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Saturday, April 7, 2007
SAWIKAAN 2007: Press Release
“Party List, “telenobela” at “miskol,” napiling nominado sa 2007 Salita ng Taon
Napili na ang walong salitang nominado sa Sawikaan 2007: Mga Salita ng Taon
(Pambansang Kumperensiya sa Wika at Pagpili ng Salita ng Taon), isang proyekto ng Filipinas Institute of Translation, sa pagtataguyod ng National Commission for Culture and the Arts at ng Blas Ople Foundation.
Napili ang “party list,” “telenobela,” at “miskol” dahil sa matingkad na epekto ng mga ito sa kamalayan ng bayan, lalo na sa aspektong politikal at sosyal sa mga Filipino sa nakaraang mga taon.
Ang iba pang salitang may katulad na halaga at katangian ay “videoke”, “extra judicial killing,” “make over,” “friendster,” at “roro.” Roro ang pinaikling roll on-roll off o ang sistema ng transportasyon sa mga pulo na inaasahang makapag-ambag sa pambansang ekonomiya.
Mahigit sa limampung salita ang isinumite pero ang walo lamang ang pumasa sa pamantayang itinakda ng FIT.
Noong 2004, “canvass,” isang salitang kaugnay ng eleksiyon ang napili ng mga hurado. Noong 2005, tinalo ng “huweteng” ang ibang salita kabilang ang “blog” at “tsunami.” Noong 2006, “lobat” ang naging salita ng taon, nakaungos sa “spa” at “botox.”
Noong nakaraang taon, tinanggap din ang mga nominasyon mula sa mga probinsiya. Isinunite ang “chacha” mula sa Visayas at “meningococcemia” mula sa Baguio. Para sa taong ito, reserbado ang apat na papel para sa mga salita mula sa rehiyon.
Ang mga nagsumite ng napiling papel ay sisimulan nang sulatin ang kanilang mga paliwanag at argumento para basahin sa Agosto 2-3, 2007 sa Pulungang Recto, Bulwagang Rizal, College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City.
Ang mga panauhing pandangal sa taong ito ay ang mga iskolar na sina Florentino Hornedo at Ruth Elynia Mabanglo na tatalakay sa paksang “Ang Wikang Filipino Bilang Wikang Global.” Kasama ring magsasalita ang mga lingguwista mula sa ibang bansa, na magpapaliwanag naman kung paano nabuo ang kanilang pambansang wika. Layunin nitong magbahagi ng mga kaalaman sa pagsusulong ng Filipino. Imbitado sa taong ito ang tagapagsalita mula France at Mexico.
Bukas ang kumperensiya sa mga guro, estudyante, at iba pang interesado sa wika. Kontakin lamang sina Ms. Eilene Narvaez (9244747) o Prop. Romulo P. Baquiran, Jr. (9221830), Filipinas Institute of Translation, Rm. 2082, Bulwagang Rizal, College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, o mag-email sa filipinas.translation@gmail.com.
SAWIKAAN 2007: Press Release (Final)
Contact Person:
Romulo P. Baquiran, Jr.
0919-6384488
jbaquiran@gmail.com
Mga Diplomat ng Mehiko at Pransiya, panauhing tagapagsalita sa
Sawikaan 2007: Mga Salita ng Taon
Ang Embahador at Unang Kalihim ng mga embahada ng Mehiko at Pransiya
sa Filipinas ang ilan sa pangunahing tagapagsalita sa Sawikaan 2007:
Mga Salita ng Taon na idadaos sa Pulungang Recto, Bulwagang Rizal,
Kolehiyo ng Arte at Literatura, Unibersidad ng Pilipinas, Diliman,
Lungsod Quezon sa 2-3 Agosto 2007.
Tatalakayin nina Embahadora Erendira Araceli Paz Campos at Unang
Kalihim Georges-Gaston Feydeau ang dinamikang lingguwistiko at
panlipunan-politika ng mga wikang Mehikano at Pranses.
Naglingkod si Ms. Paz Campos bilang Pangkalahatang Kalihim sa United
Nations hanggang maitalaga sa kasalukuyang posisyon sa Maynila noong
Marso 2005. Nahirang na siya sa iba't ibang kapasidad kabilang ang
pagiging Konsul sa Konsuladong Mehikano sa Texas, USA.
Si G. Feydeau ay eksperto sa diplomasyang pangkultura, konsular,
politikal, economiko, at militar. Mula 2001, Diputado siya ng
Embahador sa Filipinas at nangangasiwa sa mga palihan, kumperensiya,
at ugnayang konsular. Naglingkod na siyang direktor sa Hapon,
Indonesia, Somalia, at Gran Britanya. Sa presentasyon ni G. Feydeau,
tutulungan siya ni Bb. Alix Lavaud, ang linguistic attache ng
Embahada ng Pransiya.
Inaasahang ang kaalamang makukuha ng mga kalahok sa panayam ng Mehiko
at Pransiya ay magpapalawak sa kanilang pananaw sa wika at
makatutulong sa pagtataguyod ng kilusan para sa wikang Filipino.
Pawang kahanga-hanga rin ang mga panauhing Filipino. Bubuksan ang
kumperensiya ng kauna-unahang babaeng pangulo ng Unibersidad ng
Pilipinas, si Dr. Emerlinda R. Roman. Tatalakayin naman ng mga iskolar
na sina Dr. Florentino Hornedo at Dr. Ruth Elynia Mabanglo ang tema ng
kumperensiya "Ang Wikang Filipino Bilang Wikang Pandaigdig."
Propesor sa Pamantasang Ateneo de Manila si Dr. Hornedo na eksperto sa
kulturang Filipino, bantog na kritiko, at awtor ng maraming libro,
kabilang ang tungkol sa kulturang Ivatan. Si Dr. Mabanglo ay kilalang
peministang makata at kasalukuyang puno ng programa sa wikang Filipino
sa University of Hawaii.
Sa ikaapat na taon ng Sawikaan, ang librong Sawikaan 2006, antolohiya
ng mga papel sa nakaraang tao, na inedit nina Galileo S. Zafra at Roberto
T. Añonuevo, ay ilulunsad sa tulong ni UP Diliman Chancellor Sergio S.
Cao. Ang mga ilustrasyong ginamit sa libro, magagandang print na likha
ni Pandy Aviado, ay itatanghal sa galeriya katabi ng pulungan.
Napiling mga salita sa taong ito ang "party list," "telenobela," at
"miskol" dahil sa matingkad na epekto ng mga ito sa kamalayan ng
bayan, lalo na sa aspektong politikal at sosyal sa mga Filipino.
Ang iba pang salitang may katulad na halaga at katangian ay "videoke",
"extra-judicial killing," "make-over," "friendster," "safety," at "roro." Roro
ang pinaikling roll on-roll off o ang sistema ng transportasyon sa mga
pulo na inaasahang makapag-ambag sa pambansang ekonomiya.
Mahigit sa limampung salita ang isinumite pero ang siyam lamang ang
pumasa sa pamantayang itinakda ng FIT (Filipinas Institute of
Translation). Para sa taong ito, reserbado ang apat na papel para sa
mga salita mula sa rehiyon, kasama na ang "oragon" ng Bikol at "sutukil" ng Cebu.
