Sunday, September 24, 2006
Language Reform
Lets make a new political rule. Lets call it China Hand's Rule on Political Policy. Here it is: Any policy, effectively implemented for long enough, will lead to a new policy which is effectively its negation. That doesn't sound very elegent. I once heard a better formation called the Paradox of Unintended Consequences: A policy, though effectively implemented, may lead to the opposite consequence of those intended.
That doesn't really work for my first test case in which the consequences were exactly as forseen, only now we regret it. In the 1950's, after the People's Republic had become established and stabilized, the government turned to implement the policies it had promised, such as land reform and nationalization. This was a key policy of the Mao Zedong Communist government, vital to secure the support of the peasantry, who he correctly believed were central to his success.
But other policies had little to do with Mao's socialist vision: for example stabilizing the currency was vital to political stability. Another raft of policies must have come out of the Mirror of Government, the ancient guide to government these young revolutionaries are said to have consulted. Examples are repairing of the Grand Canal running between Beijing and Hanzhou, and repairing the levee banks of the main flood-prone rivers.
One central policy implementation of the 1950's was language reform. All good dynasties in China, in addition to the above measures, are required to assay a new standardization of the language. In a country with over 200 officially recognized dialects and 56 minority languages, there is a vast diversity of pronounciations available for each character. Moreover sloppy or creative scholarship over the years led the 10,000 basic characters to bloat out to 45,000. No great meaning was added by the extra 35,000 characters, many were just wrongly written versions of older characters which had fallen into common usage.
This project was seized upon with great joy by the scholars of Beijing, no doubt irked by the offensive accents of the peasant revolutionaries now dominating their city. After much discussion they published the ubiquitous New China Dictionary (新华字典)with a final say on tone and pronunciation of each character. The Chinese Phonetic Spelling System (汉语拼音)was also standardized.
This was very commendable and we are all very grateful that they managed to prevail in the use of Beijing Dialect (the official version) being adopted as the basis for a national language to be called the Common Language, or Putonghua(普通话). Grateful that is that Mao did not insist on his own dialect, that of Shaoshan in Hunan, which is somewhat less than music to the ears.
Mao did insist on character reform, or simplification however, and after much acrimonious debate the scholars emerged with a tranch of 800 commonly used characters whose complexity was reduced from average 16 strokes to 8 strokes. Generally the scholars used simple forms already common in China. Ironically the Chinese character for 'hoe', which Mao had used as an example (By the time the peasant cadres had written hoe, the meeting was half over he joked!)was not part of that tranch. A later tranch of 700 in the mid-70's was dropped however as too controversial. (A pity as I spent a lot of time learning them!)
Well Mao now had his standards and set out like a good emperor to ensure they were implemented universally. The New China Dictionary guided pronounciation and for the most part it was fairly successful. Only a few were ignored in normal speech which is a miracle in terms of such a dynamic thing as a language. Phonetic Spelling, known in English as pinyin, was enthusiastically embraced, even in the Open Door period, and signs and brands in pinyin prevailed (producing such comic effects as the word pixie, meaning leather shoes, but looking like something completely different to an Englishg reader.)
Enforcing the use of Putonghua, however was another thing. Having spent a lot of time around Cantonese (particularly those from Hong Kong) I know there is a clear protocol: if there are two or more Cantonese speakers in a room, regardless of the number of non-speakers, they must use Cantonese for all verbal communication. Not so elegent I know - but it is universally observed in Hong Kong and amongst Hong Kong people wherever they go in the world. I guess there might have been similar rules for other dialects too. But Putonghua was made almost universal in schools in China, apart from Guangdong Province. Even in Mao's China, exeption had to be made for the Cantonese!
But even in Guangdong, I now hear parents carefully bring their children up in Mandarin, sorry Putonghua. Again apart from Guangdong, all radio and television broadcasts had to be in Putonghua. The only place dialect was allowed was at home and in performances of the local opera. This was rigidly enforced and now the level of Putonghua usage in China is very high, albeit still not universal.
Just this year however I have noticed a change. The Shanghai Daily ( now complete with ads for local massage parlors!)wrote recently that the local opera - Yueju (越剧)- was in danger of dying out as few could understand it. Other articles this year have regretted the declining use of Shanghainese dialect due to the influx of newcomers in Shanghai who could not speak Shanghai dialect.
Now the negation! The government has begun to experiment with classes in Shanghai dialect at a few schools. Suddenly we hear the term, 'cultural heritage' being used with great fervour. In Jiangsu all local cities are allowed to have programs in local dialect to promote knowledger of the local culture. The policy was simply too effective. It almost wiped out some local dialects. It's opposite will now prevail. Chinese policy, as it does so often, mirrors the developments in all modernizing countries. Having promoted uniformity until it looked like working, they now preach diversity. Welcome to the new China!
