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Move to Limit Cantonese on Chinese TV Is Assailed
By EDWARD WONG
Published: July 26, 2010
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CloseLinkedinDiggMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalink BEIJING — Protests over land grabs, industrial pollution and poor work conditions often rattle the Chinese authorities.
Now add to that outrage over language policy.
More than 1,000 people gathered Sunday in Guangzhou, in southern China, to demonstrate against a local politician』s proposal to force a major local television network to stop broadcasting in Cantonese and switch to the country』s official language, Mandarin.
The protest, which was raucous and impassioned, ended peacefully after the police broke up the crowd. But any mention of the demonstration was wiped from many Internet forums on Monday, and only one national newspaper carried a detailed report, indicating that the pro-Cantonese groundswell had become a politically delicate matter.
Cantonese is widely spoken in Hong Kong, Guangdong Province — whose capital is Guangzhou — and neighboring areas. Some call it a dialect of Mandarin, a language spoken commonly in the north, but a growing number of linguists say Cantonese is a separate language. Northerners generally do not understand it, but are used to its strongly pitched sounds because of the ubiquity of Hong Kong movies and Cantonese pop songs.
Concern over the loss of languages and dialects in China is growing. In Tibet and Xinjiang, some ethnic Tibetans and Uighurs say the use of Mandarin as the official teaching language in schools has weakened the fluency of the local languages among many young people. Officials say mastering Mandarin is important for students to compete for jobs and university slots.
Two weeks ago, notices began popping up online telling people to gather at 5:30 p.m. on July 25 at the Jiangnanxi subway station in Guangzhou to oppose a proposal that was presented this month by the local politician, Ji Kekuang. Mr. Ji, a member of the local committee of the Chinese People』s Political Consultative Conference, suggested that the programs on Guangzhou Television』s news and satellite channels start using Mandarin instead of Cantonese. He said the change would help accommodate tourists and athletes visiting for the Asian Games in November.
The protesters on Sunday gave passionate speeches to cheering crowds about the worth of Cantonese and sang Cantonese songs, one news report said. Young people wore T-shirts with 「I Love Guangzhou」 written in characters common to Cantonese script but absent from Mandarin script. (Most characters overlap between the languages, but there are notable exceptions.)
The English-language edition of Global Times, aimed at foreigners living in China, carried the one detailed report. It quoted Su Zhijia, a deputy party secretary of Guangzhou, as he rebutted rumors that the government planned to completely reject the use of Cantonese. 「The city government has never had such a plan to abandon or weaken Cantonese,」 Mr. Su said.
Most of the protesters appeared to be in their 20s or 30s. The owner of a restaurant by the demonstration site said in a telephone interview that the protesters had yelled out 「Support Cantonese!」 and 「Protest!」 The protesters clogged the roads and stopped traffic, said the restaurant owner, who gave his name only as Mr. Liao because of sensitivities about discussing protests in China. 「I couldn』t do business at all,」 he said. 「They all blocked up my door.」
Lines of police officers formed human barricades to try to keep the crowd from swelling, witnesses said.
The Cantonese-versus-Mandarin debate is fierce even in Chinatowns in the United States, where many residents traditionally spoke Cantonese or a related dialect, Taishanese, because their families came from Guangdong Province. But in recent years, the number of immigrants from other parts of China has grown, and Mandarin is now becoming the dominant language.
Xiyun Yang contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on July 27, 2010, on page A9 of the New York edition.
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