Itinaguyod ng National Commission for Culture and the Arts at Blas
Ople Foundation ang Sawikaan 2007, at pinangangasiwaan naman ng
Filipiinas Institute of Translation.
Bukas ang kumperensiya sa mga guro, estudyante, at iba pang interesado
sa wika. Kontakin lamang sina Ms. Eilene Narvaez sa (02) 9244747 o Prop.
Romulo P. Baquiran, Jr. sa (02) 9221830, o sumulat sa Filipinas Institute of Translation,
Rm. 2082, Bulwagang Rizal, College of Arts and Letters, University of
the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, o mag-email sa
filipinas.translation@gmail.com.
SAWIKAAN 2007: “Miskol” ang salita ng taon ng 2007
“Miskol” ang salita ng taon. Nanguna ito sa labing-isang iba pang entri sa Sawikaan 2007: Mga Salita ng Taon, isang kumperensiyang ginanap sa UP Diliman nitong Agosto 2-3, 2007. Pinili ito ng mga iskolar sa wikang Filipino, delagadong guro, at mag-aaral kasama ng pumangalawa at pumangatlong “roro” at “friendster.”
Nasa ikaapat na taon na ang Sawikaan. Mga nakaraang salita ng taon ang canvass (2003), huweteng (2004), lobat (2005).
Sinabi ng propesor ng Ateneo de Naga na si Adrian Remodo, ang sumulat ng papel sa miskol, na ang missed call sa New York ay ibang-iba sa miskol ng mga Filipino. Ang missed call ay simpleng di-naasikasong tawag, samantalang nakaugat sa sikolohiyang paramdam ng mga Filipino ang miskol. Ang sandaling tunog ng pagtawag sa cell phone ay nagsasabing “Buhay pa ako. Magparamdam ka naman.”
Katulad ng “lobat” ng 2005, lumaganap ang miskol dahil sa pagkahumaling ng mga Filipino sa komunikasyong cell phone. Pero inangkin na natin ang bagong teknolohiya at ginamit ito sa ating sariling paraan. Mahalaga ang papel ng wika sa pangkulturang pandarambong na ito. Sinasabi nating “Miskulin mo ako” para mairehistro ang bagong numero, makita ang naiwaglit na cell phone, o ipagyabang ang bago at magandang ringtone.
Naging pangunahin din ang mga kasunod na salitang roro at friendster. Roro ang pinaikling roll on-roll off o ang sistema ng pinagdugtong-dugtong na biyahe sa mga pulo na inaasahang makapag-ambag sa pambansang ekonomiya. Ayon kay Kristian Cordero, ang Bikolanong manunulat, makabuluhan ang roro dahil mahigpit na kaugnay ng kasaysayan ng ating bansang arkipelago at ligid ng dagat. Kaugnay rin ito ng politika dahil itinatampok ng administrasyong Arroyo bilang kampanyang pangkaunlaran. “Magpapaloko ba tayo sa bangkang roro ni Gloria?,” tanong ni Cordero.
Isa pang penomenong lumaganap sa mga Filipino nitong mga nakaraang taon ang Friendster, ang personal site sa cyberspace na nag-uugnay sa mga magkakaibigan at potensiyal na kaibigan. Orihinal na programang panghanap ng kasintahan, inangkin ito ng mahigit sa 5 milyong Filipino bilang pamalit sa aktuwal na pagkikita at pagsakop sa hadlang ng layo at panahon. Sabi ni Boom Enriquez ng Ateneo de Manila, ang Friendster at iba pang cyperspace interlink ay lumilikha ng “third space” para sa mga pagod na yuppies at iba pa. Maitatanghal sa third space ang tunay o inimbentong identidad para malimutan ang pang-araw-araw at bulgar na realidad.
Kabilang sa iba pang salitang naging makabuluhan sa Filipino sa nakaraang mga taon ang sutukil (pinaikling sugba-tula-kilaw), videoke, make over, telenobela, extra judicial killing, party list, abrodista, oragon, at safety.
Naging kapaki-pakinabang din ang talakayan sa Filipino bilang wikang pandaigdig nina Prop. Florentino Hornedo ng Ateneo de Manila University at Ruth Elynia Mabanglo ng University of hawaii. Gayun din naman ang panayam hinggil sa development ng wikang Mehikano at Pranses nina Ambasador Erendira Araceli Paz Campos at First Secretary Georges-Gaston Feydeau. Maraming natutuhan ang mga delegado sa mga talakaya at inaasahang magagamit nila ito sa pagtataguyod sa Filipino bilang wikang pambansa.
Ang mga papel na binasa noong nakaraang taon, kabilang ang nagwaging lobat, ay isinaaklat na bilang Sawikaan 2006 (Roberto T. Añonuevo and Galileo Zafra, editors. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2007) at inilunsad ito sa kumperensiya. Dinaluhan ito ng Pambansang Alagad ng Sining sa Panitikan Virgilio S. Almario, UP Diliman Chancellor Sergio S. Cao at ilustrador/pintor na si Pandi Aviado. Binuksan din nila ang eksibit ng mga ilustrasyong ginamit sa libro na itinanghal naman sa katabing galeriya.
Itinatampok ng Sawikaan 2007 ang pangunahing papel ng wika kung paano tinitingnan at iniuunawa ng Filipino ang kasalukuyan niyang daigdig. Pinatunayan ito ng listahan ng mga salitang tinalakay sa kumperensiya. Itinaguyod ng National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) at Blas Ople Foundation ang Sawikaan 2007, sa pangangasiwa ng Filipinas Institute of Translation (FIT). Naging tagapagtaguyod din ang U.P. President’s Office, U.P. Diliman Chancellor’s Office, at U.P. College of Arts and Letters. Para sa higit pang impormasyon, bisitahin ang www.sawikaan.net.
Friday, April 7, 2006
MGA SALITANG LARAWAN NG MUNDO
ni Romulo Baquiran, Jr.
Nailalarawan ng mga bagong salita ang mga kontemporanyong realidad. O ang realidad ba ang lumilikha ng mga bagong salita? Ano’t anuman, magkatalik ang salita at realidad. At natatandaan natin ang mundo—ang ating mundo—sa pamamagitan ng mga popular at mabebentang salita.
Halimbawa ng mga ganitong salita ang “metrosexual” at “blingbling”. Ngayon lang nailahok ang mga ito sa bokabularyong Amerikano-Ingles. Nitong nakalipas na ilang taon, tanging mga propesyonal na lalaking puti lang ang nakakikilala sa metrosexual at mataginting lang ang blingbling sa mga mahilig sa hiphop. Sa mga hindi nakakaalam, ang “metrosexual” ay isang lalaking hindi nababahalang ipagmalaki ang kaniyang pagkahilig sa postura at pananamit. Ang mga “blingbling” naman ay mga nakasisilaw na abubot sa katawan.
Ganito rin kakulay ang mga bukambibig ng mga Filipino. Hindi na halos maiwasan ng mga kabataan ngayong budburan ng mga salitang tsika, tsugi, at jolog ang kanilang usapan. At paano naman ang mga medyo tumatanda na? Dapat nilang ipagmalaki ang kanilang naimbentong mga walang-kupas na salitang “astig,” “hanep,” at “bangag.”
