Although Guangzhou authorities have denied rumors that the city will scrap Cantonese (or Guangdonghua) to promote Mandarin (or Putonghua) in the near future, the Cantonese versus Mandarin debate has attracted attention from across China as well as abroad.
Westerners may remember an earlier instance when Mandarin and Cantonese featured in a limited way in "language" course options overseas. I recall that at my British university I had the chance to add either Putonghua or Cantonese studies (but no other dialect) to my degree course. That was in the days when Hong Kong was still British colony and before China's reform and opening up had really taken hold.
The early days of Deng Xiaoping's economic changes took place in Shenzhen, and entrepreneurs from Hong Kong were among those who helped bring more Western business practices to the Chinese mainland. Thus in the 1980s, as international links were developed with China, speaking Cantonese was quite useful. It was also true that overseas Chinese in Britain and America tended to speak Cantonese.
But times have changed as the mainland has developed. Mandarin is the fastest growing language. Foreigners in and outside China both are learning it. It has been added to the educational programs of many Western schools. And China has taken the initiative to set up hundreds of Confucius Institutes overseas with foreign universities' cooperation through Hanban (Chinese cultural centers) to send many Mandarin teachers across the world to provide local courses.
Many nationals of English speaking countries do not find foreign language study easy and those that have recognized the importance of learning Mandarin (reflecting the adage in international business "you can buy in any language, but to sell, you need the local language"), come to China expecting to be able to communicate with people across the country in their language.
But if people in south China were to speak in their local dialect their counterparts in the North would not understand them at all, and vice-versa. This is where Putonghua comes in as the common but effective medium of communication.
So what is the problem that Cantonese speakers of Guangdong have that has not been voiced so strongly by speakers of other dialects? It has been suggested that whereas many speakers of other local dialects see the mastery of Mandarin "as a second language" rightly as a source of pride, the Cantonese are proud of their own dialect and that, linked to economic success, it is a symbol of status.
Debates over whether Cantonese was being "discouraged" in the mainland predate the recent announcements - it is not the official language of instruction in schools even in Guangzhou. There are about 80 million Cantonese speakers and they, like other regional dialects, have their own culture and traditions. But 80 million is a small percentage of China's population. Thus, while their cuisine and some habits may be different from that of Shanghai and Sichuan dialect speakers, they share a lot more in the same cultural history that is much deeper.
The great melting pot of the United States has people speaking a very wide variety of languages, but their recognized language of communication is English. The administration, though, ensures that information in many other languages is available to reflect regional demographics.
The still expanding European Union (EU) brings together a vast array of languages and each gets equal importance. But all EU member states recognize the need to have a limited number of official languages for efficient communication of "the business of the EU". Hence, delegates from any member state are expected to be competent in one of the core languages. This is not seen as a loss of importance of a member's national language.
Some current debates over preserving local languages in the West should not be confused with China's situation. China's strength is its progress to ever increasing unity while respecting important local differences. The Chinese authorities are not seeking to restrict the use of any local dialect.
Last week the Guangzhou city government reiterated that there were no plans for the "universal abolition of Cantonese" and that the municipal government had no policies to "repeal Cantonese" or "weaken Cantonese". Local dialects should be preserved and encouraged so long as they do not create barriers to communication.
Communication of the intentions may well be the real problem. The Cantonese speakers have either not understood the goals of the initiative or have read too much into it. Hopefully as matters are clarified, the true benefits of the policy will be clear. And foreigners should certainly welcome it.
The author is an economist and director of China Programs at the American Institute for Foreign Study, a US-based organization that has exchange programs with Nanjing University and Beijing Language and Culture University.
(China Daily by Colin Speakman August 12, 2010)
