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Confusing to refer to Chinese dialects as languages

Mr Luke Lu’s commentary “Debunking myths in revitalising Chinese languages” (July 30) presents some good, valid points. However, his use of the term “language” to mean dialect seems unnecessarily confusing.

Mr Luke Lu’s commentary “Debunking myths in revitalising Chinese languages” (July 30) presents some good, valid points. However, his use of the term “language” to mean dialect seems unnecessarily confusing.

One is free to adopt any of the various definitions of language and dialect. In China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South-east Asia, though, “Chinese language” refers usually to the Han written script; dialects essentially mean vernaculars related to specific regions in China.

Before and during the 800-year Zhou dynasty, there was a multitude of written scripts and spoken languages. Thanks to the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, the script Xiao Zhuan was made the standard and other scripts were eliminated.

The present Chinese script has evolved from Xiao Zhuan. There might have been a standard spoken official language used in court during the Tang dynasty, but regional dialects prevailed subsequently.

After the Republic of China was founded in 1912, in a conference of national representatives, the Beijing dialect was voted the common spoken language (Putonghua) — it is also called Mandarin.

There are still several Chinese languages. The Tibetan script was introduced by Tibetan ruler Srong-btsan Sgam-po in the seventh century.

The Mongolian script appeared during the reign of Genghis Khan. Nurhachi, the Manchu leader prior to the Qing dynasty, modified the script to create the Manchurian script. There are other minor tribal scripts, which are pictographic and primitive.

There are 56 ethnic groups speaking 201 dialects in China, hence the need for a standard written and spoken language.

The people of Hong Kong can speak elegant Cantonese because they have learnt written Chinese using Cantonese pronunciations.

This is not the case in Singapore. Our dialects are essentially colloquial, inadequate for expressing deep, abstract thoughts. Mr Lu is right to question the efforts to revitalise dialects.

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