At the same time, I personally think that nothing can be overcorrected. When promoting Putonghua, Shanghai dialect should be protected. Shanghai dialect is safe, so it is necessary to promote Putonghua. Why interfere? Wouldn't it be nice to let them live naturally and harmoniously? It is kind and natural to talk about hometown slang among people in the street. Is it not good to use the official language for TV news? !
The author of Protecting Broken Shanghainese is an associate professor at China Institute of Language and Literature, Fudan University.
As one of the largest cities in China, Shanghai has attracted the attention of the whole country. As a representative of the new generation of Wu dialect, Shanghai dialect does not seem to be popular. I have heard people complain more than once: Shanghainese always like to speak Shanghainese, and feel that speaking Shanghainese is exclusive. On the other hand, few people complain that Sichuanese speak Sichuan dialect, Cantonese speaks Cantonese and Xiamen speaks Minnan dialect, although the latter two are more difficult for most China people to understand. What's more, it is said that Shanghai dialect is not a real dialect, or that Shanghai dialect has only a history of more than one hundred years. These words came from the mouth of experts and professors, which made people stunned.
Shanghai dialect has a history of more than one hundred years, but only 150 years ago, Shanghai dialect was little known; /kloc-has experienced too many changes in the past 50 years. The "Yue language" used by the ancestors of Shanghai thousands of years ago can still be found in Shanghai dialect. Songjiang dialect is the authoritative dialect after the establishment of Songjiang Prefecture in Yuan Dynasty and the largest source of Shanghai dialect today. Suzhou was the central city of Wu in the late Qing Dynasty, and Suzhou dialect also infiltrated into Shanghai dialect through Suzhou Pingtan and other forms. The tolerance of Shanghai dialect to foreign cultures is probably due to many "foreign products" left over from the concession period, some of which later entered Mandarin. For example, "sofa" and "chocolate", these two English words were originally translated in Mandarin, and they will probably be another kind. Only by using Shanghai dialect can they be in complete harmony with English.
Shanghai dialect is very inclusive, which is inseparable from its being an immigrant city. Shanghai dialect has great influence in this area because of its economic and cultural advantages, but as a dialect, its strength is still not enough to compete with Putonghua.
I once made a survey at school to let Shanghai students read three Chinese characters commonly used in Shanghai dialect: "Jian", "Shore" and "Wa". The results are surprisingly consistent. "Jian" is pronounced as "chop" in Shanghai dialect, "shore" is homophonic with "dark", and "tile" is pronounced as w m 4. The pronunciation of these three words has nothing to do with the old Shanghai dialect, and they are all "translated" from Mandarin. It can be seen that the new Shanghainese simply don't know what to say in Shanghai. It can be expected that these sounds will remain and become the "authentic" Shanghai dialect in the future. That is to say, in the past 150 years, although Shanghai dialect has been influenced by many dialects and languages, it has not been cut off, but only absorbed some elements. The involvement of Putonghua has cut off the inheritance of Shanghai dialect to a certain extent and completely changed its appearance.
Mandarin has changed Shanghainese in several ways. First of all, it replaces many expressions, such as "so" for "Jie", "if" for "if" and "if", "one day" for "coming soon" for "coming soon". Second, the use of Shanghai dialect has decreased. In the past, Shanghainese was the only communication tool for Shanghainese, and Shanghainese was used for chatting and reading. Nowadays, Shanghainese is mostly used in family and daily life, and Putonghua has obvious advantages in public places. Third, the expressive function of Shanghai dialect has begun to be incomplete, and many words cannot be expressed in non-Putonghua. Even if you use Shanghai dialect to communicate, you often need a sentence mixed with Mandarin.
It can be said that Shanghai dialect, as the "most important intangible cultural heritage" in Shanghai, has always been in a weak position-it can only play the role of citizens' language and daily life language, and has lost its foothold in more formal and important occasions. This is because people unconsciously choose a language that shows higher social status, which further weakens the original language or dialect with lower social status and is finally abandoned. Political articles, scientific and technological articles and even newspaper articles have little demand for dialects, and the authors of these articles have the highest social status and their languages have the highest social status. Some dialect words will be changed to "coinage" when they appear in formal articles. The dialects of drivers and pulp sellers are the most vivid, but due to the low social status of users, these words cannot be elegant.
