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<a href="http://www.thetibetpost.com/en/outlook/opinions-and-columns/3811-chinas-tibet-policy-continued-attempt-at-erasing-tibetan-language" class="">
China’s Tibet policy continued attempt at erasing Tibetan language </a>
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Friday, 03 January 2014 13:09 </span>
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Yeshe Choesang, The Tibet Post International </span>
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<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva"></span></p><div style="float:left;width:350px" class=""><a target="_blank" href="http://www.thetibetpost.com/images/stories/January-2014/Tibet-TPI-2013.jpg"><img style="margin-right: 5px; border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); float: left;" class="" title="The main language spoken in Tibet is the Tibetan language or Mandarin?" alt="Tibet-TPI-2013" src="http://www.thetibetpost.com/images/stories/January-2014/Tibet-TPI-2013.jpg" width="350" height="233"><p class="">
The main language spoken in Tibet is the Tibetan language or Mandarin?</p></a></div>Dharamshala:
- Facts show that there has been real “cultural genocide” in Tibet at
all over the 60 years. With the Tibetan heritage and its rich
contribution to humanity endangered and disappearing, we must make every
effort to advance the preservation of the Tibetan language, literature
and culture through the teaching of the Tibetan language. Culture is not
something that can be restored after it has been destroyed, once it has
been eradicated by China, Tibetan ways will become extinct.
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">In world
history, language is maintained as a matter of national identity,
language defines a culture. The current genocide of the Tibetan language
by the Chinese government, through the removal of Tibetan language from
schools replaced with Chinese, aims to make Chinese children out of
Tibetan children.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">Buddhism
and culture depend on the rich and developed language that we call
Tibetan. Standard Tibetan is based on the speech of the Tibetan capital,
Lhasa, also Ü-Tsang dialect belonging to the Central Tibetan languages.
For this reason, Standard Tibetan is often called Central Tibetan. It
is in turn one of several branches of the Tibetan languages, the others
being Kham (Tibetan: Kham kad) and Amdo (Tibetan: Amdo kad). Written
Standard Tibetan is based on Classical Tibetan and is highly
conservative. This complex and historic development of our language
could be removed from history in just a few generations by Chinese
policies in schools.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">In
October 2010, thousands of Tibetan middle and primary school students
from four different places in north-eastern Tibet have been taking to
the streets to demonstrate. They all had one simple goal: to speak up
for the Tibetan language.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva"></span></p><div style="float:left;width:350px" class=""><a target="_blank" href="http://www.thetibetpost.com/images/stories/January-2014/Tibet-TPI-2013-33.jpg"><img style="border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); margin-right: 5px; float: left;" class="" title="How China use Chinese language in Tibet and abroad. Photo: TPI" alt="Tibet-TPI-2013-33" src="http://www.thetibetpost.com/images/stories/January-2014/Tibet-TPI-2013-33.jpg" width="350" height="235"><p class="">
How China use Chinese language in Tibet and abroad. Photo: TPI</p></a></div><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">Many
Tibetan intellectuals around the world expressed their fears for
Tibetan students protesting Chinese education reforms that aim to slowly
eradicate Tibetan language a medium of instruction in their schools.
These series of protests swept across Tibet in reaction to the Chinese
government’s stated intention to curb or eliminate the use of the
Tibetan language in Tibetan schools.</span>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">After the
largest protests in Tibet since the March 2008 uprising. China said
that Tibet will come out with a regulation to standardize the usage of
Tibetan language, which will help its popularization.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">Tibetans
need to be able to preserve their language because it is the issue of
solidify their cultural identity. But, it is clear that the Chinese
authorities do not accept Tibetan as a mother tongue, and the
authorities think that academic reform is the only solution to solve
this issue in Tibet, thus adhering to USSR dictators theory of “to
destroy a nation, we must first destroy the language of the nation.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">Most of
the world’s languages are spoken by relatively few people; the median
number of speakers of a language is 5,000-6,000. There are fewer than
300 languages with more than 1 million native users; half of all
languages have fewer than 10,000 users, and a quarter of the world’s
spoken languages and most of the sign languages have fewer than 1,000
users. More than 80% of the world’s languages exist only in one country.
