Under threat: Cantonese speakers worry about their language's future | DW News

we are taking a closer look at language today and how some languages are under threat with fewer people speaking them and this is driven by politics that should resonate across many parts of Asia specifically we will focus on Cantonese spoken by 80 million Chinese around the world Beijing favors Mandarin another popular Chinese language as the official language of China for all 1.4 billion people which means other languages within its borders including Cantonese are in Decline that has stirred some people to try to preserve the language and is in the United States of all places where that's happening this school in San Francisco is offering classes in Cantonese the prevalent language spoken among the Chinese diaspora in the city [Music] despite having a long waiting list the principal is worried about the future of her mother tongue Cantonese is such a rich diverse rigorous language and then with an attempt to um sort of eliminated it is very sad she's referring to a shift in her hometown Hong Kong here Cantonese is still used by 90 of its population but Mandarin a variety of Chinese standardized and promoted by Beijing is becoming more common on the streets more Mainland Chinese have settled in Hong Kong without speaking the language this in addition to the local government's policy to favor Mandarin in schools the situation is even more acute next door in Guangzhou and the beijing's push for linguistic Unity Mandarin became the dominant medium of instruction in schools and many citizens preferred language of communication which is worrying like in the past like um like people from everywhere who came to Guangzhou Guangzhou would be able to speak Cantonese uh uh because of the peers that peers would teach them the peers would teach them Cantonese in the past but now only Cantonese families can pass on the language to the kids back in San Francisco the language is also a less favorable choice for many students eager to learn Chinese mentoring classes are far more popular because it seemed to be better for doing business in China most of the students here learn Cantonese for family reasons my dad speaks Cantonese my family speaks Cantonese and you know I never really learned it fully growing up and wanted to be able to have conversations with my grandma into City's famous Chinatown these Cantonese speakers are well aware of the danger their lingo is facing they're trying to use it whenever they could so their culture can be preserved for as long as possible [Music] to get into this a bit more joining me now in the studio is DW reporter hang Shun Lee who speaks Cantonese and actually both of us speak Cantonese although yours is much better so for the viewers who don't speak this language why is this a big deal well Melissa we're talking about a language that is spoken by 80 million people so it's not really just as minor dialect in China and it's an extremely common Chinese language among the Chinese communities in in the UK or in the US for example because of early immigration patterns I mean as a U.S citizen you probably can confirm that yeah I mean people in Malaysia Singapore and Indonesia right also will hear this language yeah exactly because it also used to be a business language in Southeast Asia so that's why some elderly people in Malaysia for example still speak the language and historically it's also been said that Cantonese is a much older language it's thought to have been originated in about 220 A.D in it's much closer to the ancient Chinese language that people used to speak during that time and meanwhile Mandarin was recorded in about like fourth the 14th century I think and it only got populated across China by the Communist party after it took power in 1949. I mean so that's a thousand year difference and uh it's then Mandarin in that context is is pretty new so just how different are the two languages well they sound completely different now um to give you an example um let's say DW is the best news channel to watch right in Mandarin it would be DW should say how can this human tie and in Cantonese it's DW High Joe I mean it sounds really different to my ears yes they are different and in fact Mandarin and Cantonese both have completed different sets of Grandma rules and vocabulary so if one only speaks Cantonese he or she would not be able to understand a mandarin speaker and vice versa and by the way there's always been a debate about whether Cantonese is a dialect of Mandarin or not a linguist would say that no there are two separate languages because they're not mutually intelligible but actually within mainland China it's politically correct to refer to a different Chinese languages including Cantonese and Mandarin as dialects and just to give viewers a sense um it's actually more an unintelligible between say Portuguese and Spanish speakers sometimes can understand each other these two languages are far more distant well yes or more or less yeah I would say more or less the same like as Portuguese in Spanish or German and Dutch for example and a little bit maybe a little bit more um this information now beijing's decision to elevate Mandarin has had an impact on Cantonese so how is that playing out in China these days well it has received some like it has drawn some backlash for or like for two times already and just very recently there was an outcry on China's most popular video platform though in which is Tick tock's sister app and their Cantonese speakers said that they were quitting the platform because their Cantonese live streams got interrupted now here's a video a goodbye video from one of the users Funko foreign bye bye now this video we just saw was later posted on weibo which is another Chinese social media platform and it got widespread support from other users so one user wrote for example Cantonese cannot be dumped it's a living fossil of the ancient Chinese language if Cantonese disappears Chinese culture will become even less colorful and another user wrote don't give up your local language that's real Chinese Mandarin is just an emotionless tool for communication and of course there were others who were being less supportive and critical so one user actually asked so why not learn Mandarin properly and others are being very very analytical writing um well they are betting the language because the staff cannot understand it and if there's extremist content and the government demands accountability the platform cannot provide it and I think this what this user is trying to illustrate is that social media companies are increasingly Under Pressure to control speech online and having different languages would just complicate their efforts right I mean talking about control in China I think it's worth mentioning to people listening that it's not just Cantonese in China That's facing problems uh in fact Tibetan Mongolian uyghur they're under greater threat within the borders of China and I think it really emphasizes to the extent Xi Jinping wants this National Unity the singular language so how do different languages create unique identities well I mean language is never just a tool for communication it's always linked to a local culture a local identity let's take Hong Kong for example having a separate language which is Cantonese somehow reinforced the idea that the city is different from the rest of China and there even if Mandarin has become much more common people understand it much better than before a lot of people are still relock to speak the language because for them it's somehow a reminder of what they call the mainlandization of Hong Kong ultimately how worried are you about Cantonese or as a Cantonese speaker of course I'm worried not just because of the political pressure but a language can also weigh when people decide to abandon the language voluntarily because another lingo gets more prestigious socially and economically and I certainly don't hope that would be the case hunction Lee thank you so much for joining us

Channel: DW News

Views: 287,292

Keywords: DW News, Cantonese, Mandarin, China, decline, official language, business language, Hong Kong

Id: QUELieQeUKM

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 02 2022