字标记方式将全部被韩文取汽车生活方式大比拼特别关注银屑病鱼鳞病专治各种血管瘤！ 免费与美女视频聊天代。
据《朝鲜日报》报道，韩国政府于12月21日在政府中央大厦召开由李海瓒总理主持的国务会议，会议决定“有关将法律韩文化的特别措施法案”。该法案的主要内容为，将现行759项法律文本中混用的汉字标记方式全部以韩文取代。
汉字为韩国所长期借用，但随着历史进程的演变，汉字在韩国的命运有所不同。概而言之，汉字先是备受推崇，之后又被弃而不用。伴随着这一过程，汉字在韩国的命运也经历了诸多变迁。
韩国汉字盛行
一下汉城的仁川机场，扑面而来的便是标识牌上的汉字，和到西方国家全是外文截然不同。2003年7月，我们一群中国访问者在汉城并没有太多身在异乡的感觉，同行的小梁乘地铁到汉城著名的南大门购物，竟然一点也没有问路——地铁站都有中文标识。
同属汉文化圈，汉字对韩国的影响今天还依稀可见，且有扩大之势。10月29日至11月12日，14名韩国书法家携带自己的作品来到北京进行展览，虽然以韩国文字写成，但也与中国书法相通，有类似隶书的版本体，有类似行书的宫体正字，也有类似草书的真草体。
书法、绘画、艺术等和文字难以截然分开。目前，韩国60%以上的词汇是汉字的发音或者汉字的意思，好多概念也是从汉语传过去，离开汉字，有些意思真的难以表达。
韩国的表音字由10个元音和14个子音组成。其优点是简单易学。即使外国人，只要掌握了拼写组合方法，也能正确诵读。不过，能够诵读是一回事，能否理解其中的意思却是另外的事。全部使用拼音文字的朝鲜表音字存在严重“盲点”。
仅以韩国的姓氏为例。郑和丁，姜和康，柳和俞，林和任等均同音。另外，单词中也存在不少同音异字。例如，故事、古寺、考查、古辞、告辞、枯死等22个单词同音；诈欺、士气、死期、社旗同音；电机，转机，前期，战记同音；输入、收入同音……报纸上也经常遇到，因使用表音字母令读者对其表达意思感到头疼，需要像猜谜一样猜想。
正因为如此，韩国政府决定，在法律文件中用韩文取代汉字后，如果存在难以正确表达原意或可以被解释为多种意思的术语，便在该词后面打上括号注明汉字。
韩国驻华使馆一位官员在和笔者聊天时说：“汉字在韩国的具体情况要问韩国的教育部门，但我们很重视汉字的教育。”
汉字兴衰和韩国民族主义情绪
就在“汉风”在韩国劲吹之际，韩国为什么取消法律文本中的汉字标记？按照《朝鲜日报》的报道，表面原因是韩国政府考虑到在学校没有学汉字的人群逐渐增加，为了解决上述人群在了解法律的过程中面临的难题而推进了该法案。但实际上，原因没有这么简单。《当代韩国》编辑部的资深编辑郑成宏女士认为，这说明韩国民族主义抬头。她介绍说，金大中总统执政时期，韩国在公务文件、交通标志等领域，恢复使用已经消失多年的汉字和汉字标志，并在中小学推行“1800个常用汉字必修教育”。
但现在由于中韩关系因为历史问题出现了一点摩擦，韩国主张均衡战略的一派抬头。郑成宏认为，民族主义可能是这次从法律文本中取消中文标记的原因之一。
其实，关于是否保留汉字、保留多少汉字的争端一直在进行中。有些机构主张保留汉字，有些机构主张不要汉字，有些主张增加或者减少汉字。
在韩国，既有170多个社会团体联合组成全国汉字教育推广总联合会，又有以韩国表音字学会为中心的表音字专用实践促进会。前者1998年提出“从小学接受汉字教育，摆脱文化危机”的口号，而后者为维护表音字专用法，曾经开展过轰轰烈烈的1000万人大签名活动。双方围绕着是否恢复使用汉字问题的争论不仅是理论之争，甚至扩展升华至民族感情层次。
韩国法律规定，以表音字为专用文字。1948年独立之后，为了弘扬民族精神，政府制定了朝鲜拼音文字专用法，规定公文只能用表音字书写。但是鉴于历史的缘故，暂时允许兼用汉字。从1970年起，韩国小学、中学教科书中的汉字被取消，完全使用朝鲜表音字。在其后的30年当中，小学完全取消了汉字，初中高中仅向学生教授1800个汉字。这一原因造成韩国20～40岁的人几乎完全不懂汉字。他们被称为“表音字的一代”。
带给这代人的后果，是古典文化修养欠缺，与传统脱离，完全脱离了东亚文化圈，深陷孤立与凄楚之中。韩国青年一代连汉字读法都不清楚，书写汉字就更困难了。很多人用汉字写不出自己的名字，父母的名字也写不出，走出学校进入社会之后还要自学汉字。
但是，社会必须面对汉字的存在，因而韩国面向成人的汉字函授机构遍布各地。随着“中国热”的兴起，到中国学汉语更是成了一股热潮。
Mandarin’s status as China’s standard language has been further enhanced as nearly 53 percent of the 1.3 billion Chinese in the country can communicate with others via Mandarin, said a national survey released here Sunday.
