[PSLE MT] PSLE less weightage in Chinese / Mother Tongue

[nan.014182nan]

3Boys:

Consider this, hardly 20 years ago, most Hong-Kongers could barely speak mandarin, were they less Chinese then? How about the migrants to the Chinatowns of Vancouver, Melbourne, who took their dialects with them and barely had an incentive to learn mandarin? How about the very elderly in our midst who do not speak mandarin and often do not read the text as well? Are they less Chinese as well? Is Tang poetry part of the cultural scene in Tibet or Manchuria? The use of the fluency in the language as a benchmark of ethnicity is clearly nonsense. So what motivates this type of name calling then? Probably several things, but I can't help but feel that special interests are at play. Just so that I am clear, I am not suggesting this of people who are passionate about the language and wish to propagate its use and fluency. I send my boys to enrichment schools run by such people, but there is none of this 'cultural' baggage.

Hi,

You wrote a long article. But I want to quickly address the above quoted paragraph, which I felt that you have confused Chinese language (written) and Mandarin (spoken).

Before I go on, I must say that I am not a Chinese language specialist, and I am also learning. I get my sources from the Internet. If need by, I shall call upon some real experts from other forum to come in.

The Chinese Language (华语) in this PSLE debate comprise of both written 华文 and spoken 华语.

In Singapore, the written 华文 is 华文. In China, I think they call more commonly as 中文, in Hong Kong I think they call it 国语（and say that in Cantonese). But what ever it is called, it is THE only one language for all Chinese in the is world.

((Note: certain usage of words has local meaning specific to particular country or region, but that is just variation and happens in British English and US English too. Example: in Singapore computer is called 电脑 but in China they call it 计算机. I am not dwelling into this details.))

Your example in that quoted paragraph ask Hong Kongers don't speak Mandarin, are they less Chinese. By asking this question, I immediately understand where you go wrong. Hong Kongers use Chinese, the same 中文，华文 or 国语. Their newspaper is printed using the same characters ((although even the characters has the traditional version 繁体 and simplified version 简体, and I am also not dwelling into this))

Hong Kongers speak Cantanese 广东话 and not 普通话.

What you missed out is the differentiation of 普通话 - which is what we in Singapore call the spoken 华语 !

Lets try to learn this. There is 华文作文 Chinese composition but no 华语作文. There is 华文老师 but no 华语老师 unless that teacher specifically only teach spoken 华语.

Lets look into why migrants to the Chinatowns of Vancouver, Melbourne, who took their dialects with them and not Mandarin ? Because, according to this http://baike.baidu.com/view/4591.htm?fr=topic, 普通话 only became the official Chinese spoken language after the New China was established (after 1949).

I highlight this:
新中国成立后，1955年10月召开的“全国文字改革会议”和“现代汉语规范问题学术会议”期间，汉民族共同语的正式名称正式定为“普通话”，并同时确定了它的定义，即“以北京语音为标准音，以北京话为基础方言”。

After the New China was established, in Oct 1955....the common language of the Han people is officially defined as 普通话...and using the official pronunciation of 北京话。

That is why, before 1949, your grandfather and great grandfather don't speak the so-call \"Mandarin\" because it wasn't defined !

So, do you realised that because you don't have this history perspective of how the spoken Mandarin came about, and you mistaken that because your grandfather don't speak Mandarin (but dialects of Chinese) and IS STILL consider 100% Chinese ?

So, today, after China (well, it has to be them, who else has the authority to do so ?) defined the official spoken language of Chinese, both the written 中文/华文 and the spoken 华语/普通话 is therefore the only official language of Chinese people (people live born in PRC, people live born in Taiwan, you and me in Singapore, those in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia...) and the decendents of the migrants in Canada, Australia would eventually learn the same too.

You said you are sending your children to enrichment centers. That is good. Please let them learn the only official language of the Chinese people well. That would perfect their Chinese-ness. And like I said, when you see your children can do better than you, you win, you must be proud of yourself to enable them to do so !