Sa isang subkultura muna umiinog ang mga bagong salita bilang ekspresyon ng identidad nito. Kung mabenta talaga ang salita, kakalat ito. Sa mga bagets nag-umpisa ang tsika noong kalagitnaan ng 80s na ang ibig sabihi’y “maikling pakikipag-usap.” May ganoon pa rin naman itong kahulugan ngayon pero lumawak ang konotasyon nito at naisama pati ang “mang-aliw,” “hindi pagseryoso sa isang gawain,” “pagkumbinsi ng isang tao sa pamamagitan ng mga boladas,” “pagiging miyembro ng isang social group,” atbp.
Nakakasakit ka na, Pre!
Magtampo ka kapag sinabihan kang tsáka, tsápter, o mas masahol pa, tsúgi. Iba’t ibang anyo lang ang mga ito ng pang-uring pangit. At ang talagang ibig sabihin ay “Ang pangit-pangit.” Naaalala mo ba ang sikat na kantang “I Feel For You” noong 1980s? Si Chaka Khan ang kumanta nito sa MTV. Tikwas-tikwas ang buhok niya, maga ang mga labi, kumikintab ang kaniyang kaitiman at taglay niya ang lahat ng mga katangian ng isang negra, na para sa mga nagkakatuwaang Filipino ay hindi kailanman puwedeng tawaging maganda. Ito ang etimolohiya ng tsáka. Binagong ispeling naman ng chapter ang tsápter. Kapag dumikit sa isang tao ang ganitong bansag, ibig sabihin, wala na siya sa eksena. Tapos na ang tsápter niya sa isang mahabang salaysay. Malamang na onomatopeic ang tsúgi dahil kagaya ito sa tunog ng pagbagsak ng talim sa sangkalan.
Madalas na nagtatagal ang mga salitang tumutukoy sa isang mahalagang karanasang panlipunan. May puwang na ang astig (binaligtad na “tigas”) sa ating wika. Kasinsigasig pa rin ng mga jeproks ang mga kabataan ngayon sa paggamit sa salitang ito. Maging kasinghaba kaya ng buhay ng “baduy” ang “jolog?” O susunod ito sa yapak ng bakya na halos limot na ngayon.
Sa ngayon, namamayagpag ang ukay sa pang-araw-araw na buhay ng mga Filipino. Mula sa mga salitang hukay at halukay, tumutukoy ito sa pamimili ng mga mayaman at ng mga kapos sa pera ng mura, imported, at pinaglumaang mga gamit. Pinasikat pa ito lalo ng isang commercial ng sabong panlaba na nagpauso sa eupemistikong bersiyong “Made in UK”.
Paniniktik sa mga salita
Sa Estados Unidos, ilang dekada nang nagmamasid sa mga salita ang American Dialect Society (ADS). Taon-taon, nagkikita-kita ang mga miyembro nito sa isang asamblea para pag-usapan kung ano-anong mga salita mula sa nakaraang taon ang makapaglalarawan sa diwa ng panahon. Mula sa mahabang listahan, pumipili ang mga miyembro kung alin ang puwedeng lumaban para sa titulong “Word of the Year”. Nanalo kailan lang ang “metrosexual”, “blingbling”, at “shock and awe”.
Dahil sa gawaing ito ng ALS, ang Filipinas Institute of Translation (FIT), sa pakikipagtulungan ng UP Institute of Creative Writing, Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL), at ng Ople Foundation ay naengganyong mag-isponsor ng SAWIKAAN: Salita ng Taon. Naganap ang unang forum para sa “Salita ng Taon” noong Agosto 2004. Nagkaroon muna ng pre-event selection--kinonsulta ang mga eksperto, iskolar, at matuwain sa wika para tukuyin ang mga potensiyal na salita ng taon at ikampanya ang mga ito para mapili. Popular dapat ang salita ng kalahok at nagpapahayag ng mahahalagang karanasan mula sa nakaraang taon.
Demokrasya at “canvass”
Sa SAWIKAAN na ginanap noong Agosto 2004 sa Bulwagang Rizal, tinalo ng ‘canvass’ ang 14 pang lahok. Iprinisinta ni Randy David ng UP Departamento ng Sosyolohiya ang isang papel na nagpapaliwang sa halaga ng canvass sa paggarantiya ng pag-iral ng demokrasya sa bansa. Ang “úkay-úkay” na sinulat ni Dr. Delfin Tolentino ng UP Baguio ang nanalo ng ikalawang gantimpala samantalang nagsalo sa ikatlong gantimpala ang “tsúgi” ni Dr. Roland Tolentino at “tsíka” ni Ate Glow (Rene Facunla). Tumanggap ng higit sa P20,000 ang mga nanalo.
Nasorpresa ang mga estudyante, mga guro, at mga matuwain sa wika sa samutsari at mayamang talakayan tungkol sa mga salitang itinuturing na karaniwan at pangkanto.
Gaya ng inaasahan, pinakakuwela ang presentasyon ni Vim Nadera. Pinangatawanan niya ang pagiging aktuwal na representasyon ng mga suki ng úkay, nagsabit siya ng kung ano-anong abubot na nahagilap sa nagkalat na mga tindahang segunda-mano. Naitampok din ang mga salitang salbakuta, tapsilog, dagdag-bawas, terorista, jolog, at fashionista; ipinaliwanag ang mga ito para sumalamin sa buhay-buhay at panahon, sa sikolohiya, sa politika, at sa pananaw ng mga Filipino. Ipinapahayag ng mga salitang ito ang diwa at puso ng karaniwang tao. Nakaisip na ng makabuluhang proyekto ang FIT para itaguyod ang Buwan ng Wika.
Matagumpay ding naisagawa ang SAWIKAAN 2005. Nagwagi bilang Salita ng Taon ang “huweteng” na sinundan ng “pasawáy” at “tibák/T-bak.” Inisponsor ito nina Roberto T. Anonuevo, Dr. Patrick Flores, at tambalang Salvador Biglaen at April Jade Imson. Naging interesante rin ang presentasyon sa mga popular na salitang wire-tapping, caregiver, blog, tsunami, coño, networking, atbp.
Naghahanda na ang FIT para sa SAWIKAAN 2006: Mga Salita ng Taon. Hinihimok ang mga iskolar at mga matuwain sa wika na magmasid ng mga potensiyal na salita at magpasa ng mga nominasyon kasama ang isang angkop na sanaysay. Para sa mga tanong at paraan ng pagsusumite, mangyaring mag-email sa filipinas.translation@gmail.com.
Ipagpapatuloy ang bagong komponent na idinagdag sa Sawikaan 2005. Magbibigay ng panayam ang mga iskolar mula sa Espanya at Malaysia ng karanasan ng kani-kanilang bansa sa pagdevelop ng pambansang wika.
