The Chinese characters that are mixed in with the present 759 laws will be revised into Hangeul from the Hangeul Day (Korean Alphabet Day) of next year at the earliest.
The government held a state council under the supervision of Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan at the Central Government Complex in Sejongro on December 21 and passed the “Special Measure Bill For Revising Law into Hangeul” that enforces the Chinese characters that are used in present laws to be replaced with Hangeul as a rule.
This reflects the reality of the difficulty in understanding the law due to the increase in the number of generations who did not learn Chinese characters during school education.
The government is planning to carry out this plan from the 559th anniversary Hangeul Day of 2005, after revising the Chinese characters into Hangeul collectively through this special measure.
Category Archives: writing systems
super software?
I keep seeing vague references to “ICT” software, whose boosters like to make claims such as the following: “Usually students take six years to master 2,500 characters. With ICT they can learn 2,000 characters in a year. With this they can spend less time learning Chinese and more time on other subjects like English, Music and Science. With ICT, six-year-olds can write essays within a month!”
While I believe computers can help people learn Chinese characters, that’s roughly 10 characters every school day. I just don’t believe that all of those would be learned and fully retained. Where are the scientific studies? Does anyone know anything more about this?
On the other hand, Hanyu Pinyin can most definitely be learned within a month. Once that is done, people, including six-year-olds, are limited in what they can write only by the extent of their vocabulary.
new translations from the Bible into Hakka
Taiwan’s Bible Association recently released “Good News for the Hakka: Proverbs, Psalms and the Gospel According to John” in one volume. Association General Secretary Lai Chun-ming said, “This book makes use of the contemporary Hakka vernacular as it is spoken on the street. Insofar as it was possible the translation was made so as to put the Bible into an idiom that can easily be grasped and passed along.”
Mr. Lai said that the publication was aided by a donation from the Rev. Jerry Cole, a missionary from the Southern Baptist Convention. Of the 7,000 volumes published, Mr. Cole advance-purchased 4,000 for use in mission work. Remaining funding came through the Hakka Gospel Association and the Hakka Bible Translation Committee.
Rev. Peng Der-kuei, specialized minister for Hakka mission at Taipei’s Shuang-lien Presbyterian Church, said that the special features of this new volume include combined use of Chinese characters and Romanization accompanied by a preface in which the Romanization system for Hakkanese is clearly explained.
The Hakka Gospel Association has 2,000 volumes available for sale. Those wishing a copy can contact the group in Taiwan at 03 5945546.
Aborigines and personal names
Twenty years ago a few young aboriginal men established Taiwan’s first organization dedicated to the rights of the aboriginal people….
Launched in the early 1980s, the movement aimed to empower aborigines and to heighten their awareness of self-identity. In the early stages, the movement urged indigenous people to use their aboriginal names in their original languages, instead of taking Chinese-language names.
Past rulers of the island tended to adopt an assimilation policy under which they tried to “refine” what they saw as the “savage” aborigines. Both the Japanese colonial government and the subsequent Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) government respectively required aborigines to adopt Japanese and Chinese names.
Over the years, numerous activists attempted to change their names from Chinese language to aboriginal, but were refused by the Household Registration Administration. It was not until 1995, after continuous lobbying by activists, that the government allowed the use of aboriginal names, but still insisted that Chinese characters must be used….
Voyu Yakumangana, chairman of Association for Taiwan Indigenous People’s Policies, who also has a Chinese name, Yang Chi-wei, said the rectification campaign now aims to have all aborigines proudly claim their names in their original languages….
Payen Talu (巴燕達魯), one of the initiators of the rights movement twenty years ago, is however not totally satisfied with the progress being made.
“So far, less than one percent of the total aboriginal population have changed their names from Chinese to their aboriginal languages,” Payen said, though he allowed that there have been some gains, such as acceptance for the “aborigine” identity.