I am a Hokkien. My spoken Hokkien is only 20% of my father's. My children is less than 5% of mine (that means less than 1% of my father's)
They went totally bewildered (jaws open wide) when they heard my father talking to my cousins/uncles in China over the phone. Ask me:\"what in the world is ah-gong saying ?\".

However, if I pick up a Zaobao, my daughter better be able to read the headline aloud in the same way I would read it and understand what it says like my father. If my uncle in China read the same page, he would understand precisely the same.

I hope I open up a new perspective for you. But again, what I wrote above could be put in better way by someone who knows more than me. I only learn Chinese up to GEC \"O\" level. I am still learning.

[3Boys]

nan.nan:

I hope I open up a new perspective for you. But again, what I wrote above could be put in better way by someone who knows more than me. I only learn Chinese up to GEC \"O\" level. I am still learning.

I understand you perfectly. Does it not seem strange to you that something that supposedly has such deep roots is defined by a political act in 1955? And I don't even like the communists...... :lol:

[3Boys]

Let me elaborate further to nan.nan


Does it not seems farcical to you that whether someone qualifies to be a Chinese is on account of a political act of the communist party of China in 1955? The 4000 year old history of the country does not count then? What if the KMT had won the war in the 1940s? Would Hokkien be the official lingo of Chinese then? Actually I think Tang poetry would sound really nice in Teochew, its got a beautiful sing-song quality to it (and at least I could speak it)

[gnoikj]

3Boys:

Let me elaborate further to nan.nan


Does it not seems farcical to you that whether someone qualifies to be a Chinese is on account of a political act of the communist party of China in 1955? The 4000 year old history of the country does not count then? What if the KMT had won the war in the 1940s? Would Hokkien be the official lingo of Chinese then? Actually I think Tang poetry would sound really nice in Teochew, its got a beautiful sing-song quality to it (and at least I could speak it)

What if the Brits never left Singapore, and we have no need for this MT education? What if World War 2 was won by the Axis and Singapore remained as Syonan-To? What if your ancestors never migrated to Singapore? What if...? You get the picture...

Everything is defined by some event in the past. It is useless to argue based on what ifs and what should have beens....We have to deal with the realities here. We are what we are because of a certain MT policy set up eons ago...To be frank, it is virtually impossible to disassociate one from his ethnicity based on the argument that we rae a migrant nation. Ask the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans who migrated to the States...3 generations down, some semblance of the ethnic identity remains. Language itself is one of those which holds this shared sense of identity. And no, blaming it on the communists is too cliche an argumentative strategy.

[verykiasu2010]

what if the Brits / Japanese / Portuguese never left Singapore ? We will still be learning mandarin, and probably more chinese schools would have remained …


Possible scenario :

Japs stayed : we will be learning Japs and Mandarin

Brits stayed : we will still be learning English and Mandarin

[3Boys]

NOW I get it!!


This whole notion of Mandarin as being part of the Chinese identity is all of 55 years old! And for silly old me to think that there was some huge and deep tradition stretching back millenia, and hence all the strong emotional attachment.

Oh me oh my! All this hand-wringing because of the communists! :lol:

snideness aside, gnoikj, I doubt if many of the pro-MT camp would agree with your position. If a political act half a century ago is all its about, I doubt there would be such a reaction.

[tree nymph]

3Boys:

Let me elaborate further to nan.nan


Does it not seems farcical to you that whether someone qualifies to be a Chinese is on account of a political act of the communist party of China in 1955? The 4000 year old history of the country does not count then? What if the KMT had won the war in the 1940s? Would Hokkien be the official lingo of Chinese then? Actually I think Tang poetry would sound really nice in Teochew, its got a beautiful sing-song quality to it (and at least I could speak it)

Hi 3Boys,

The New China in 1955 uniformed the spoken language - which is Mandarin. But the written Chinese language IS never changed. Ok, actually it was changed from Baihuawen to Wenyanwen during the same period, which I think was a brilliant decision, but this is the style of writing. The basis of this (uniforming the language) is that the chinese govt wanted to have a common language for Chinese, so that the people from the different region can communicate with ease. Actually if you notice, Teochew is in Guangdong, but Teochew is not Cantonese and they will not be able to communicate easily if there's no common spoken language, guess they may have to resort to writing all the time.