Malapit nang maisalibro ang mga binasang papel sa Sawikaan 2005. Pinamamatnugutan ito nina Dr. Galileo Zafra at Prop. Michael Coroza at ilalathala ng University of the Philippines Press. Inaaasahang mapapaangat nito ang kamalayan sa halaga ng mga salita sa pamamagitan ng mga talakay ng 12 manunulat na lumahok sa kumperensiya. (Salin mula sa Ingles ni Salvador Biglaen)
SAWIKAAN 2006: “Lobat” ang Salita ng Taon
Matagumpay na idinaos ang Sawikaan 2006 noong 3-4 Agosto 2006 sa Pulungang Claro M. Recto, Bulwagang Rizal, Unibersidad ng Pilipinas, Diliman, Lungsod Quezon.
Itinanghal na salita ng taon ang “lobat” sa Sawikaan 2006: Pambansang Kumperensiya sa Wika at Pagpili ng Salita ng Taon, ang taunang kumperensiya sa wika na itinataguyod ng Filipinas Institute of Translation, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, at ng Blas F. Ople Foundation.
Tumuon ang Sawikaan 2006 sa development ng Filipino bilang pambansang wika at binigyang pansin ang mga bagong salita na naging popular sa kaligirang panlipuna at pangkultura sa nakaraang taon.
Isang artikulong isinulat ni Jelson E. Capilos, propesor sa Ateneo de Manila University, pinili ng mga kalahok sa kumperensiya ang “lobat” na isa sa limang finalist na kinabibilangan ng “botox,” “toxic,” “spa,” at “orocan.” Nahirang na ikalawa ang “botox” ni Dr. Luis Gatmaitan at ikatlo ang “toxic” ni Michael Andrada na isang instruktor sa UP.
Napili ang “lobat” bilang salita ng taon dahil sa interesante at makabuluhan nitong saliksik, malinaw na presentasyon, at naiibang kongklusyon na ang mga Filipino sa kasalukuyan ay halos katulad na ng cell phone—ang munting makinang simbolo ng modernidad—na nakasalalay sa maliliit na bateryang mabilis maubusan ng enerhiya. Nalolobat ang mga Filipino dahil sa mga kahingiang personal, sosyal, at global.
Isang brand ng toxin ang “botox” na iniiniksiyon sa mukha ng mga kliyente para mawala ang
mga kulubot na palatandaan ng edad. Ito ang naging ikalawang salita ng taon dahil naging popular sa mga Filipinong mahilig magpaganda at may pambayad sa mahal na lason.
Tumutukoy ang “toxic” sa mga oras kung kailan napakaraming natatanggap na tawag ang mga nagtatrabaho sa mga call center. O puwede rin itong paglalarawan sa alinmang nakaiiritang tao, bagay, o karanasan.
“Spa” ang kailangan ng mga taong nakaranas ng “lobat” o “toxic.” Ang “orocan,” ang brand ng mga produktong yari sa plastik, ay nangangahulugan ng pagiging plastik o mapagpanggap.
Ang tanging entri mula sa Mindanao, “kudkod,” ay tawag sa pag-chat sa internet, lalo na ang uring layuning makahanap ng partner sa cyberspace. Kabilang sa iba pang kandidato para sa salita ng taon ang “chacha,” “birdflu,” “meningococcemia,” “karir,” at “payreted.”
Napili naman si Rachelle Joy Rodriguez bilang pinakamahusay na presentor para sa salitang “karir.”
Bukod sa pagpili ng salita ng taon, ginanap din sa Sawikaan ang dalawang mahalagang panayam—una ang kay Dr. Isagani Cruz, dating opisyal ng CHED hinggil sa hindi katanggap-tanggap na patakaran ng administrasyong Arroyo kaugnay ng Ingles bilang midyum ng pagtuturo sa edukasyong Filipino; ikalawa ang kay Pambansang Alagad ng Sining Virgilio S. Almario ukol sa kalagayan ng edukasyong Filipino ngayon; at ikatlo ang kay Dr. Ana Isabel Reguillo ng Instituto Cervantes-Manila hinggil sa sitwasayong pangwika ng Espanya.
Nasa ikatlong taon na, isinasagawa ang Sawikaan sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas at dinaluhan ng mga guro, lingguwista, at mga estudyante mula sa iba’t ibang panig ng bansa. Angkop na pagdiriwang ito sa Buwan ng Wika.
Thursday, April 7, 2005
THE EXPERIENCE OF CHINA IN DEVELOPING NATIONAL A LANGUAGE
By Prof. Shirley Sy
UP Asian Center
(1) Standard Mandarin refers to the official Chinese spoken language used by the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore.
(2) In mainland China it is officially known as Putonghua which literally means "ordinary speech", in Taiwan as Guoyu which means national language, and in Malaysia and Singapore as Huayu meaning "the Chinese language". All three terms are used interchangeably in Chinese communities around the world where different groups have come into contact. Obviously, there are some slight deviations between the Mandarin variants spoken in Beijing, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. These include deviations in grammar, vocabulary, stylistic aspects, and loan words. For example, there is a 23% discrepancy in standard pronunciation between the 3,500 most commonly used characters in the 'Xinhua dictionary' of the mainland and the ‘Guoyu dictionary' of Taiwan, but they do not create much confusion.
(3) The English term Mandarin came from the Portuguese word mandarim is a translation of the Chinese term Guānhuà (官話), which literally means the language of the mandarins (imperial magistrates). The term Guānhuà is often considered archaic by Chinese speakers of today, though it is used sometimes by linguists as a collective term to refer to all varieties and dialects of Mandarin, not just standard Mandarin. Another term commonly used to refer to all varieties of Mandarin is Běifānghuà or the dialect(s) of the North, which is a large and very diverse group of Chinese dialects spoken across northern and southwestern China inhabited by the prevalent ethnic group, the Hans.
(4)Among the 56 ethnic groups, the Han comprises 91.6% of the total population. Having been dominant in China since the founding of the Chinese Empire, the Mandarin class was completely made up of Han, as was the massive bureaucracy power base in the Chinese Empire, even during the periods when the Hans were not in direct control. The Han civilization originated in the Yellow River Valley and continued to spread through Southern China then into Northern China. The prevalence of Mandarin throughout northern China was largely the result of geography, namely the plains of north China, and their presence in other southeastern cities was mainly due to famine and wars. By contrast, the mountains and rivers of southern China have promoted linguistic diversity which brought about many regional and often mutually unintelligible variants. This group of people used various Mandarin dialects which I like to refer to as “Hanyu” as their home language to distinguish the majority from the various minorities in and around China. In the West, many people are familiar with the fact that the Romance languages all derive from Latin and so have many underlying features in common while being mutually unintelligible. The linguistic evolution of Chinese is similar, while the socio-political context is quite different.
(5) There are seven major Chinese dialects and many subdialects. Mandarin (or Putonghua), which is based on the Beijing Dialect is the predominant dialect and is spoken by over 60% of the population. It is taught in all schools and is the medium of government. Only about two-thirds of the Han ethnic group is native speakers of Mandarin; the rest, concentrated in southwest and southeast China, speak one of the six other major Chinese dialects such as Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghaiese), Min (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, (Hunanese), Gan, and Hakka dialects. Non-Chinese languages spoken widely by ethnic minorities include Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur and other Turkic languages (in Xinjiang), and Korean (in the Northeast).
