From: chou@cs.washington.edu (Pai Hsiang Chou)
Subject: Language policy (Re: Unification)
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 13:05:48 GMT

In article <0oPaoB2w164w@banana.ithaca.ny.us> ner@banana.ithaca.ny.us (Steven Lee) writes:
>No one is gonna stop you if you speak Taiwanese or whatever 
>dialect in school.  As matter of fact, some of my teachers speak
>Taiwanese in their offices themselves quite often.  But DPP or
>whoever is complaining usually donUt acknowledge this change and
>is still making a big fuzz out of it. 

Gee.. Black Americans have the right to vote, and most
of them don't get lynched any more, so why should they
make a big fuss about KKK or other racism which are not
supposed to exist any more?
Does a racism victim have to be a civil rights activist?
Does a victim of language suppression have to be a DDP
member?  Before Blacks got rights to vote, were all
Whites racists?  You are citing your own experience,
fine, but that doesn't prove my point false.

The situation has improved, fine.  But the decades of
suppression has caused tremendous psychological wound.
Many speakers lose pride in their own language and
are ashamed to speak it.  This is a well known fact.
You probably don't, but many do.  The media has portrayed
speakers with Taiwanese accent as stupid and clown type
low class characters, making speakers ashamed of themselves.
This is especially true with girls who want to disassociate
themselves with the negative image associated with these
non-Mandarin languages.  Merely stopping the suppression
is not sufficient to heal the wound.  Women are the bearers
of languages.  They don't speak it, the language dies,
it's as simple as that.




>I donUt like how KMT is controlling the media now.  I want to see 
>some private-owned TV stations.  However, those limitations do 
>not imply the speakers of dialects are 3rd-class citizens.  
>Dialects, e.g. Taiwanese (or HoLo if you would), Hakka, etc,
>are NOT fully-developed languages.

You've gotta be kidding.  What do you mean they are not
"fully-developed languages?"  How much linguistic knowledge
do you know about these languages for you to make such a
statement?  Just because you don't know how to say something
in this language doesn't mean the language cannot express it.
Have you even tried looking up a dictionary (or have one)?
What features are they missing to make them crippled languages??

Also, the word "dialect" is the wrong word to use.
These are languages are more different than some
European languages.  If two languages are not
mutually intelligible, they are not dialects.

Ancient Chinese used the term "fangyan" as a
political term; in Tang dynasty, Japanese, Korean,
etc.. were all called "fangyan."  But they are
definitely not "dialects."  The two words are not equivalent.

Gee, so Japanese, Koreans, Vietnames, Thai, etc should all
give up their languages like Taiwanese do because China is
the center of Asia?  Their languages contain a large set of
loan words from Chinese, and these could be written using
Hanzi too.  Are they "defective, not fully developed" languages
like HoLo because they had to kludge the missing gaps with kana,
hangul, or some substandard hanzi?





>So whatUs wrong with assigning
>less TV time for dialects than languages (foreign or not)?  The
>decreasing amount of time dialects are assigned just reflects the
>fact that more people can understand Mandarin these days.


Perhaps you need to do some research about the history of
broadcast code.  I just posted an article on this.
The sudden limitation in 1972 to 1 hour was far from a "gradual
decrease", but it was intended to eliminate non-Mandarin
languages completely.  It was by no means a natural evolution.
And it definitely did not reflect the linguistic reality of
the society (still doesn't).
It also came in at the time when Taiwan was kicked out of the
United Nation and China obtained a seat, and there were pressures
to tighten the language policy.

If you did not know, the non-Mandarin shows were not allowed
to be shown during prime time hours.  Last year's \chhu=pni=thau\be
show got pressure from the News Bureau for using mixed HoLo and
Mandarin during prime time hour.  But the audience loved the show
and the News Bureau gave in.  Is this not obvious enough that the
suppression effort still exists and enforced?  Or are you trying
to deny that there ever was a suppression?




>The currrent limitations do create a problem for the elderly, but the
>elder population is decreasing and elder people are fully capable 
>of learning Mandarin, too.  My grandma, who is 72, is a good 
>example.  She can now understand about 50% of Mandarin.

