UN DOCUMENTS CHINESE VERSION : SIMPLIFIED CHINESE ONLY
This year marks the 50 years anniversary of releasing Simplify the Chinese Character and Popularise Mandarin by the State Council.Sources come that after 2008 the United Nations chinese version document is only in simplified chinese marks the years effort of popularising mandarin. On March 22th,the ministry of education organizes a seminar of simplified Chinese and mandarin popularity and many national famous languages experts presented,.Mr.Zhou Youguang, over one hundred years old,also gave his presentation on the seminar.
According to Chen Zhangtai, from State Chinese Language Committee ,said that the United Nations will recognize simplified Chinese as the official Chinese only after 2008. The latest released World Languages Report 2005 shows that Chinese language ranked top four and rose to the second place in 2005 but still behind English Language while ahead Germeny. It shows that Chinese language impacts on the world increasing.
Simplify the Chinese Character has been popularised in Singapore.Mr.Zhou Youguang said that China influences to the world is increasingly and the people across the world are eager to learn Chinese,especially simplified Chinese. When simplified Chinese becomes the only standard Chinese ,people from Hongkong will find out that the simplified Chinese is as useful as the traditional one sooner or later. Fu Yonghe,also from State Chinese Language Committee, said that Hongkong special administrative region government will decide whether to popularise simplified Chinese or not according to real situation the SAR itself.
Need More Volunteers for Teaching Chinese Overseas
Professor Lu Jianming from Peking University,member of State Chinese Language Committee, Chief of China-International Chinese Language Teaching and Research Institute, said that China had made a plan to establish Confucius Institute across the world for populating Chinese language internationally. So far, 40 Confucius Institutes have been established over the world.
Last year,around 500 volunteers Chinese teachers have been dispatched to other countries.The Office of Chinese Language Council International has set a “Chinese Program”for international Chinese language popularities
In the past, there was no Chinese language class in the United State schools, but now the Chinese language has been listed as IP curriculums for entering universities in 2007. Research shows that 2347 high schools in the United States will have Chinese language class that is much more the expected number 300 according the University Committee of United States.
With the popularity of mandarin, some Chinese regional dialects are on the edge of disappearing and some appeal of protect dialects appears. Sir.Zhour Youguang explains that with the fast development of cities in China, immigrants’ population grows fast while local people population grows slowly. In such a city society, the general language for people from different place and background communication is mandarin. This is the trend, not only in China but also around the world.
Chen Zhangtai thought that the popularity of mandarin is to provide another language tool for people better communication. At the same time, Chinese government has set up a special program for proving Chinese regional dialects. As a matter of fact, the Chinese government holds that traditional culture and language should be protected and carried from generation to generation. China is big country with a long history. Chinese language holds a very long history but it is not always divided into different languages and its figure is also the fixed old type. Its figure results in it is the unique language in the world.