(6) Chinese, together with many tribal languages of South and Southeast Asia, belongs to the family of Sino-Tibetan languages. Besides a core vocabulary and sounds, Chinese and most related languages share features that distinguish them from most Western languages: there are no alphabets, each word is represented by a character, which may be composed of just one stroke or as many as several dozen, and because there are no alphabets, each character can be read in hundred different ways; they are morphologically monosyllabic, have little inflection, and are tonal. In order to indicate differences in meaning between words similar in sound, tone languages assign to words a distinctive relative pitch - high or low, or a distinctive pitch contour-level, rising, or falling.
(7) Since ancient history, the Chinese language has always consisted of a wide variety of dialects; hence prestige dialects and lingua francas have always been needed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán (雅言), or "elegant speech", rather than colloquial regional dialects; text during the Han Dynasty also referred to tōngyǔ (通語), or "common language". Rime books, which were written since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times. However, all of these standard dialects were probably unknown outside the educated elite; even among the elite, pronunciations may have been very different, as the unifying factor of all Chinese dialects, Classical Chinese, was a written standard, not a spoken one.
(8). Since the 17th century, the Qing Empire had set up "correct pronunciation institutes" (zhengyin shuyuan) in an attempt to make pronunciation conform to the Beijing standard (Beijing being the capital of Qing), but these attempts had little success, until the last 50 years of the Qing Dynasty, in the late 19th century, when Beijing Mandarin was established as the language of the imperial court. For the general population, although variations of Mandarin were already widely spoken in China then, a single standard of Mandarin did not exist. The non-Mandarin speakers in southern China also continued to use their regional dialects for every aspect of life. The new Beijing Mandarin court standard was thus fairly limited.
(9) The concept of a national language coalesced around 1910. In 1913, after the establishment of the Chinese republic, the Ministry of Education convened a Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation to establish a standard national tongue that would transcend locality and dialect. Due to the domination of the numerically superior Mandarin-speaking delegates, the Peking dialect was voted for the general foundation of the new national language 'guoyu' (national speech). It embodies the phonology or pronunciation of Beijing minus some pronounced regionalisms of Peking, the grammar of the Mandarin dialects, and the vocabulary of ‘paihua’ or modern vernacular Chinese literature, but features of various local dialects were also incorporated. Moreover, the vocabulary of all Chinese dialects, especially in more technical fields like science, law, and government, has been standardized. In 1956 some years after the establishment of the PROC, Modern Standard Chinese was introduced as part of a broad-sweeping reform to promote literacy and Guoyu was renamed to putonghua (common language) so as not to hurt the sensibility of the other ethnic groups. It became the medium of instruction in all schools nationwide and a policy of promoting its use began.
(10) Realizing that the traditional Chinese writing system hampers China's mass education, some scholars demanded total abolition of the Chinese script and to adopt Esperanto instead, while many Chinese intellectuals launched Chinese romanization movements which aimed to devise a new system of writing based on the Roman alphabet. The principle was to rely on the Roman alphabet as the basis of the new orthography, but with the addition of symbols borrowed from the Cyrillic alphabet or specially created to represent unusual Chinese sounds. One even introduced a whole new syllabic system called Guoyin Zimu "National Pronunciation Letters" later changed to Zhuyin Fuhao "Sound-annotating Symbols". The Zhuyin system better known as (Bopomofo) is still used in Taiwan up to now. All these measures were intended to adopt one pronunciation as the standard for the whole country, as opposed to writing the dialects separately, in order to promote a ‘unified national language.’ Numerous designs were proposed until 1928, when the Education Ministry of the nationalist government announced the establishment of the standard for Chinese Romanization.
(11) Chinese Romanization refers to the phonetic representation of Chinese language material in the Roman alphabet. Sporadic Romanization of Chinese words started way before the Renaissance, when westerners like Marco Polo came into contact with the Chinese culture and brought back Chinese goods like silk, tea, porcelain, etc. as well as stories about China's people, places and natural wonders.
(12) Phonetic transcription system to record the pronunciation of Chinese characters started in the early 17th century by Jesuit priests like Matteo Ricci (1552-1610, Italian), Nicolas Trigault (1577-1628, French) and others as they came to China to learn the Chinese language and to promote Christianity. Their efforts were later joined by other westerners like Thomas F. Wade and H. A. Giles. This is how the famous Wade-Giles system came about.
(13) There have been moves to reform the language from as early as the 2nd century BC, but there has been nothing to equal the complexity of the present-day program. The 20th-century movement for language reform in China has resulted in the most ambitious program of language planning the world has ever seen. The program has three aims: (i) to simplify the characters of classical written Chinese, by cutting down on their number, and reducing the number of strokes it takes to write a character in order to carve illiteracy. (ii) to provide a single means of spoken communication throughout the whole of China, by popularizing the Beijing-based variety, which has been chosen as a standard; (iii) to introduce a phonetic alphabet, which would gradually replace the Chinese characters in everyday use, this however, never gained quite as much popularity as the leftist had hoped.
(14) After several previous attempts to write Chinese using the letters of the Roman alphabet, Pin yin ('phonetic spelling') was finally adopted in 1958. This system main aims are to facilitate the spread of Putonghua and the learning of Chinese characters. Pin-yin is now in widespread use. In the 1970s, for example, a new map of China was published using pinyin, and a list of standard spellings for Chinese placename was compiled. New codes were devised for such diverse uses as telegraphy, flag signals, Braille, and deaf finger-spelling.
(15) Most Chinese who sought to achieve national unity through uniformity in the script considered that it was only the ideographs which should be used to bind together all the millions of people in China. In the opinion of Ch`en Kuo-fu, one of the principal leaders of the Kuomintang who thought that "China's ability to achieve unity is entirely dependent on having a unified written language," it was wrong for Chinese to use a Western script even for signing their names.
(16) But all these disparate views on linguistic unification expressed differences more of means than of ends. The disagreement as to means went no further than debate on the relative merits of the National Phonetic Alphabet, the National Language Romanization, the interdialectical romanization, the ideographic script, and the innumerable minor variations on these forms of writing. The more important agreement as to ends revealed itself in the emphasis on the necessity for achieving linguistic unity. The latter was part of the wider tendency among the dominant political and intellectual circles of China -- originating in the period of the empire and growing in strength after the establishment of the republic -- in the direction of a kind of integral nationalism. Their goal might be summarized by the formula one state, one people, one language.
(17) From the earliest pictographic symbols carved on turtle bones to the current simplified scripts, Chinese characters have been in existence for over 4000 years. As one of the world's oldest writings still in use, Chinese characters represent pronunciation, form and meaning all in one, demonstrating richness and profundity of Chinese culture. But can this oneness survive the challenges of modern technology?
(18) The world's foremost linguists and sinologists, including Bernard Karlgren of Sweden and Zhao Yuanren of China, predicted that Chinese characters couldn’t be alphabetized without losing meaning and creating cultural discontinuity. In other words, it is not possible to render Chinese characters into a purely phonetic alphabet. It's too much like attempting to build a Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco to Shanghai over the Pacific Ocean. Then, can we really bridge over this language barrier? Yes, but a different strategy is needed: Transform the square Chinese characters into a linear computer-compatible script like English.