That’s just about half, which is a long way from what has been the standard line: that just about everyone in China — barring a few old folk living in isolation on the tops of mountains — can speak Mandarin. I’m glad Beijing is finally allowing a bit more honesty about this, though of course the much more limited claim is still being touted as an advancement (“further enhanced”).
The survey shows there are huge gaps in the number of Mandarin-speaking people if different resident localities, age groups, and educational background are taken into account.
Two thirds of the citizens in China’s cities and towns speak Mandarin, 21 percent higher than that in the rural areas.
The proportion of Mandarin-speakers decreases as the age group rises, with more than two thirds of people aged between 15 and 29 and less than one third of those aged between 60 and 69 can speak the standard language.
The spread of education also helped to break down linguistic barriers, the survey said.
Only ten percent of the Chinese who have never gone to school speak Mandarin, while the proportion rockets to nearly 87 percent as for those with at least two-year college education.
This is strange. One would think that native speakers of Mandarin — even decades ago — would comprise more than 10 percent of the population. Was education really so much better in the north?
Mandarin, known in China as “putonghua” or “common tongue”, has been promoted as the standard pronunciation of Chinese language for more than fifty years.
More of the usual nonsense, stemming from the notion that the written form is the “real” language.
I can’t help but think of Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau getting a puzzled look in response to his request for a “rhoom.”
The survey also shows 86 percent of the population can speak regional Chinese dialects, and nearly 5 percent use the languages of China’s 55 ethnic minority groups to communicate.
Use of dialects is most common in China’s families, while in offices, people tend to communicate in Mandarin more frequently, said Tong Lequan, official with the Institute of Applied Linguistics, when referring to the survey.
Half of the respondents attributed lack of opportunity to speakas the most tricky problem when learning Mandarin, while 43 percent said getting rid of their regional accents is the most difficult.
The standard line of calling everything a “dialect” makes it really hard to tell just what is being talked about here: language, a real dialect, or a regional accent within a dialect.
Note that with Pinyin, there are fewer pronunciation problems because Pinyin, unlike characters, makes the standard pronunciation clear.
Launched in the autumn of 1998, the survey is sponsored by the State Language Commission of China, and was the first national survey on language use since the founding of the New China in 1949,said Yang Guang, director with the language usage administration bureau under China’s Ministry of Education.
The survey covered more than 160,000 households and 470,000 people in China’s 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.
Here’s a different version of the same story:
中国语言文字使用调查 能用普通话人口比例53％
http://www.sina.com.cn 2004年12月26日17:20 中国广播网中广网北京12月26日消息（记者李仁主）教育部和国家语言文字工作委员会今天发布的“中国语言文字使用情况调查”结果显示：目前我国能用普通话进行交际的人口比例约为53％，能用汉语方言进行交际的人口比例约为86％，能用少数民族语言进行交际的人口比例约为5％。能用普通话进行交际的人口比例在城乡之间存在一定差距。城镇的普通话比例约为66％，高出乡村21个百分点。这一结果体现了我国50多年推广普通话的巨大成就。
汽车生活方式大比拼 新浪UC诚聘 虚位以待
新兴妈妈回娘家视频 卡通新车 新地图据了解：中国语言文字使用情况调查项目经国务院批准于1998年启动，1999—2000年各地语委相继展开调查，至2001年地方调查基本结束。在“五普”人口普查数据的基础上，中国语言文字使用情况调查办公室对数据进行汇总处理。
调查发现，在15-69周岁人群中，年龄越低，能用普通话交际的比例越高；受教育程度越高，能用普通话交际的比例也越高。60-69岁年龄段人群能用普通话交际的比例约为31％，而15-29岁年龄段的比例高达70％。另外，在我国不同性别能用普通话交际的比例比较相近，女性稍低于男性。“普通话与方言并存分用”、“在公务场合使用普通话”是我国目前语言使用的主要格局。普通话作为通用语言场合越正式，使用比例越高。在家庭中最常使用普通话的比例约为18％，而在单位最常使用普通话的比例约为42％。
调查还显示：全国95％以上的人平时书写时使用规范字，会汉语拼音的人口比例达到了 68％。“中国语言文字使用情况调查”范围涉及除港澳台外的全国31个省、区、市以及新疆生产建设兵团，调查样本量达16万多户，47万多人。如此大规模的语言调查在我国还是第一次，调查结果将对国家语言文字工作部门和其他相关部门具有重要参考价值。
I wonder if the 1 percent using traditional characters are expats from Taiwan or Hong Kong.
