{"id":40679,"date":"2022-01-16T16:07:44","date_gmt":"2022-01-16T07:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jan\/16\/chinese-dialects-in-decline-as-government-enforces-mandarin"},"modified":"2022-01-16T16:07:44","modified_gmt":"2022-01-16T07:07:44","slug":"chinese-dialects-in-decline-as-government-enforces-mandarin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=40679","title":{"rendered":"Chinese dialects in decline as government enforces Mandarin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Linguists concerned as regional languages dwindle amid push to strengthen uniform national identity<\/p>\n<p>Two years ago, Qi Jiayao visited his mother\u2019s hometown of Shaoxing in eastern China. When he tried to speak to his cousin\u2019s children in the local dialect, Qi was surprised. \u201cNone of them was able to,\u201d recalls the 38-year-old linguist, who now teaches Mandarin in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.<\/p>\n<p>The decline in local dialects among the younger generation has become more apparent in recent years as China\u2019s president, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/nov\/14\/xi-jinping-has-rewritten-chinas-history-but-even-he-cant-predict-its-global-future\" title=\"\">Xi Jinping<\/a>, has sought to strengthen a uniform Chinese identity. Mandarin is now being spoken by more than 80% of China\u2019s population, up from 70% a decade ago. Last month, China\u2019s state council vowed to increase the figure to 85% within the next four years.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jan\/16\/chinese-dialects-in-decline-as-government-enforces-mandarin\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Linguists concerned as regional languages dwindle amid push to strengthen uniform national identityTwo years ago, Qi Jiayao visited his mother\u2019s hometown of Shaoxing in eastern China. When he tried to speak to his cousin\u2019s children in the local dialect&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2113,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,615,1967,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-education","category-languages","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40680,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40679\/revisions\/40680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}