(19) In 1873, American inventor Sholes received a patent for the Remington typewriter. This American invention left China behind with her pen & brush. In the last 100 years, countless inventors attempted to adapt the Chinese ideographic script into a similar typewriter. None have really succeeded. In the computer world, Chinese script has found its place in the age of computers. There are many methods that allow Chinese script to be typed on the computer, either by shape, pronunciation or both. New technology, such as handwriting and voice input, facilitate and speed up the input of Chinese characters. This four thousand year old script has indeed found a bubbling new life in modern technology, unlike some of its descendents who once upon a time almost threw it away to be totally forgotten, Chinese script has vowed to stay on solid ground and make itself more accessible to anybody willing to let it in into their lives.
(20) The popularization of the users’ friendly pinyin coupled with modern teaching techniques and with the aid of technology, has made Chinese language learning more interesting, less intimidating and is now gaining unprecedented popularity, much to the delight of this sleeping lion as it wakes from its long slumber, roaring perhaps not for ferocity display, but to resonate with the rest of the world the cry for peace, friendship and progress as evidently shown in its Olympic slogan for 2008 which is “one world, one dream!”
UP Asian Center
(1) Standard Mandarin refers to the official Chinese spoken language used by the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore.
(2) In mainland China it is officially known as Putonghua which literally means "ordinary speech", in Taiwan as Guoyu which means national language, and in Malaysia and Singapore as Huayu meaning "the Chinese language". All three terms are used interchangeably in Chinese communities around the world where different groups have come into contact. Obviously, there are some slight deviations between the Mandarin variants spoken in Beijing, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. These include deviations in grammar, vocabulary, stylistic aspects, and loan words. For example, there is a 23% discrepancy in standard pronunciation between the 3,500 most commonly used characters in the 'Xinhua dictionary' of the mainland and the ‘Guoyu dictionary' of Taiwan, but they do not create much confusion.
(3) The English term Mandarin came from the Portuguese word mandarim is a translation of the Chinese term Guānhuà (官話), which literally means the language of the mandarins (imperial magistrates). The term Guānhuà is often considered archaic by Chinese speakers of today, though it is used sometimes by linguists as a collective term to refer to all varieties and dialects of Mandarin, not just standard Mandarin. Another term commonly used to refer to all varieties of Mandarin is Běifānghuà or the dialect(s) of the North, which is a large and very diverse group of Chinese dialects spoken across northern and southwestern China inhabited by the prevalent ethnic group, the Hans.
(4)Among the 56 ethnic groups, the Han comprises 91.6% of the total population. Having been dominant in China since the founding of the Chinese Empire, the Mandarin class was completely made up of Han, as was the massive bureaucracy power base in the Chinese Empire, even during the periods when the Hans were not in direct control. The Han civilization originated in the Yellow River Valley and continued to spread through Southern China then into Northern China. The prevalence of Mandarin throughout northern China was largely the result of geography, namely the plains of north China, and their presence in other southeastern cities was mainly due to famine and wars. By contrast, the mountains and rivers of southern China have promoted linguistic diversity which brought about many regional and often mutually unintelligible variants. This group of people used various Mandarin dialects which I like to refer to as “Hanyu” as their home language to distinguish the majority from the various minorities in and around China. In the West, many people are familiar with the fact that the Romance languages all derive from Latin and so have many underlying features in common while being mutually unintelligible. The linguistic evolution of Chinese is similar, while the socio-political context is quite different.
(5) There are seven major Chinese dialects and many subdialects. Mandarin (or Putonghua), which is based on the Beijing Dialect is the predominant dialect and is spoken by over 60% of the population. It is taught in all schools and is the medium of government. Only about two-thirds of the Han ethnic group is native speakers of Mandarin; the rest, concentrated in southwest and southeast China, speak one of the six other major Chinese dialects such as Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghaiese), Min (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, (Hunanese), Gan, and Hakka dialects. Non-Chinese languages spoken widely by ethnic minorities include Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur and other Turkic languages (in Xinjiang), and Korean (in the Northeast).
(6) Chinese, together with many tribal languages of South and Southeast Asia, belongs to the family of Sino-Tibetan languages. Besides a core vocabulary and sounds, Chinese and most related languages share features that distinguish them from most Western languages: there are no alphabets, each word is represented by a character, which may be composed of just one stroke or as many as several dozen, and because there are no alphabets, each character can be read in hundred different ways; they are morphologically monosyllabic, have little inflection, and are tonal. In order to indicate differences in meaning between words similar in sound, tone languages assign to words a distinctive relative pitch - high or low, or a distinctive pitch contour-level, rising, or falling.
(7) Since ancient history, the Chinese language has always consisted of a wide variety of dialects; hence prestige dialects and lingua francas have always been needed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán (雅言), or "elegant speech", rather than colloquial regional dialects; text during the Han Dynasty also referred to tōngyǔ (通語), or "common language". Rime books, which were written since the Southern and Northern Dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times. However, all of these standard dialects were probably unknown outside the educated elite; even among the elite, pronunciations may have been very different, as the unifying factor of all Chinese dialects, Classical Chinese, was a written standard, not a spoken one.
(8). Since the 17th century, the Qing Empire had set up "correct pronunciation institutes" (zhengyin shuyuan) in an attempt to make pronunciation conform to the Beijing standard (Beijing being the capital of Qing), but these attempts had little success, until the last 50 years of the Qing Dynasty, in the late 19th century, when Beijing Mandarin was established as the language of the imperial court. For the general population, although variations of Mandarin were already widely spoken in China then, a single standard of Mandarin did not exist. The non-Mandarin speakers in southern China also continued to use their regional dialects for every aspect of life. The new Beijing Mandarin court standard was thus fairly limited.
(9) The concept of a national language coalesced around 1910. In 1913, after the establishment of the Chinese republic, the Ministry of Education convened a Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation to establish a standard national tongue that would transcend locality and dialect. Due to the domination of the numerically superior Mandarin-speaking delegates, the Peking dialect was voted for the general foundation of the new national language 'guoyu' (national speech). It embodies the phonology or pronunciation of Beijing minus some pronounced regionalisms of Peking, the grammar of the Mandarin dialects, and the vocabulary of ‘paihua’ or modern vernacular Chinese literature, but features of various local dialects were also incorporated. Moreover, the vocabulary of all Chinese dialects, especially in more technical fields like science, law, and government, has been standardized. In 1956 some years after the establishment of the PROC, Modern Standard Chinese was introduced as part of a broad-sweeping reform to promote literacy and Guoyu was renamed to putonghua (common language) so as not to hurt the sensibility of the other ethnic groups. It became the medium of instruction in all schools nationwide and a policy of promoting its use began.
(10) Realizing that the traditional Chinese writing system hampers China's mass education, some scholars demanded total abolition of the Chinese script and to adopt Esperanto instead, while many Chinese intellectuals launched Chinese romanization movements which aimed to devise a new system of writing based on the Roman alphabet. The principle was to rely on the Roman alphabet as the basis of the new orthography, but with the addition of symbols borrowed from the Cyrillic alphabet or specially created to represent unusual Chinese sounds. One even introduced a whole new syllabic system called Guoyin Zimu "National Pronunciation Letters" later changed to Zhuyin Fuhao "Sound-annotating Symbols". The Zhuyin system better known as (Bopomofo) is still used in Taiwan up to now. All these measures were intended to adopt one pronunciation as the standard for the whole country, as opposed to writing the dialects separately, in order to promote a ‘unified national language.’ Numerous designs were proposed until 1928, when the Education Ministry of the nationalist government announced the establishment of the standard for Chinese Romanization.
