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I'm assuming you're chinese. Can you explain to me why chinese people - not just in the PRC but also Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia - seem so eager to elimin

I'm assuming you're chinese. Can you explain to me why chinese people - not just in the PRC but also Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia - seem so eager to eliminate every chinese language that isn't Mandarin? It's truly bizarre to me. Even people who want the EU to become a super state don't do things like call Dutch and French 'dialects' and demand the whole thing standardise to one language.

_tik_ 5y ago
Not OP. For the Singapore case. The main reason is practicality. Mandarin and English considered more important in Global Business. English educated political leaders assumed learning Mandarin was hindered by speaking dialect at home. Singapore is a young nation then.
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  In Singapores case my more cynical take is they wanted to ensure that Chinese formed a linguistic majority, not just an ethnic one. China was an economic backwater when the Speak Mandarin policy came about, and Singapore already had and continues to have a real lingua franca - English.
mistrial9 5y ago
my understanding is that the written language is already standardized as Simplified Chinese, readable by almost all, but that Traditional Chinese written language exists, importantly in Taiwan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_characters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_characters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_traditional_and_simplified_Chinese_characters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_traditional_and_simp...
- Taniwha 5y ago
  And also Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and various 'china town' enclaves in other western countries
k_sze 5y ago
It's not elimination. It's called "having a standard language so people can communicate". People still speak their non-Mandarin mother tongues at home and in general. Local dialects are still used at the bank, at government service centers, etc. It's just that you must _be able_ to communicate in Mandarin in case somebody from another province walks in. Some local schools, especially for minorities, still teach their mother tongue in school as a subject, on purpose - e.g. schools in Xinjiang.
- randomhodler84 5y ago
  History teaches us that is is exactly how an authoritarian state goes about eliminating local cultural identity and language.
  - blondin 5y ago
    ah come on guys, let's take a step back before making comments such as this one.
    - CogitoCogito 5y ago
      > ah come on guys, let's take a step back before making comments such as this one. Care to explain what part of the comment you take issue with?
    - randomhodler84 5y ago
      Or open one’s eyes to the cultural engineering that is occurring. Am I wrong?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - LAC-Tech 5y ago
        If you look at any language that got wiped out, or nearly got wiped out, the story is always the same: "they punished us at school if we spoke $MOTHER_TONGUE instead of $NATIONAL_LANGUAGE".
bene_legionary 5y ago
Now I don't know enough about 'dialects' in the sinosphere but I think that a dominant 'national' language is an expected outcome of globalisation. For example, French threatening to wipe out Occitan, Corsican and Breton, Castillian Spanish with Catalonian and other Iberian languages, Hindi and Urdu in India and Pakistan, etc. That's not to say that it's a good thing, just that it has happened in other places too. French policy on language might just be as strict from what I've read.
cjbprime 5y ago
Many people in Latin America totally do this about every living native language which is not Spanish. I'd say the EU is the odd case rather than China here.
c_o_n_v_e_x 5y ago
Having a single language for Chinese diaspora functionally makes sense. Similarly (kind of), Bahasa Indonesia was created to help address the linguistic challenges of having an archipelago nation. I've lived in Singapore for 10+ years. I work with a mix of Singaporeans (native and naturalized HK'r's) and Malay Chinese (coincidentally all from Penang). Day to day chats in the office is English/Singlish and hokkien. Calls with vendors in Penang are in English and Hokkien. Calls with Taiwanese vendors are in Mandarin. When we have calls with our Taiwanese vendors, one of my older Singaporean colleagues always attends because he has the strongest mandarin on the team.

_tik_ 5y ago

Not OP. For the Singapore case. The main reason is practicality. Mandarin and English considered more important in Global Business. English educated political leaders assumed learning Mandarin was hindered by speaking dialect at home. Singapore is a young nation then.

LAC-Tech 5y ago
In Singapores case my more cynical take is they wanted to ensure that Chinese formed a linguistic majority, not just an ethnic one. China was an economic backwater when the Speak Mandarin policy came about, and Singapore already had and continues to have a real lingua franca - English.

mistrial9 5y ago

my understanding is that the written language is already standardized as Simplified Chinese, readable by almost all, but that Traditional Chinese written language exists, importantly in Taiwan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_characters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_characters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_traditional_and_simplified_Chinese_characters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_on_traditional_and_simp...

Taniwha 5y ago
And also Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and various 'china town' enclaves in other western countries

k_sze 5y ago

It's not elimination. It's called "having a standard language so people can communicate". People still speak their non-Mandarin mother tongues at home and in general. Local dialects are still used at the bank, at government service centers, etc. It's just that you must _be able_ to communicate in Mandarin in case somebody from another province walks in. Some local schools, especially for minorities, still teach their mother tongue in school as a subject, on purpose - e.g. schools in Xinjiang.

randomhodler84 5y ago
History teaches us that is is exactly how an authoritarian state goes about eliminating local cultural identity and language.
- blondin 5y ago
  ah come on guys, let's take a step back before making comments such as this one.
  - CogitoCogito 5y ago
    > ah come on guys, let's take a step back before making comments such as this one. Care to explain what part of the comment you take issue with?
  - randomhodler84 5y ago
    Or open one’s eyes to the cultural engineering that is occurring. Am I wrong?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - LAC-Tech 5y ago
      If you look at any language that got wiped out, or nearly got wiped out, the story is always the same: "they punished us at school if we spoke $MOTHER_TONGUE instead of $NATIONAL_LANGUAGE".

bene_legionary 5y ago

Now I don't know enough about 'dialects' in the sinosphere but I think that a dominant 'national' language is an expected outcome of globalisation. For example, French threatening to wipe out Occitan, Corsican and Breton, Castillian Spanish with Catalonian and other Iberian languages, Hindi and Urdu in India and Pakistan, etc. That's not to say that it's a good thing, just that it has happened in other places too. French policy on language might just be as strict from what I've read.

cjbprime 5y ago

Many people in Latin America totally do this about every living native language which is not Spanish. I'd say the EU is the odd case rather than China here.

c_o_n_v_e_x 5y ago

Having a single language for Chinese diaspora functionally makes sense. Similarly (kind of), Bahasa Indonesia was created to help address the linguistic challenges of having an archipelago nation. I've lived in Singapore for 10+ years. I work with a mix of Singaporeans (native and naturalized HK'r's) and Malay Chinese (coincidentally all from Penang). Day to day chats in the office is English/Singlish and hokkien. Calls with vendors in Penang are in English and Hokkien. Calls with Taiwanese vendors are in Mandarin. When we have calls with our Taiwanese vendors, one of my older Singaporean colleagues always attends because he has the strongest mandarin on the team.