“Most indigenous people now would proudly admit that they are aborigine, which is very different compared to 20 years ago when the term “aborigine” carried a stigma in the wider society,” Payen said.
“But when you see most aboriginal politicians today still using their Chinese names, then you know that the movement still has a long way to go,” he added.
HK Putonghua and Pinyin test
1
The Examinations & Assessment Authority released today the results of the September Language Proficiency Assessment for Teachers. Some 29% of English teachers have acquired the basic requirement in writing, with 43% and 64% of candidates attaining the basic requirement in English speaking and listening.
For Putonghua papers, 43% of teacher candidates attained the basic requirement in listening and recognition, 63% in Pinyin and 42% in speaking.
It’s interesting that people do so much better in Pinyin than in not only listening and recognition but also speaking. Moreover, compare those with the figures for English. Hmm.
reading skills declining in Japan
From an editorial in the Asahi Shimbun:
The results of a test by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development should leave no doubt that Japanese children’s ability to read, think logically and express their thoughts is declining rapidly.
The survey was conducted last year on 15-year-olds in 41 countries and areas. It was designed to measure students’ practical ability to think independently, deal with various real problems in the world and build healthy relations with others. Since it was not a pure scholarship test, students were allowed to use calculators in solving mathematical problems.
Japanese students’ performance in the test to gauge reading skills has dropped to 14th from eighth in the previous survey in 2000. Japan registered the largest drop in scores for reading among all participating countries….
The report on the future of Japanese language education submitted in February by the Council for Cultural Affairs to the minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology reflected a strong sense of crisis about the situation….
The new curriculum guidelines implemented in the year that started in April 2002 reduced the amount of time for teaching Japanese at school. The number of children who don’t read books at all has been rising steadily.
The council report urged the government to enhance Japanese language education and provide more incentives for children to read books. As a step to achieve this goal, the report called for doubling the number of Chinese characters children learn at elementary school to cover most of the 1,945 designated by the government as basic characters. It is a very bold proposal that openly challenges the education ministry’s controversial policy of promoting “pressure-free” education….
Japanese children performed relatively well in dealing with selection problems in the OECD test but did poorly in essay questions. This should be regarded as a warning about university entrance exams in Japan.
Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward is planning to seek government approval for establishing itself as a special deregulation zone for Japanese language education. The initiative is designed to help children develop the ability to think deeply in Japanese. The plan would reduce the number of classes for comprehensive study and everyday life skills to increase the hours for Japanese language education.
Setagaya’s initiative is conspicuous amid local governments racing to create a special zone for English education. Setagaya’s sense of urgency should find a wide resonance in this country.
English signage proposal for Chinese-dominant area of Canada
Dec. 9, 2004
VANCOUVER – Richmond city council is being asked to consider a bylaw requiring shops and other businesses to display signs in English as well as Chinese.The recommendation comes from a committee established by council to examine what it calls “intercultural issues.” According to the 2001 census, 59 per cent of Richmond residents say they are members of a visible minority and 40 per cent claim Chinese heritage. Committee chair Shashi Assanand says the intent of the law is to help everyone in the community feel more included by offering signs that everyone can read.
“So as a result, if there are people who can’t read Chinese, we definitely would need to have English,” she says. “We don’t want to have parallel cultures building. We want to have intercultural communication, intercultural relationships, so that we can work as equals, with a lot of harmony here in Richmond.”
Danny Leung agrees. He’s the senior manager at the new Chinese-themed Aberdeen mall, where the signs are in both Chinese and English.
Leung says he’d support an English language sign bylaw. And he suggests restricting the size of Chinese characters to address a problem he sees along No. 3 Road. “I think the signage is a little bit of overkill, in terms of the Chinese characters. I think it should be neutralized a little bit, and make it more tourist friendly.”
There’s no word on whether Richmond council is prepared to pass a language bylaw. A spokesperson for the city’s planning department says it would likely be a last resort, and passed only after much discussion.
China moves against ‘dialects’ again
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.”