Chinese pushed to speak ‘correct’ dialect

Press, 7 March 1983, Page 30

Chinese pushed to speak ‘correct’ dialect

NZPA Peking China has decided to step up the spread of Mandarin, a derivative of the Peking dialect that the vast majority of the 1000 million Chinese population continue to ignore in spite of a series of campaigns over the last 30 years to spread its use across the country. The “People’s Daily" newspaper reported that decisions to this effect were recently passed in Shanghai and Canton, where people traditionally speak Cantonese and Shanghainese, both of which are languages quite distinct from the official Mandarin. The paper said that in Shanghai teachers would now have to give their classes in Mandarin or face penalties. Meanwhile, employees in big shops, busmen, cafe waiters, and all people who come in contact with the public, including party cadres, will have to study Mandarin seriously for the next three years.

Peking region and the three northern-most provinces are the only places where Mandarin is correctly spoken. Even top Chinese leaders speak with very heavy local accents, sometimes almost incomprehensible as most of them come from southern China or Sichuan province in the south-west. A polemic broke out a few months ago in the official press when a reader complained that actors playing the parts of Mao Tse-Tung or Chou En-Lai tried to imitate their accents in plays intended for the general public. The reader felt that Mao or Chou’s words should have been translated into Mandarin, like Lenin’s words in the Chinese version Of the Soviet film, “Lenin in October.” Paradoxically, while authorities are trying to spread Mandarin, the central Chinese television has recently shown several operas and plays spoken in Cantonese or Shanghainese with

Canton has adopted similar 1 measures, the paper said, i except that the teachers t there would have six years in t which to spread the use of Mandarin. s The “People’s Daily” pub- < lished a recent circular put i out by Canton authorities I urging cadres to set an ex- < ample by using Mandarin so I that within three to five years it will replace the use i of Cantonese in all public ] places. 1 The spread of Mandarin I ' has been a priority since the < late 1950 s but has always I met with fierce resistance. I For example, primary and secondary schools across < China should in theory be I taught ,in Mandarin but are i still frequently taught in i China’s various dialects and I languages. Moreover, Mandarin has ; countless regional variations i which make the language i almost incomprehensible in < southern or western China. At present Peking, the

subtitles at the request of viewers. At the same time, China is trying to impose the Pinyin system of romanisation for Chinese words, which school children have already been taught for several years. 1 However, the use of Pinyin 1 to replace the approximately 50,000 characters in written Chinese is not envisaged for 1 the near future as it is based ’ on a phonetic transcription of > Mandarin which is still far from having gained general ! currency. China seems to be moving > towards new simplifications ! for the ideograms which have already been modified > twice, in 1964 and 1977. t Still, the characters, which > are very hard to learn, still > have the advantage of being 1 in theory comprehensible to all Chinese, whether they 5 speak Mandarin, Cantonese, - Shanghainese, or any other i dialect.