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A carregar... A Billion Voices: China's Search for a Common Language (Penguin Specials)por David Moser
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The oft-repeated claim that we must all learn Mandarin Chinese, the better to trade with our future masters, is one that readers of David Moser’s “A Billion Voices” will rapidly end up re-evaluating. In fact, many Chinese don’t speak it: Even Chinese authorities quietly admit that only about 70% of the population speaks Mandarin, and merely one in 10 of those speak it fluently. In a little over 100 pages, Mr. Moser presents a history of what is more properly called Putonghua, or “common speech,” along with a clear, concise and often amusing introduction to the limits of its spoken and written forms. As Mr. Moser explains, what Chinese schoolchildren are encouraged to think of as the longstanding natural speech of the common people is in fact an artificial hybrid, only a few decades old, although it shares a name—Mandarin—with the language of administration from imperial times. It’s a designed-by-committee camel of a language that has largely lost track of its past. Pertence à Série da Editora
Mandarin, Guoyu or Putonghua? 'Chinese' is a language known by many names, and China is a country home to many languages. Since the turn of the twentieth century linguists and politicians have been on a mission to create a common language for China. From the radical intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement, to leaders such as Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, all fought linguistic wars to push the boundaries of language reform. Now, Internet users take the Chinese language in new and unpredictable directions. David Moser tells the remarkable story of China's language unification agenda and its controversial relationship with modern politics, challenging our conceptions of what it means to speak and be Chinese. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)306.44951Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Culture and Institutions Specific aspects of culture Language Language planning and policyClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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I am not here to dispute Tibet's quest for autonomy, nor to say whether it is or isn't part of China because I don't know enough about it to have an opinion. I recommend listening to his address to hear what he says.
But clearly, the facts about education and literacy in Tibet are contested. This glowing 2019 report with happy photos is from CGTN, whose headquarters are in Beijing, while the Tibetan Review paints a different picture.
Nevertheless, I do think there's a case to be made for any country to ensure that all its people have access to a uniform language, and sometimes even in places where nationality is not in dispute, that meets with resistance. In the media I see Australia's First Nations people working hard to maintain and resurrect their languages but struggling with English and reliant on translators, and I feel anxious about the choices that their children don't have when they don't go to school.
The West can be criticised for many things, but mass literacy has been a priority in Western societies since industrialisation. Countries that have not achieved this goal for all their people condemn them to poverty and compromised economic development. Literacy enables full participation in society and offers access to information, ideas, health knowledge, and cultural and political activity.
Moser, however, who knows more about this than I ever will, says, however, that in China, the purpose of mandating Putonghua (Standard Chinese) as the common language and especially teaching it to children is to instill a sense of cultural identity, and to strengthen the ‘cohesiveness’ of the people residing within China’s borders. The impact on cultural identity is keenly felt in Tibet and among the Uyghur in Xinjiang, but Moser says that extreme reactions to the imposition of Chinese as the language of instruction are rare.
Anyway...
Moser's book tells me that it was not the Communists who took power in 1949 who mandated a common language in China.
When the Qing dynasty fell to the Xinhai Revolution in 1912, and the Republic of China was formed there was a chasm between the spoken and the written word. Only a tiny elite could read and write classical Chinese.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/11/12/a-billion-voices-chinas-search-for-a-common-... ( )