[lg policy] China=?windows-1252?Q?=92s_?=Tibet policy continued attempt at erasing Tibetan language

Fri Jan 3 15:33:15 UTC 2014

 China’s 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>
  Friday, 03 January 2014 13:09  Yeshe Choesang, The Tibet Post
International
 [image: E-mail]<http://www.thetibetpost.com/en/component/mailto/?tmpl=component&link=dbac73f5a516757f0fc4603e086f6fc5e1b51b4a>
 [image:
Print]<http://www.thetibetpost.com/en/outlook/opinions-and-columns/3811-chinas-tibet-policy-continued-attempt-at-erasing-tibetan-language?tmpl=component&print=1&layout=default&page=>

[image: Tibet-TPI-2013]

The main language spoken in Tibet is the Tibetan language or Mandarin?
<http://www.thetibetpost.com/images/stories/January-2014/Tibet-TPI-2013.jpg>
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.

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.

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.

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.

[image: Tibet-TPI-2013-33]

How China use Chinese language in Tibet and abroad. Photo: TPI
<http://www.thetibetpost.com/images/stories/January-2014/Tibet-TPI-2013-33.jpg>
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.

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.

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.”

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.

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”.

China 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.

[image: Tibet-TPI-2013-21]

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
<http://www.thetibetpost.com/images/stories/January-2014/Tibet-TPI-2013-21.jpg>
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.

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.

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.

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.

http://www.thetibetpost.com/en/outlook/opinions-and-columns/3811-chinas-tibet-policy-continued-attempt-at-erasing-tibetan-language

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its
members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or
sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who
disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write
directly to the original sender of any offensive message.  A copy of this
may be forwarded to this list as well.  (H. Schiffman, Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20140103/346ac643/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list