Half the people of China cannot speak Putonghua
27/12/2004 17:58
Jane Chen / Shanghai Daily news
Nearly half of the
population of China cannot speak Putonghua, the standard Chinese language,
according to results of a nationwide language survey published yesterday in
Beijing.
Cited by today's Beijing Times, the survey was approved by the State
Council, the country's cabinet, and jointly organized by the Ministry of
Education and the nation's language authority. Nine national ministries have
carried it out for five years.
The survey found out that only 53 percent of
people can speak Putonghua, with 8 percent speaking it as their mother tongue.
More used on formal occasions than informal ones, Putonghua is most
frequently spoken at offices and least often in the home, where dialects are
preferred.
Respondents cited the lack of an environment in which to speak the
language and the difficulty of eliminating their accents as the top two reasons
for the unpopularity of Putonghua.
The survey also found that nearly 1
percent of the nation's population is still using traditional style Chinese
characters, while others use the standard simplified versions.
While as many
as 40 percent do not understand the old style characters, just short of 4
percent are using both the original characters and the simplified
versions.
|
