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Minority languages, education and communities in China

There is little doubt that this substantial and impressive work makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of ethnic minority languages and language provision for the 55 officially recognised indigenous minority nationalities in China. The author, Dr Linda Tsung of the University of Hong Kong, deals skilfully with the immensely diverse and multifaceted issues of practice and policy relating to ethnic minority language use and education, presenting an analysis that ranges over historical, socio-political, cultural and economic perspectives. While the study provides readers with an overview of languages in use and in education in the country as a whole, a particular focus is placed on three regions, namely Xinjiang, Yunnan and Hong Kong. These three examples were apparently chosen to represent China’s minority nationalities since, as Tsung shows with the help of empirical data, they differ hugely in terms of their history, geography, demography, socio-economic status and their relationship with the Han group and the central government. This approach makes the book appealing to a wide audience, including educators, policy-makers and researchers in the areas of ethnic, regional and comparative studies and minority education. In the introduction, following a brief examination of the concept of minority in relation to the Han majority in the Chinese context, an analysis of policy documents is used to raise several questions about centre–periphery relationships between the nation state and minority groups. The key issues have been and continue to be the tensions between national unity and ethnic diversity, and linguistically the conflict between the ‘common language’, usually coercively promoted all over the country, and the maintenance of minority languages and dialects. The second chapter provides a useful overview of minority communities with a clear focus on languages in use. In describing the minority communities, Tsung makes use of the structure provided by the official 2000 census figures compiled and published by the State Council of the PRC. Accordingly, 55 minority nationalities are neatly placed in six zones: northeast, north, northwest, central west, southwest and south. While the major part of the chapter is descriptive, Tsung writes passionately about the languages and cultures of different groups and makes intermittent ‘wake-up’ calls in relation to those languages judged to be endangered. These include Mongolian in Inner Mongolia in the north and Tujia in the south. She argues that the variety of existing languages, religious beliefs, literatures and other cultural traits constitute priceless human resources for China that should be treasured and celebrated both in language planning and language education. Historical accounts of the experience of minority groups are given in Chapters 3 and 4. The former presents in chronological order six ‘watershed events’ before 1949. It starts from 221 BC when the emperor began to enforce script unification. This was followed by a second ‘watershed event’ when rulers adopted Confucianism as the moral doctrine and ruling ideology for the country, continuing in various forms in many dynasties