Anyway, I understood that Cantonese was almost selected to be the official language, but there are more people speaking the Beijing Dialect then other dialect and so Beijing Dialect was chosen instead. And Beijing Dialect is Mandarin.

For further details, you will have to refer to nan.nan's link from baidu.

Just OT a bit, if KMT had won the war in 1940s - maybe we will have to write in traditional chinese words and not the simplified chinese words now.

Actually you are very chinese, you speak Teochew well, but you probably did not have the environment to learn the words. However, today if we lower the importance of the Chinese Language, then what do we have left? Do you mean you want our future generations to be like ABC who can't speak a word of Mandarin? Funny thing is that the offsprings of these same ABC are sending their kids to Beijing and other chinese cities every year for at least a term to learn Chinese and Mandarin. Even the angmohs are doing that. So if we lower the importance of Chinese, we are not just moving backwards, we are also closing our doors to lots of opportunities.

I'm not for the lowering of the weightage of MT, be it Chinese, Indian or Malay. We need to know our MT. Even if now the gahmen decides to lower the weightage, I will still stress the importance of my MT to my kids and will still continue to encourage them to do well in their MT. I truly feel that its a loss if we were to give up our MT. Some day, I hope they will be able to appreciate the excellent Chinese literature...

[minnie2004]

3Boys:

nan.nan:

I hope I open up a new perspective for you. But again, what I wrote above could be put in better way by someone who knows more than me. I only learn Chinese up to GEC \"O\" level. I am still learning.

I understand you perfectly. Does it not seem strange to you that something that supposedly has such deep roots is defined by a political act in 1955? And I don't even like the communists...... :lol:

I don't think you understand nan.nan at all. You still seem to have problem differentiating Chinese language from Chinese dialects (Mandarin is just one of which, along with Cantonese, Teochew etc). It sounds like your resentment of Chinese is actually just towards Mandarin, as it's linked to \"communists\" according to your father. However, I bet your father can speak better Chinese than Eng., since he speaks 3 dialects, which I presume are all Chinese dialects, and that he reads more Chinese newspapers than Eng ones.

Not all Chinese (even in China) can speak Mandarin, but most Chinese (as long as they're literate) can read Chinese, that's what matters the most. HK schools teach Chinese using Cantonese (although nowadays more schools are starting to use Mandarin), but I can assure you that their Chinese (maybe not Mandarin) is better than Singaporeans judging from the fact that the best selling newspapers and magazines there are in Chinese. Singapore schools teach Chinese in Mandarin. That's a choice by the govt for either political or economic reasons. Singaporean kids are actually lucky as they only need to learn the simplified version, and Mandarin also happens to be the easiest dialect to learn Chinese as it only has 4 tones, as compared to 9 tones in Cantonese. Imagine if the govt had opted for Cantonese or Teochew to teach Chinese, how many more complains we'd see now!

If you feel more comfortable learning Chinese in Teochew, by all means. If you think Tang poems sound better in Teochew, why not recite them in Teochew? Afterall, spoken Chinese is just one aspect of the language. Reading and writing are the more important aspects of a language, which you can learn in whatever dialect you like.

[minnie2004]

3Boys:

What if the KMT had won the war in the 1940s? Would Hokkien be the official lingo of Chinese then?

I'm sorry, Hokkien wouldn't have made it as Chiang Kai-shek is from Ningbo, so he would be speaking Shanghainese rather than Hokkien, which is only a dialect of the Taiwanese natives

[tamarind]

nan.nan, minnie, tree nymph,


I agree with everything that you all wrote above.

I am Cantonese, and I make my kids speak both Cantonese and Mandarin, because all dialects are part of the spoken language of China. They are just different ways of pronouncing the same written language.

I realized that many English educated people here do not have the correct perspective of the history and culture of Chinese, and there is a lot of mis-interpretation, most likely due to prejudice that Chinese is inferior. Someone in this forum asked in another thread, whether Communism is part of Chinese culture. After a while you will realize that their perspective is all wrong and a lot of re-education needs to be done. I have lost the patience to explain and argue with them.