2024-02-19 09:51:03
Li Dongguo said that there are 56 ethnic groups in China, but they only speak one language. (Legislative Council live broadcast)
The Legislative Council Committee on Constitutional Affairs met today (19th) to discuss the work of the EOC. Chairman of the EOC, Joseph Chu, said that the EOC is advocating measures to improve the learning of Chinese as a second language for ethnic minority students. Committee Chairman Li Dongguo questioned why minority students in mainstream schools use Chinese as a second language, adding that China has 56 ethnic groups but only one language.
When introducing the progress of the EOC’s work, Zhu Minjian said that the EOC is continuing to advocate through different channels to improve measures for ethnic minority students to learn Chinese as a second language. When asked, Li Dongguo questioned that children from ethnic minorities living and studying in Hong Kong should theoretically follow mainstream Chinese schools and be taught in Chinese. “Why do we need to introduce a subject that uses Chinese as a second language? Isn’t that right?” Does it make it more difficult for them to integrate into our overall education system?”
Second language teaching methods help minority students absorb
Zhu Minjian explained that because children from ethnic minorities often come to Hong Kong for the first time, or even if they were born in Hong Kong, the context in which they are taught Chinese language is mainly in school, and the context at home may be relatively weak. Therefore, the EOC hopes that the Education Bureau can formulate a teaching method for Chinese as a second language to make it easier for ethnic minority students to absorb Chinese.
EOC Chairman Zhu Minjian explained that teaching Chinese as a second language is easier for ethnic minority students to absorb. (Legislative Council live broadcast)
Li Dongguo understood Zhu Minjian’s explanation and agreed that this was a good direction, and then said: “Our country has 56 ethnic groups, but they have one language, Chinese, right?” We see many compatriots who are not Han Chinese all day long, but the Mandarin they speak is very good. In fact, they have their own way, and their experience is worth learning. .”
Chinese Government Website: 56 ethnic groups are divided into five major language families
According to the Chinese government website, “Overview of Chinese language and characters“Introduction, China has 56 ethnic groups, more than 80 languages, and regarding 30 scripts. Among them, Chinese dialects alone are divided into seven major categories, including northern dialects, Hakka dialects, Cantonese dialects, etc. The languages used by 56 ethnic groups can be divided into five major language families: Sino-Tibetan, Altaic, Austronesian, Austroasiatic and Indo-European.
According to the “Survey on Chinese Language Usage” published in 2004, excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, the proportion of people in China who might communicate in Mandarin was 53.06% in 1999, and the proportion of people who might communicate in Chinese dialects was 86.38%. The proportion of the population that communicates in minority languages is 5.46%.
Li Dongguo said that China can only speak Chinese. The Chinese Government website pointed out that before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, 21 ethnic minorities had their own written languages. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the government successively formulated writing plans for the Zhuang, Buyi, Yi, Miao, Hani, Lisu, Naxi, Dong, Wa, Li and other ethnic groups. From the perspective of the writing system and the form of letters, Chinese writing has phonetic writing, syllabic writing, alphabetic writing systems and ancient Indian letters, Uighur letters, Arabic letters, square letters, graphic letters, Latin letters, and Slavic letters. form etc.
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