Finding their voice
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Language is at the very heart of cultural identity, but economic development is pushing many minority languages to the brink of extinction.
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Mongolians, one of the largest ethnic groups in China, face up to declining usage of their language. |
Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia autonomous region is a place of rich linguistic resources. Located on the northeastern corner of China and neighboring Russia and Mongolia, the area has a number of resident ethnic groups that have their own cultures and languages.
However, modernization and urbanization mean that more people in the area are adopting Putonghua, or Mandarin, as their main language and forsaking their own.
"Many people of my parents' generation cannot speak Putonghua. People of my age usually can speak both languages, but are better at Ewenki," says Eerdemutu, a 38-year-old Ewenki man who lives in the Ewenki autonomous banner of Hulunbuir.
"Now my daughter speaks much better Putonghua than Ewenki. I don't know what will happen to the next generation," says Eerdemutu.
Ewenki is a purely spoken language and Eerdemutu says that because there is no Ewenki language pre-school education available, his daughter has received education in Putonghua since a very young age.
With a population of about 30,000, Ewenki is one of China's smallest ethnic groups.
The situation with the language of the Oroqen, an ethnic group of only some 8,200 people, is even more acute.
Anthropologist Bai Lan, who is Oroqen, estimates that only 20 percent of the ethnic group speak fluent Oroqen today, while almost none of the young people under 20 can really speak the language.
American linguist Michael E. Krauss defines languages as "endangered" if children will probably not be speaking them in 100 years, and "moribund" if children are not speaking them now.
It is not only the ethnic groups with lesser populations whose languages are under threat, the Mongolian, which has a population of nearly 6 million, is also facing the problem of declining usage of the native language.
According to the "Regulations on Spoken and Written Languages of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region", enacted in 2005, "Mongolian is the standard common spoken and written language in the Inner Mongolian autonomous region, and is an important tool for the exercise of autonomy. Governments at various levels should popularize standard Mongolian pronunciation and unify standard Mongolian characters."
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