近1%人仍用繁体字书写
http://www.sina.com.cn 2004年12月27日11:05 重庆商报新华网消息国家语言文字工作委员会26日在京公布的一项调查结果显示，中国95.25%的人平时主要书写简化字，3.84%的人简化字和繁体字同时使用，而仍有0.92%的人坚持使用繁体字书写。
这项就中国语言文字使用情况所作的调查同时发现，在阅读繁体字书报方面，22.71%的人认为“基本没有困难”，35.98%的人认为“有些困难但凭猜测能读懂大概意思”，而有41.3%的人认为“困难很多”。在认读和拼写汉语拼音方面，表示“会的”占44.63%，“会一些”的占23.69%，“不会的”占31.68%。
自上世纪50年代以来，中国对部分汉字进行简化，现在推行、使用经简化、整理的规范汉字。 “中国语言文字使用情况调查”范围涉及除港澳台外的全国31个省、自治区、直辖市以及新疆生产建设兵团，调查样本量达16万多户、47万多人；在95%置信度下，比例数据的估计决定绝对误差低于0.35%。（来源：重庆商报）
Here’s an AP story, with a lot of bad information (“dialects” instead of languages, etc.). But it’s still useful as a reminder of what China is doing to suppress languages other than Mandarin as part of Beijing’s struggle to create the “one China” that it claims has existed forever and ever, amen.
Thousands of years of Chinese linguistic heritage have come down to this: a squabble over Tom and Jerry.
Dubbed into regional Chinese dialects, the warring cat and mouse have been huge TV hits – and a good way to pass home-grown culture down to the younger generation, programmers say.
Not so fast, says the central government up north in Beijing, which for decades has promoted standard Mandarin as the only Chinese language worthy of the airwaves. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television has ordered an end to broadcasting in dialect, saying kids should be raised in a “favorable linguistic environment.”
The move has put Tom and Jerry – or “Cat and Mouse,” as the show is called here – at the center of a long-running debate about how to maintain national cohesion amid a linguistic sea of highly distinct regional accents, dialects, and wholly separate language groups.
“As an artist, I think dialect should be preserved as a part of local culture,” says Zhang Dingguo, deputy director of the Shanghai People’s Comedy Troupe which does Tom and Jerry in Shanghainese.
“Schools don’t allow Shanghainese to be spoken, and now TV doesn’t either. It looks like Shanghai comedy will be dying out,” he adds.
The government calls the Mandarin policy vital to promoting a common Chinese identity in this vast land of 1.3 billion people, 56 ethnic groups and seven main Chinese dialects spoken by the Han ethnic majority.
“Thank you” is pronounced “xie xie” in Beijing, “do jey” in Hong Kong, and “sha zha” in Shanghai. Need to know a price? Ask “wa tsui gim” in Fujian, but “duoshao qian,” in Mandarin-speaking northern China.
The notion of “pronunciation” should be a red flag, indicating that the author is thinking in terms of characters rather than languages.
The pronunciation of Chinese surnames can induce mild identity crisis. Mr. Xu (pronounced “shoe”) in northern China becomes Mr. Ko in Fujian, which itself is called Hokkien in the local dialect.
Promotion of Mandarin – known here as “putonghua,” or “common tongue” – began in the 1920s and became policy in 1955, six years after the communists seized power. Its use has been encouraged through an unending series of social campaigns, including the current one featuring TV presenter Wang Xiaoya on billboards exhorting Shanghainese to “speak Mandarin … be a modern person.”
In the latest campaign, Shanghai city officials are being required to attend classes on perfecting their pronunciation, schools are nominating contestants in city-wide Mandarin speech contests and foreigners are being invited to Mandarin classes.
Totally distinct from Chinese, the languages of minority groups such as Tibetans, Uighurs and Mongolians are officially recognized and taught in schools. Important documents are translated into major minority tongues and four of them – Tibetan, Mongolian, Uighur and Zhuang – appear on Chinese bank notes.
Chinese dialects are based on the same system of writing.
Yup. Like I said, this reporter is repeating myths about the Chinese languages and characters. What the author is saying isn’t so different than claiming that Chinese people wrote their languages before they spoke them, which is of course absurd. But this is typical of how the myths about characters and languages have confused people, even about what ought to be fairly obvious.
That means Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong can enjoy subtitled Mandarin movies and Mandarin-speakers can order off Chinese menus in the far west of the country.