So, Tibetan language is one of the latest facing linguistical genocide.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">The
racism by the Chinese communist regime is continuous and abuses the
rights of native Tibetan speakers and the other nationalities, such as
those in east Turkestan and Inner Mongolia .The Chinese Government is
guilty of “Language Genocide”, against the Tibetans for breaching
articles of the United Nations Genocide Convention. The Convention
defines genocide as any of a number of acts committed with the intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious
group. Therefore, the Tibetan people can bring the Chinese Government to
justice by complaining in International Court over the injustice done
by China for not complying with the UN Articles and the “Genocide of the
Tibetan Language”.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">C</span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">hina
says, its constitution gives ethnic groups the right to give priority
to their own language in education and daily use. The use of Tibetan
language, an official language in the Tibet Autonomous Region, is also
mentioned as an mandatory in public places. However, bilingual
billboards, license plates, road signs, storefronts and more have been
disappearing in recent years. Particularly name plates and official
conference banners only display the standard written Chinese during the
most major government meetings in the region.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva"></span></p><div style="float:left;width:350px" class=""><a target="_blank" href="http://www.thetibetpost.com/images/stories/January-2014/Tibet-TPI-2013-21.jpg"><img style="margin-right: 5px; border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); float: left;" class="" title="Capital Lhasa and surrounding areas: Bilingual billboards, license plates, road signs, tickets, name plates, storefronts and more have slowly disappeared or removed over recent years. Photo: TPI" alt="Tibet-TPI-2013-21" src="http://www.thetibetpost.com/images/stories/January-2014/Tibet-TPI-2013-21.jpg" width="350" height="235"><p class="">
Capital
Lhasa and surrounding areas: Bilingual billboards, license plates, road
signs, tickets, name plates, storefronts and more have slowly
disappeared or removed over recent years. Photo: TPI</p></a></div><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">Moreover,
the use of Tibetan language is rarely seen whilst driving along the
highway, sitting in a airport, bus or train station. This is due to the
fact that the standard spoken and written Chinese language is widely
used in Tibet in the textbooks, billboards, official documents and
specially during their official meetings. Also because of the higher
percentage of Chinese inhabitants to Tibetans means that China can
justifiably move Tibetan off the walls and replace them with their own
language. </span>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">The
Chinese Government should treat all citizens equally within the law and
without any discrimination. Every citizen in China has a right to be
protected under the law equally, and equal protection should be applied
to all without any discrimination. We must make every effort to persuade
the international communities to not allow the Chinese Government to
abuse and perform many different forms of genocide on the Tibetan by
branding them for “inciting activities to split the nation.” To split a
nation would be to say that Tibetans and Chinese are one nation, that as
we all all know is completely wrong. Two nations forced together will
always have differences and using this as a reason to perform crackdowns
is genocide disguised.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">The
Tibetan language is magnificent, powerful, and interesting in its own
right. But what’s more, knowledge of Tibetan not only contributes
significantly to world peace and harmony, but also one’s Dharma study
and practice. In fact, to study Tibetan is to practice the soul of
Buddhism, which even many scientists potentially have an important and
productive influence on modern science.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana,geneva">To
conclude, we all know that all human beings are both born free and equal
in dignity and rights. So everyone should be entitled to all the rights
and freedoms and enjoy them without division and distinction of any
type, in regard to race, color or national origin as in written article
of the Chinese constitution. Genocide of the Tibetan Language is abuse
and a humiliation against the Tibetans and humanity in general. The
Chinese communist authorities in Tibet do not accept and respect the
Tibetan language as a mother tongue; this means that the authorities act
like USSR dictators, who prohibited the languages to be used in the
occupied states. Tibetans strongly believe this is a big mistake and
ignorance and negligent to put other factors aside such as freedom of
speech, and the other fundamental rights like education. The vitality of
the Tibetan language coupled with linguistic pride represents so much
hope for endangered languages. Language is more than just a means of
expression. It is also a way of looking at the world and many applaud
the efforts of those keeping the transmission alive both in Tibet and
the diaspora. Language is the dispository of culture. If you lose that,
you could lose everything.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.thetibetpost.com/en/outlook/opinions-and-columns/3811-chinas-tibet-policy-continued-attempt-at-erasing-tibetan-language">http://www.thetibetpost.com/en/outlook/opinions-and-columns/3811-chinas-tibet-policy-continued-attempt-at-erasing-tibetan-language</a><br>
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