So the older people are a disposable bunch?  They are going to
die soon anyway, why waste time with them?  After all, they
didn't have TV when they were little, why do they need TV now?
Perhaps you didn't realize, but the elderly aren't the only ones
who are most comfortable at speak non-Mandarin mothertongues.
Many people in their 30's and up may know how to speak Mandarin
but still use their mothertongues as their primary language.
Are these people not entitled to the rights to entertainment
like everyone else?  Why deprive them of their choice?
Also, what about performers who feel most comfortable in their
own languages other than Mandarin?  A quota is a systematic
discrimination against these speakers, resulting a tremendous
waste of talents.



What would you think if Mandarin were replaced with Japanese?
Sure, you will understand 50% of Japanese if all you are allowed
to watch are Japanese TV program for 2, 3 decades, and your
children and grandchildren are all taught Japanese in school.
If you don't think it's OK for Japanese to destroy our languages,
why is it more acceptable for some Han people to destroy them?




>> How hard is it to teach just the phonetic symbols for people's
>> mothertongues?
>> How hard is it to either add a few symbols to bopomofo or use
>> Romanization so that people have a _tool_ they can use to
>> capture the living speech and sounds they hear in their
>> everyday life?
> 
>I dunno.  But it should not be REQUIRED in school.  For one, many
>dialects (including HoLo) have one more tone than Mandarin.
>(Try to pronounce RblackS in HoLo, and you cannot find a matching
>tone in MandarinUs phonetics)


What??  What does the number of tones have to do with why
they should not be required in school???  To answer your
question, the lexical tone for black [-oo] is the same as
Mandarin tone 1.  The sandhi form [=oo] is middle-level.
The middle level tone, low-level tone, high-enter tone
are the only three not in Mandarin, and the solution is
trivial.



>_DEATH TO ROMANIZATION!!!_  Chinese glyphs is one of the most 
>beautiful arts human civilization ever created.  How could 
>you give it up so easily?  If you are so worried about losing
>your mothertongue, you should be worried about losing your
>Chinese heritage first!  


Whether or not to use hanzi has absolutely nothing to do with
the phonetic symbols used.  Who says anything about throwing
away Hanzi?  It is a debatable issue, but it is certainly
not a necessary condition for teaching any phonetic symbol.
China uses pinyin for their phonetic symbols but are you saying
China's citizens are "less Chinese" than Taiwanese because
Taiwanese use bopomofo??

And just what is wrong with having a scheme for spelling things
using Roman characters?  If you are so hung up about using
Roman characters, why is it more OK to learn English, Spanish,
German, French, etc?  Besides, Romanization is not the only
scheme.  All I asked for was one single phonetic notation,
in whatever alphabet you like.

The Japanese at least devised a scheme for HoLo based on katakana
(they didn't like Romanization).  The Japanese even published
a dictionary.  So the problem is solvable by existence proof.
Yet, what has the Ministry of Education done?




>Most of  [Europeans]
>them have to be fluent in 4 languages just to go about daily 
>lives-- and many complain about it.  I dunno about you.  I have
>had enough trying to be fluent in 2 lanuages.  DonUt get me wrong.
>Mothertongue should NOT be destroyed, but only ONE official 
>language should be allowed!  Multiple official lanuages make
>the government inefficient for obvious reasons.



You agree mothertongues shouldn't be destroyed yet you don't see
anything wrong if they are, because having one official language is
so much more important than people's heritage and dignity.


It is a fact that in Taiwan there exist different linguistic groups.
You might like to look at it as something negative, and your solution
is to eliminate the difference.
But I'm saying it is something positive and essential, and the
elimination is cruel, and endangers people's very identity.
It is a rich source of culture, that you cannot justify suppression
simply by a need to have one single official language.






>> I am talking about a model, a relation between nations or
>> groups of people. Why is it that some people are so hung up
>> about this big nation idea that they often overlook the price
>> (no price too dear) and alternatives.
>
>Because the US, Canada, and Australia do NOT share the same 
>culture!
>ItUs hard to see.  But Americans (or US citizens) and Canadians 
>donUt think the same way.  Trust me.

People in Taiwan and in China don't think the same way either
(esp. after China experienced Cultural Revolution).
In fact I claim just as different if not even more than the
Anglo nations.  That's why I suggest the "brotherly relations"
may be preferable to unification.  You have not contradicted my
point.