Lets make a new political rule. Lets call it China Hand's Rule on Political Policy. Here it is: Any policy, effectively implemented for long enough, will lead to a new policy which is effectively its negation. That doesn't sound very elegent. I once heard a better formation called the Paradox of Unintended Consequences: A policy, though effectively implemented, may lead to the opposite consequence of those intended.
That doesn't really work for my first test case in which the consequences were exactly as forseen, only now we regret it. In the 1950's, after the People's Republic had become established and stabilized, the government turned to implement the policies it had promised, such as land reform and nationalization. This was a key policy of the Mao Zedong Communist government, vital to secure the support of the peasantry, who he correctly believed were central to his success.
But other policies had little to do with Mao's socialist vision: for example stabilizing the currency was vital to political stability. Another raft of policies must have come out of the Mirror of Government, the ancient guide to government these young revolutionaries are said to have consulted. Examples are repairing of the Grand Canal running between Beijing and Hanzhou, and repairing the levee banks of the main flood-prone rivers.
One central policy implementation of the 1950's was language reform. All good dynasties in China, in addition to the above measures, are required to assay a new standardization of the language. In a country with over 200 officially recognized dialects and 56 minority languages, there is a vast diversity of pronounciations available for each character. Moreover sloppy or creative scholarship over the years led the 10,000 basic characters to bloat out to 45,000. No great meaning was added by the extra 35,000 characters, many were just wrongly written versions of older characters which had fallen into common usage.
This project was seized upon with great joy by the scholars of Beijing, no doubt irked by the offensive accents of the peasant revolutionaries now dominating their city. After much discussion they published the ubiquitous New China Dictionary (新华字典)with a final say on tone and pronunciation of each character. The Chinese Phonetic Spelling System (汉语拼音)was also standardized.
This was very commendable and we are all very grateful that they managed to prevail in the use of Beijing Dialect (the official version) being adopted as the basis for a national language to be called the Common Language, or Putonghua(普通话). Grateful that is that Mao did not insist on his own dialect, that of Shaoshan in Hunan, which is somewhat less than music to the ears.
Mao did insist on character reform, or simplification however, and after much acrimonious debate the scholars emerged with a tranch of 800 commonly used characters whose complexity was reduced from average 16 strokes to 8 strokes. Generally the scholars used simple forms already common in China. Ironically the Chinese character for 'hoe', which Mao had used as an example (By the time the peasant cadres had written hoe, the meeting was half over he joked!)was not part of that tranch. A later tranch of 700 in the mid-70's was dropped however as too controversial. (A pity as I spent a lot of time learning them!)
Well Mao now had his standards and set out like a good emperor to ensure they were implemented universally. The New China Dictionary guided pronounciation and for the most part it was fairly successful. Only a few were ignored in normal speech which is a miracle in terms of such a dynamic thing as a language. Phonetic Spelling, known in English as pinyin, was enthusiastically embraced, even in the Open Door period, and signs and brands in pinyin prevailed (producing such comic effects as the word pixie, meaning leather shoes, but looking like something completely different to an Englishg reader.)
Enforcing the use of Putonghua, however was another thing. Having spent a lot of time around Cantonese (particularly those from Hong Kong) I know there is a clear protocol: if there are two or more Cantonese speakers in a room, regardless of the number of non-speakers, they must use Cantonese for all verbal communication. Not so elegent I know - but it is universally observed in Hong Kong and amongst Hong Kong people wherever they go in the world. I guess there might have been similar rules for other dialects too. But Putonghua was made almost universal in schools in China, apart from Guangdong Province. Even in Mao's China, exeption had to be made for the Cantonese!
But even in Guangdong, I now hear parents carefully bring their children up in Mandarin, sorry Putonghua. Again apart from Guangdong, all radio and television broadcasts had to be in Putonghua. The only place dialect was allowed was at home and in performances of the local opera. This was rigidly enforced and now the level of Putonghua usage in China is very high, albeit still not universal.
Just this year however I have noticed a change. The Shanghai Daily ( now complete with ads for local massage parlors!)wrote recently that the local opera - Yueju (越剧)- was in danger of dying out as few could understand it. Other articles this year have regretted the declining use of Shanghainese dialect due to the influx of newcomers in Shanghai who could not speak Shanghai dialect.
Now the negation! The government has begun to experiment with classes in Shanghai dialect at a few schools. Suddenly we hear the term, 'cultural heritage' being used with great fervour. In Jiangsu all local cities are allowed to have programs in local dialect to promote knowledger of the local culture. The policy was simply too effective. It almost wiped out some local dialects. It's opposite will now prevail. Chinese policy, as it does so often, mirrors the developments in all modernizing countries. Having promoted uniformity until it looked like working, they now preach diversity. Welcome to the new China!