(11) Chinese Romanization refers to the phonetic representation of Chinese language material in the Roman alphabet. Sporadic Romanization of Chinese words started way before the Renaissance, when westerners like Marco Polo came into contact with the Chinese culture and brought back Chinese goods like silk, tea, porcelain, etc. as well as stories about China's people, places and natural wonders.
(12) Phonetic transcription system to record the pronunciation of Chinese characters started in the early 17th century by Jesuit priests like Matteo Ricci (1552-1610, Italian), Nicolas Trigault (1577-1628, French) and others as they came to China to learn the Chinese language and to promote Christianity. Their efforts were later joined by other westerners like Thomas F. Wade and H. A. Giles. This is how the famous Wade-Giles system came about.
(13) There have been moves to reform the language from as early as the 2nd century BC, but there has been nothing to equal the complexity of the present-day program. The 20th-century movement for language reform in China has resulted in the most ambitious program of language planning the world has ever seen. The program has three aims: (i) to simplify the characters of classical written Chinese, by cutting down on their number, and reducing the number of strokes it takes to write a character in order to carve illiteracy. (ii) to provide a single means of spoken communication throughout the whole of China, by popularizing the Beijing-based variety, which has been chosen as a standard; (iii) to introduce a phonetic alphabet, which would gradually replace the Chinese characters in everyday use, this however, never gained quite as much popularity as the leftist had hoped.
(14) After several previous attempts to write Chinese using the letters of the Roman alphabet, Pin yin ('phonetic spelling') was finally adopted in 1958. This system main aims are to facilitate the spread of Putonghua and the learning of Chinese characters. Pin-yin is now in widespread use. In the 1970s, for example, a new map of China was published using pinyin, and a list of standard spellings for Chinese placename was compiled. New codes were devised for such diverse uses as telegraphy, flag signals, Braille, and deaf finger-spelling.
(15) Most Chinese who sought to achieve national unity through uniformity in the script considered that it was only the ideographs which should be used to bind together all the millions of people in China. In the opinion of Ch`en Kuo-fu, one of the principal leaders of the Kuomintang who thought that "China's ability to achieve unity is entirely dependent on having a unified written language," it was wrong for Chinese to use a Western script even for signing their names.
(16) But all these disparate views on linguistic unification expressed differences more of means than of ends. The disagreement as to means went no further than debate on the relative merits of the National Phonetic Alphabet, the National Language Romanization, the interdialectical romanization, the ideographic script, and the innumerable minor variations on these forms of writing. The more important agreement as to ends revealed itself in the emphasis on the necessity for achieving linguistic unity. The latter was part of the wider tendency among the dominant political and intellectual circles of China -- originating in the period of the empire and growing in strength after the establishment of the republic -- in the direction of a kind of integral nationalism. Their goal might be summarized by the formula one state, one people, one language.
(17) From the earliest pictographic symbols carved on turtle bones to the current simplified scripts, Chinese characters have been in existence for over 4000 years. As one of the world's oldest writings still in use, Chinese characters represent pronunciation, form and meaning all in one, demonstrating richness and profundity of Chinese culture. But can this oneness survive the challenges of modern technology?
(18) The world's foremost linguists and sinologists, including Bernard Karlgren of Sweden and Zhao Yuanren of China, predicted that Chinese characters couldn’t be alphabetized without losing meaning and creating cultural discontinuity. In other words, it is not possible to render Chinese characters into a purely phonetic alphabet. It's too much like attempting to build a Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco to Shanghai over the Pacific Ocean. Then, can we really bridge over this language barrier? Yes, but a different strategy is needed: Transform the square Chinese characters into a linear computer-compatible script like English.
(19) In 1873, American inventor Sholes received a patent for the Remington typewriter. This American invention left China behind with her pen & brush. In the last 100 years, countless inventors attempted to adapt the Chinese ideographic script into a similar typewriter. None have really succeeded. In the computer world, Chinese script has found its place in the age of computers. There are many methods that allow Chinese script to be typed on the computer, either by shape, pronunciation or both. New technology, such as handwriting and voice input, facilitate and speed up the input of Chinese characters. This four thousand year old script has indeed found a bubbling new life in modern technology, unlike some of its descendents who once upon a time almost threw it away to be totally forgotten, Chinese script has vowed to stay on solid ground and make itself more accessible to anybody willing to let it in into their lives.
(20) The popularization of the users’ friendly pinyin coupled with modern teaching techniques and with the aid of technology, has made Chinese language learning more interesting, less intimidating and is now gaining unprecedented popularity, much to the delight of this sleeping lion as it wakes from its long slumber, roaring perhaps not for ferocity display, but to resonate with the rest of the world the cry for peace, friendship and progress as evidently shown in its Olympic slogan for 2008 which is “one world, one dream!”
The Experience of Russia in Developing a National Language
By V.F.Malyshev
Minister-Counsellor, Embassy of Russia
Introduction
Some expert say, there are up to 10.000 different languages left in the world; others put the estimate at thousands lower, depending on how many are characterized as dialects of another language. Every two weeks or so the last elderly man or woman with full command of a particular language dies. At that rate, as many as 2.500 native tongues will disappear forever by 2100.
This is the present day situation in the world. A language is a living creature, and as any living creature it lives and dies. Languages live with a society, serve the society, change and develop with the society and die with or within the society. Languages live as long as they are used by the society and individuals of that society, and die with the society or when they are rejected.
Some, very few, languages have become world-wide accepted as international tools of communication – the languages of international society. Mostly because of historical reasons, due to the expansion of the societies-nations-states that brought their mother tongues to other less developed and more dependent societies-nations-states. In some cases these languages were imposed on them for the benefit of colonial administration, in some cases these languages were gratefully accepted by recipient societies as sort of “humanitarian aid” that spurred their own cultural development. Today we have six languages formally reconfirmed as world languages – the official languages of the United Nations. Russian language is among the six, and as a Russian I am proud of it.
The present day situation with the Russian language
To have a full-size picture of the situation with the Russian language nowadays we must take into consideration three levels or three scales of its presence on the world: inside the boundaries of the Russian Federation, on the territories of the newly independent states, which formerly were the national republics of the Soviet Union (USSR), and in other countries of the world.
Starting with the largest circle and going into the center we will have the following. Sizeable Russian-speaking communities exist in North America (especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Miami, and Chicago). In the first two of them, Russian-speaking groups total over half a million. In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, live in their self-sufficient neighborhoods (especially the generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early sixties). It is important to note, however, that only about a quarter of them are ethnic Russians. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union the overwhelming majority were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterwards the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat. According to the United States 2000 Census, Russian was reported as language spoken at home by 1.50% of population, or about 4.2 mln, placing it as #10 language in the United States.
Russian is also spoken in Israel by at least 750,000 ethnic Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union (1999 census). The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian. For have a century by now generations of young Africans used the grants provided by the government of the Soviet Union, and now Russia, to get higher education in Russian universities and master Russian language.