Their language came from Britain.  They are allowed to develop
on their own culture and vocabulary, enriching each other.
They never try to suppress themselves to conform with, say,
Britain's.  Unlike Taiwan's case, some people keep denying
that Taiwan has her own culture.  The language policy is saying,

	"Taiwanese are not different from Chinese; though they speak
	different languages... they shouldn't, because that's
	not how we want to see it.  By killing the languages,
	they will not be different, so that we have better excuses
	to justify unification."


If you kill the languages, thereby discourage or disable the
communication between generations, you create a cultural vacuum,
then it will just be filled with artificial imported cultural
elements that have no essence.  The best example is the song
writer Ho DeJian who wrote the song "Dragon's Descendant."
He learned his lesson the hard way by going to China to find
the dream world he was taught in school, but found that it
never existed.  In contrast, Lim Giong's smash HoLo hit
"March Forward" so well captures the social reality and attitude
that it inspired so many people to take a second look at who
they really are, and take a closer look at parts of themselves
that have been denied.




>> Yet the result is that many grandchildren cannot communicate
>> with their grandparents, even make fun of them behind their
>> backs,...
> 
>You blamed the wrong cause.  The deteriation of family values
>is caused by western cultures, which is really sad.  And please
>donUt stereotype.  I have the highest respect for my grandmother,
>with whom I spent most of my childhood. She can bearly understand
>Mandarin.  I communicate with her in HoLo without any difficulty.
>I donUt feel awkward at all.


Good for you for respecting your grandparents, but you have
not seen the sad cases which are growing every day.  If you
think I am biased, talk to people you know and see if there
is some truthfulness to my claim.  I witness cases in my
cousin's family as well as just about everybody I talked to.
It is very common.


Again, just because you communicate well with your grandmother
doesn't mean many young people still do, particularly those
under 15 years old.  The linguistic discontinuity certainly does
no help to facilitate communication, but is a huge barrier
if not disabling the communication altogether.
It is a fact that so many youngsters do not even understand their
mothertongues, not to mention speaking.  How is a grandparent
supposed to tell their grandchildren stories or teach them customs
or just experiences in their lifetime if they cannot use the language
they grew up using??






>You donUt realize how unity of language is important to a country,
>do you?  Try to name a country that is influential to its
>particular historical period and has many official languages.  I
>really have a hard time with that. 


But today most Taiwanese are already multilingual.
It is certainly feasible.  I don't understand why
you view it as a burden.  However if we don't take
action now, the next generation of Taiwanese will be
a people with no culture, i.e. foreigners or guests
in their homeland.

People in Hongkong continue using their mothertongue
but they can communicate in English or Mandarin with
you if you want.  Yet their knowledge of Mandarin does
not pose a threat to their mothertongue.  Why is
Mandarin posing a threat to Taiwan's mothertongues?



>Using one official lanuage and teaching only one official language
>in schools does NOT mean an end to all dialects/mother tongues.  
>The official lanuage in the US is English, and yet hundreds of 
>languages/dialects are spoken every day.  Did those unofficial
>languages/dialects die over the years?  No....

Are you claiming there is no language crisis in Taiwan?
Are you claiming that American English has not posed threats
to any language spoken on the continent?  Native American
languages are being killed by English despite attempts to
save them.  In my view, Taiwan's mothertongues could be
pronounced dead in the next decade if we don't start getting
the awareness and action of most speakers.

You agreed mothertongues should not be destroyed, yet you
don't want them taught in school.  You are not even sure if you
want to give people the very basic tool -- phonetic symbols --
to capture living speech in their lives, which takes at most 1 or 2
weeks to master.  We spend 6 years in high school learning English,
memorizing vocabulary, some people even started as early as
kindergarten, yet they don't even know how many tones there
are in their own mothertongue.  In junior/high school there are
classes for woodshop or cooking or computer, but people can't
learn a useful yet powerful small set of symbols that could
enrich their perspective, even if they want to?
Pick your favorite set, dozens of systems exist waiting for
people to learn.

How different is this from the Korean aristocrats who banned
the use of Hangul because they were afraid that it was too
easy to learn, therefore could make any ordinary people literate
in weeks (if they learn the phonemic characters)?
Is someone afraid that these simple strokes could make Taiwanese
people too powerful?



>--
>ner@banana.ithaca.ny.us (Steven Lee)
>The Twisted Banana BBS, Ithaca, NY

Pai