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The article is well-researched, however it misses several details of why people promote Mandarin so much. Mandarin has been promoted since imperial Chinese tim
by forkLding 8y ago
The article is well-researched, however it misses several details of why people promote Mandarin so much.
Mandarin has been promoted since imperial Chinese times because the emperors, their administration and all officials wanted to understand each other without translators, hence Mandarin or 官话 (language of the officials or "Mandarins") was used when you wanted to communicate properly to officials more senior or junior to you and it thus became prestigious by association.
The reason why it is promoted so heavily to now and sometimes in a degrading manner towards local languages is so that Chinese people can actually communicate with each other even if they're not from the same region.
If you can only speak a local language and not something like Mandarin or occasionally Cantonese, you're looked down because it is like a US person who can't speak English and only some incomprehensible "redneck" language (pardon my rudeness, just an example).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese
- throwaway12iii 8y agoYes, the genocide that is continuing now in the USA against the original people is very much like what is happening in China. Both are horrific and monstrous. The argument "Yeah but it's happening in the west" doesn't really work with thinking people.
- ithkuil 8y agoWhat you say is very practical but ignores a fundamental psychological trait of human behavior that is otherwise shaping the geopolitical landscape for centuries all around the world. There are plenty of small countries in the world, that differ from neighbours only on relatively minor cultural details and whose main identity trait lies in having its own language. Acknowledging the existence of the desire of self-determination and sovereignty and the link between language and ethnic identity can explain a lot, both about the desire to persevere in talking less "useful" languages and also about the efforts to repress their usage by large states (which acquired territories that are not historically culturally homogeneous)
- gpvos 8y agoThose are logical reasons, but to do that you don't need to suppress writing and education in the local language. There are enough countries where both the local and the national language are taught at school.
- avar 8y agoThere's even more countries that used to be part of a bigger nation or empire, but which split up largely by native language borders as their power waned. One way to view this sort of forced homogenization is as an insurance policy to that future eventuality.
- Karawebnetwork 8y agoI live in Québec, Canada and I can't agree enough. First we were a French colony called "Nouvelle-France", then a British colony known as "Province of Lower Canada". Now, it's a province of Canada. It has been recognized by the federal government that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada (2006). The majority of the people here kept their language (French), the code of law (French civil laws) and the religion (Roman Catholic). Almost everyone speaks and writes English fluidly. The population is mostly bilingual. You do not need to suppress the local language and history of a region in order to live peacefully its population.
- yorwba 8y agoThere's the additional complication of the word "Mandarin" being derived from "Mǎndàrén" (满大人, i.e. Manchu lord) because it was the language used by the Manchu officials of the Qing dynasty to communicate with their Chinese subjects. But the Manchu used their own non-Sinitic language internally, and translating 官话 as "Mandarin" when it refers to the court language of prior dynasties is a weird reversal of time.
- unmole 8y agoAccording to Wikitionary: From Portuguese mandarim, mandarij, from Malay menteri, manteri, and its source, Sanskrit मन्त्रिन् (mantrin, “minister, councillor”), from मन्त्र (mantra, “counsel, maxim, mantra”) + -इन् (-in, an agent suffix). Chinese folk etymology sometimes falsely claims that the word originates from 滿大人 (Mǎndàrén, literally “Manchu important man”).
- yorwba 8y agoThanks for the correction. The Wiktionary article doesn't cite any sources, but the etymology sections are usually reliable, so I guess I'll trust it over my Chinese teacher.
- C1sc0cat 8y agoThat is an accent or a dialect