The spread of Shanghai dialect has two disadvantages that cannot be ignored. First, due to the large number of immigrants, Shanghai's cultural identity is not very strong. Shanghai residents like Pingtan and Yue Opera, and some even like Peking Opera. However, the influence of Shanghai Opera seems to be limited to some residents born and raised in Shanghai. Compared with Cantonese and Minnan, Shanghai dialect lacks cultural products attached to it, so that the loyalty of Shanghai residents to Shanghai dialect is not very high, which is incomparable with the loyalty of Sichuanese, Cantonese and Xiamen people to their own dialects.
Second, Shanghainese is the business card of Shanghainese, and the image of Shanghainese also affects the image of Shanghainese. The prejudice of foreigners against Shanghai dialect mentioned at the beginning is essentially a stereotype of Shanghainese, so many foreigners are even less interested in Shanghai dialect and Shanghai culture. After the recent "coffee garlic" theory, there are probably more negative views on Shanghainese and Shanghainese.
Learning a language requires a suitable environment. One of the important reasons why Shanghainese are bad is that children are almost divorced from Shanghainese's environment after attending kindergarten, and the influence of the school continues until a person reaches adulthood. However, natural language learning cannot be accomplished through school education, and our poor English learning is the best example.
Therefore, the most important thing to protect Shanghainese is to give Shanghainese the opportunity to speak Shanghainese. In addition to Shanghai families consciously educating their children to speak Shanghainese, we can first add Shanghainese education to school education. Local China is also China, so local courses can be set up to introduce Shanghai's history and culture on the one hand, and to explain, read and communicate in Shanghai dialect on the other.
Secondly, increase the use of dialects in radio and television programs. Television stations in many places broadcast dialect news programs, and the response of the programs was unexpectedly enthusiastic. As far as I know, Hangzhou's A Liu Tou Shuo News and Ningbo's dialect news programs have the highest annual ratings. It can be seen that the general public has the need to use dialects and watch dialect programs. I really look forward to the use of Shanghai dialect in the news square program of Shanghai TV station.
In addition, if there is financial support, you can also set up a dialect inheritance museum, community and so on. Invite celebrities and experts who use dialects to talk with people in dialects and set up dialect training classes. Anyone who is willing to learn can learn dialects. At present, there are also some dialect websites spontaneously established by the people.
Chinese dialect is an integral part of Chinese, a wealth of Chinese and a symbol of Chinese diversity. In those days, the promotion of Putonghua was not a natural act, so the protection of dialects could not be natural. To let nature take its course is to die. You can refer to biological protection and cultural relics protection. No one adopts the strategy of "letting nature take its course" on these two issues. In addition, the United States is a country without an official language, and there is no "Mandarin", so it may not be true that dialects will cause communication obstacles.
For most people, language is a tool, and we can all feel the benefits of language unification, while few people think of the disadvantages of single language. If dialects die out, it may bring a certain degree of communication convenience, but the negative impact on Chinese and China culture may be far greater than this convenience. UNESCO hopes to protect endangered languages and dialects in order to maintain linguistic and cultural diversity. Like biodiversity, once a language loses its diversity, it will degenerate.
For example, the vitality of Putonghua is not as good as before liberation, because it was very inclusive at that time. There are often some vivid expressions in dialects that are not found in Mandarin. "Embarrassment" entered Mandarin in Wu dialect a long time ago, otherwise, Beijing dialect can only say "embarrassment" to express the concept of "embarrassment". But if you can't enter Mandarin now, you can't be absorbed and used. In recent years, Zhao Benshan's sketches have sent some northeast dialects to Mandarin, such as "Fudge". Fooling is more delicious than cheating and cheating.