Defending Cantonese in Canton

Dialect and language are of course as much part of heritage and culture as buildings and structures. There’s a lot of talk about buildings on this blog, less about language, though I’ve noted some of the attempts by various authorities to crush the Shanghai dialect/language in the past and the grass roots moves to preserve it too. Cantonese, though spoken by far more people, is also under threat in mainland China – there are plenty in power who would like to see the back of it and all dialects/languages. As with Shanghainese the basic problem seems to be officials not able to understand what those they would seek to rule are saying and naturally assuming (probably correctly) the worse!

Great to see then that about 1,000 people, mostly young in their 20s and 30s, reportedly gathered by a station of the Guangzhou Metro last weekend to show support for the Cantonese dialect. Police goons showed up flexing their muscles and the media were told to gag the event, but still it happened. The demonstration followed a controversial move by the government to switch programming on the main channels of Guangdong TV from Cantonese to Putonghua, the pared down and basic language preferred by Beijing as a nationwide form of linguistic control. The usual arguments about promoting tourism, investment, social harmony etc were trotted out.

The boys in blue got nervous telling a Cantonese pop band (rarely considered one of the most dangerous examples of rock band rebellion) not to perform or sing in Cantonese and then they hassled some guy who had the temerity to war a t-shirt that said ‘Not Guilty for having an opinion’. The crowd apparently jeered the police for being petty bureaucrats. There were some pointed criticisms of those looking to eradicate dialects in China and in particular of Ji Kekuang, the ignoramus official who is trying to forcing the TV stations to speak Putonghua.

Great to see the demonstration against this ridiculous officialdom that, to me anyway, just shows the hatred of ordinary people, their culture and opinions among the leadership in China. Across the country dialects are under attack constantly – we hear about attacks on Cantonese, Shanghainese and occasionally other major dialects (someone got in trouble last year for supporting the Manchu language) – other less high profile dialects are, I fear, losing the battle.

Still globally there are apparently something like 55 million to 70 million Cantonese speakers across the world – this makes it equivalent to say Italian or Turkish, which apparently most people think should probably be left alone! Incidentally Shanghainese and other Wu related dialects may well have as many as 90 million speakers globally too – so probably best to leave them alone too.