Because speakers of Cantonese and other Chinese languages learn to read and write not their own languages but Mandarin. There’s nothing magical or especially language-transcending about Chinese characters.
Rising incomes, greater travel freedom and the spread of education are also helping to break down linguistic barriers. Yet no one is predicting they’ll dissolve entirely – or soon.
“Many parts of China are heading for a situation of what linguists call diglossia, where there is one ‘high’ or public language … and one ‘low’ or local language that is used among friends and family,” said Stevan Harrell, an expert on Chinese languages at the University of Washington.
Use of dialects may even be strengthening in some areas with strong local identities, sometimes for economic reasons. In Guangzhou (that’s Mandarin for the great southern city of Canton), broadcasters are allowed to speak Cantonese to compete with the nearby Hong Kong stations.
In places like Guangzhou and Shanghai, prevalence of the local dialect helps exclude outsiders from social networks that are key to securing good jobs and entry to better schools. Outsiders say it smacks of bigotry.
“If you want to find a good job and be a success in Shanghai, you have to speak Shanghainese. Even if you do, they can pick you out by your accent and discriminate against you,” said Steven Li, an accounting student flying home to the western city of Chongqing.
Preservation, not exclusion, was the purpose of Tom and Jerry in dialect, said Zhang, the producer.
“You’ve got Shanghainese kids who can’t even speak Shanghainese,” he complains. “I have friends who’ve moved to Shanghai and want to learn the language to better integrate into local society.
“Isn’t watching TV easier than studying textbooks?”
Zhang cites semilegal Shanghainese broadcasting that pops up on local radio as evidence of continued demand for dialect programming. For now, Tom and Jerry will continue in Shanghainese on video, along with other versions in close to a dozen dialects.
Oddy enough, Tom and Jerry didn’t speak in the original cartoons, so the dialect versions give them voices they never had.
Despite support for dialects, Mandarin’s influence reaches deep. Speaking the language well is considered a sign of good breeding and education. And because China has bound use of Mandarin so closely to the idea of national unity, promotion of other dialects can sometimes be seen as insulting if not traitorous.
Self-governing Taiwan’s efforts to promote its local dialect have been angrily denounced in Beijing as “anti-Chinese.” Even at an entertainment awards show in Shanghai, Chinese reporters drown out Hong Kong celebrities speaking in Cantonese with exasperated shouts of “speak Mandarin.”
The annual meeting of China’s legislature is a jamboree of regional accents and languages. Delegates, including Tibetans, Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong and Macau and Turkic Uighurs from Xinjiang in the remote northwest, struggle to make themselves understood in Mandarin. Other delegates and Chinese reporters strain to understand.
The farther from Beijing, though, the tougher communication becomes.
In the bazaar in Minfeng, a town deep in the Xinjiang desert, ethnic Chinese strain to understand Turkic Uighurs’ thickly accented, broken Mandarin.
“Every Uighur student who comes here has already learned Chinese in elementary school. Their levels vary wildly, but they can all understand it at certain levels,” says Li Qiang, principal of Middle School No. 1 in Korla, a town in central Xinjiang.
But, he allows, “We sometimes need to work very hard to understand each other.”
Various scholars discuss ???????????????. Some of the participants mouth the usual alarmist, nationalist nonsense common in the PRC. But there are also some who take a different approach:
??????“????”??????????????????????????????????????????????
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????“???????????????”????????????????????“????”????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
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Here’s a machine English translation
English names may be introduced in every public place in the growing southern city of Guangzhou.
The Guangzhou Language Committee said the city government has asked relevant departments and organizations to introduce English names for city streets, scenic spots, parks, residential areas, bus stops, metro stations, piers, museums and even public toilets.
The municipal government is striving to turn the city into an international metropolis.
Currently, most of the city’s public places have only pinyin or local Cantonese style names that confuse most foreigners.
At the same time, the language committee will soon launch a city-wide campaign to check English usage in the city.
The committee plans to set up a task force to help inspect all public places to further promote and standardize the use of English names.
The public venues that have no English names will be asked to provide one while those with inappropriate names or bad translations will be required to come up with a better alternative, an official from the committee said.
Cantonese style expressions widely used in the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions will no longer be considered English names.
New police cars are already being converted, with the pinyin of the Chinese word for police, “Jing Cha,” substituted by the word “police” on both sides of the car.
The first group of new patrol wagons were put into service in Guangzhou late last week.
By September 2006, all the patrol wagons in service will be replaced by the new 2004 versions, or re-painted in the new style that includes white, blue and yellow colours, said the official yesterday.
Meanwhile all the grass-roots police offices and sub-stations will also be required to put up signs that include their English names in front of the their gates before the end of the year to provide better service, the official added.
An English police hotline has also opened to serve the English-speaking people in Guangzhou.
From the China Daily.