Loss of dialect a crisis for ancient language

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(Shanghai Daily/Illustration by Zhou Tao)

“GA san hu” is now what you may hear every day if you are a loyal listener of the 2012 radio program A La Ting Xin Wen (Let’s listen to news).

Many people were curious about the meaning of ga san hu. In fact, that is a phrase in Shanghai dialect simply meaning “chatting,” but what is shocking is that among those who could not understand, quite a few are local youngsters.

Some data indicate that only 60 percent of native Shanghai students can catch the meanings and speak dialect fluently.

“Academic circles have been concerned with the crisis of Shanghai dialect since the 1990s, and now, thanks to new media such as weibo, the voices are becoming louder and louder,” said associate professor Huan Tao from the Chinese Language and Literature Center of Fudan University. “Many other places in China are also facing dialect crises,” he said, citing Sanming and Yongan in Fujian Province, which he said are losing their dialects at a faster pace than that of Shanghai. But the big-city cases are getting more attention.

On December 25, 2011, 82 scholars published the Appeal for Scientific Preservation of Shanghai Dialect. They urged that kindergarten, primary and secondary school students should be allowed to speak dialect after class, that the city’s public transport system should have signs in Shanghai dialect, and that shanghai dialect-only radio and TV channels should be established to teach the correct characters and pronunciations of the language.

During 2012, voices for preservation became louder.

In March, the China Sound Data Bank of Linguistic Resources started the collection and recording of the phones in Shanghai Dialect; in June, a local news program called Xin Wen Fang started a Shanghainese-only weekend version; in July, four versions of transportation card bearing children’s story rhymes were sold out soon after their release. A No. 4 bus route started using announcements in dialect. In August, the first Shanghai dialect neighborhood club named Ga San Hu Club was formed to preserve and pass on the dialect.

In 2013, efforts reached higher levels. In addition to the dialect-learning activities in many communities, the Shanghai Municipal Education Committee announced a plan to use dialect by teaching folk rhymes and traditional children’s games in kindergartens.

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