Language classes in schools should be allowed to use dialects.

Now, please allow me to ask another question: Do you think that if the less capable students from Eastern and Northern Greenland were to learn their own dialect instead of the standard dialect in school, they would have done better in written Greenlandic? My opponent mentioned that it is easier to create a common identity by language than by religion or race. I agree with that. However, when unity is very difficult to accomplish, is it worth accomplishing at all? When two groups of people simply cannot blend, why forcefully and artificially unify them with a common language? Why not instead let them each mind their own business? If unity is so important, why not unify the world? Why not abolish all the current languages and replace them with Esperanto? That would certainly unify the Global Village and enable communication. From another perspective, if a race is to unite, the people can do so with minimal interference. The Chinese civilisation (Zhonghua Minzu) is composed of fifty-six races, including the Han Chinese and the other fifty-five, such as the Manchu, the Mongolians, the Weiwu'er (Uyghur), the Hui, the Zang, the Zhuang. .. The Qing Dynasty deliberately divided the Chinese in various ways, including through language policies. For example, Mongolians in China were not allowed to learn Chinese. However, all fifty-six races are now unified as the Zhonghua Minzu. Despite the differences in language and religion, the descendants of Huangdi and Yandi do not fight each other; every man and woman works together towards a peaceful, unified, modern China. My opponent has told the story of the German language and showed how it has unified the people of Germany. This is not what I meant. The introduction of Standardgerman was to unify a country, but a standard language can also be used for less benevolent purposes. Let us imagine that Hitler conquers the Low Countries, Scandinavia, Iceland and Britain. He then declares English, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Luxembourgish, Icelandic and other Germanic languages to be dialects of German and bans their teaching in schools. His purpose is, of course, to stifle the national consciousness of the people of these countries. Would that be a good thing? My opponent has refuted my argument that children with learning disabilities cannot learn the standard language by arguing that they should learn the standard language because it is more important than their native dialect. However, is it more important that they are able to talk to their parents and grandparents, who may not have received enough education to understand the standard? My opponent also argued that culture can be preserved through great works which survive despite the extinction of that dialect. However, culture is more than that. Culture is 'the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations'. (1) Even within a country, values and customs can vary greatly. A language or dialect reflects, if you will, exactly that. Chinese, for example, differs from Indo-European languages in that morphology is almost absent in the language. In fact, that which one calls 'grammar' in an IE language is nearly non-existent in Chinese. This reflects the key differences between Chinese and Greco-Roman philosophy. Ancient Chinese philosophy focused on morals, what is right and what is not. The systematic way of thinking for which Greek philosophers such as Socrates and Plato are famed is not found in ancient Chinese philosophy (with the exception of the School of Names, which, unfortunately, never gained much attention). Similarly, the systematic grammar which Indo-European languages share is not found in Chinese. The way by which culture is reflected by a language's vocabulary and idioms is even more obvious. An oft-cited example is that it is common in Chinese to greet someone by asking the person if she has eaten rice. This not only shows the dominance of rice in China, but also how Chinese people prefer asking personal questions to show that they care, while speakers of English prefer to keep such information private. (2)While the examples I mentioned above are clearly about languages, this type of reflection also occurs in dialects, albeit more subtly and in a smaller scale. For example, the humongous number of English loanwords in Hong Kong Cantonese (which is otherwise almost identical to Guangzhou Cantonese) shows the impact left behind by the colonists. I am sure that my opponent, as a speaker of at least two languages, understands how it is sometimes difficult to express an idea in one language, while it is easy to do so in another. The extinction of a dialect removes the culture engraved and encoded in it. When a dialect is gone, it loses its vibrancy; documentation by linguists merely creates a specimen of the dialect like a museum exhibit which shows the reconstruction of a dodo. That brings us again to diversity. History shows us that diversity, not uniformity, accelerates social progression. During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, China was divided into many states, each ruled by a powerful lord that often did not listen to the commands of the king in Luoyi. It was during this time that China was the most separated, yet it was also at this time that philosophy was at its peak. The next two thousand years was built upon this foundation. Speakers of each language and dialect have something from which others can learn. It would be most unfortunate if we lost these dialects for the implementation of a standard. In fact, it is often anticonstitutional to wipe out a dialect in order to promote the standard. The Chinese Constitution, for example states that 'the people of all nationalities have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages, and to preserve or reform their own ways and customs. 'Finally, let me repeat a point I have mentioned before: the preservation of dialects does not conflict with the implementation of a standard. Linguistic diversity and a common language are not mutually exclusive. (1) . http://www.merriam-webster.com...(2) . http://www.niuren365.com...