Significant Russian-speaking groups also exist in Western Europe. These have been fed by several waves of immigrants since the beginning of the twentieth century, each with its own flavour of language. Germany, Britain, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, and Greece have significant Russian-speaking communities totaling 3 million people. Two thirds of them are actually Russian-speaking descendants of Germans, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, or Ukrainians who either repatriated after the USSR collapsed or are just looking for temporary employment. But many are well-off Russian families acquiring property and getting education.
Sizable Russian-speaking communities existed even in China, up to now Russian is well-known language in the North-East region of the country. In nineteeen-fifties Russian was widely taught in the chinese schools due to the “socialist bonds” between the two countries. In Mongolia mastership of Russian language was a gate to brighter future and till now every educated citizen of this country speaks perfect Russian. The same was characteristic for the countries of East Europe - the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR, especially in Poland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. However, younger generations are usually not fluent in it, because Russian is no longer mandatory in the school system.
As to the countries that used to be part of the USSR and before that – of the csarist Russia. Until 1917, Russian was the sole official language of the Russian Empire. During the Soviet period, the policy toward the languages of the various other ethnic groups fluctuated in practice. Though each of the constituent republics had its own official language, the unifying role and superior status was reserved for Russian. Following the break-up of 1991, several of the newly independent states have encouraged their native languages, which has partly reversed the privileged status of Russian, though its role as the language of post-Soviet national intercourse throughout the region has continued. In Latvia, notably, its official recognition and legality in the classroom have been a topic of considerable debate in a country where more than third of the population is Russian-speaking, consisting mostly of post-World War II immigrants from Russia and other parts of the former USSR (Belarus, Ukraine). Similarly, in Estonia, the Soviet-era immigrants and their Russian-speaking descendants constitute about one quarter of the country's current population. A much smaller Russian-speaking minority in Lithuania has largely been assimilated during the decade of independence and currently represent less than 1/10 of the country's overall population. Russian is the official language of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Ukraine) and Transdniestria region of Moldova. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for many of the both native and RSL (Russian as a second language) speakers in many of the former Soviet republics. 75% of the public school students in Belarus, 41% in Kazakhstan, 24% in Ukraine, 23% in Kyrgyzstan, 21% in Moldova, 7% in Azerbaijan, 5% in Georgia received their education only or mostly in Russian, although the corresponding percentage of ethnic Russians was 10% in Belarus, 27% in Kazakhstan, 17% in Ukraine, 9% in Kyrgyzstan, 10% in Moldova, 1% in Azerbaijan, 1% in Georgia.
Russian language as state language and other national languages in the Federal Republic of Russia
The Russian Federation is home to as many as 160 different ethnic groups and indigenous peoples. As of the 2002 census, 79.8% of the population is ethnically Russian, 3.8% Tatar, 2% Ukrainian, 1.2% Bashkir, 1.1% Chuvash, 0.9% Chechen, 0.8% Armenian, and the remaining 10.3% includes those who did not specify their ethnicity as well as (in alphabetical order) Avars, Azerbaijanis, Belarusians, Chinese, Evenks, Georgians, Germans, Ingushes, Inuit, Kalmyks, Karelians, Kazakhs, Koreans, Maris, Mordvins, Nenetses, Ossetians, Poles, Tuvans, Udmurts, Yakuts, and others. There are 21 republics within the federation that enjoy a high degree of autonomy on most issues and these correspond to some of Russia's ethnic minorities.
104 languages are currently spoken on the territory of the Russian Federation. Russian language is the only official state language, but the individual republics have often made their native language co-official next to Russian (see the appendix). The origins of Russian language go back to the 6th century. Growing with the history of the society, the nation and the state it developed through the Kievan period (9th-11th centuries), Feudal breakup (12th-14th centuries), the Moscovite period (15th-17th centuries), Empire (18th-19th centuries), Soviet period and beyond (20th-21st centuries). In the mid 1800’s Standard Russian based on the Moscow dialect became the official language. But it should be pointed out that the difference between the language of Kievan Rus' and Modern Russian is not so great as to make impossible comprehension of the 11th-century texts by an educated Russian. This difference is much smaller than, say, the enormous gap between Old English and Modern English. This backbone feature of Russian language contributed greatly to the survival of the language through ages and the acquisition of the position of the dominant language on the vast territory of Russia, the common official language throughout the Russian Federation understood by 99% of its current inhabitants. With the expansion of the Russian state the language served the governors as a powerful tool to administer and unite the numerous ethnic groups and provide access to literary and scientific materials not available in minority languages.
That is why it is not a question of domestic policy to support and promote Russian as a national language on the territory of the Russian Federation – on the contrary, past several decades it was the policy of the Soviet and then the Russian state to protect and support languages of national minorities and ethnic groups (but it has become an issue for the foreign policy of Russian to protect the rights of ethnic Russians and those who consider Russian as their mother tongue against the suppressive and discriminate actions of authorities in some former Soviet republics). The Russian legal system, first of all the Constitution, declares and provides that every citizen has the right to determine and state his national identity, use his native language and his language of communication, education, training and creative work. Each of the 21 republics has the right to institute its own State Language (see appendix). At present 14 out of 21 national republics have issued Decrees on Language. The Republics of Kalmykia, of Tatarstan, of Chuvashia, Sakha and several republics in the Northern Caucasus have produced their proper programs pertaining to the preservation and development of their national language. The linguistic policy of the central government of the Russian Federation is based on three fundamental principles: the preservation of Russian as the common language of the Federation; the support and development of minority languages; the three-tier system of language treatment – those of the nations of Russia, the national minorities of Russia and the indigenous communities of Russia. The educational system is built up accordingly to this policy. Languages of minorities are taught at primary and secondary schools in all the autonomous republic irrespective of the status of the language. The national languages are taught in the pertaining republics and other regions with dense population of that nationality. Financing the education from both federal and local budgets provides for further development of institutions of all educational levels in reference to the local language particularities. Russian language remains the language of state administration, of judicial procedures (every citizen has the right to be provided with proper translation into his mother language) and of the armed forces, of the scientific communities.
Conclusion
A small subplot in Arthur C. Clarke's novelization of 2010 concerned the crew of a Russo-American spaceship, who attempted to break down boredom with a “Stamp Out Russlish!!” campaign. As the story went, both crews were fully fluent in each other's languages, to the point that they found themselves crossing over languages in mid-conversation, or even simply speaking the other language even when there was no-one who had it as their native tongue present. This is a very smart picture of the interaction of languages and people. It depicts the major trend of linguistic development of the human race - free from national, political and material prejudices it naturally tends to be what it “au fond”, as the French say, is to be – a most comfortable and enriching tool of communication. In the future, when the status of a nationality will not have to be proved through the status of its language and the sense of a nationality will not have an acute political sense, when the globalisation processes will bring together people from all parts of the world, as Internet communication is doing right now, we will witness, perhaps, the emergence of a new world language, a fusion of present languages, accepted and used by all the people of the globe. But in the meantime the natural way of development is: one language unites people, unites a society, a nation, a state and does not exclude the right for existence and flourishing of other languages present.
Minister-Counsellor, Embassy of Russia
Introduction
Some expert say, there are up to 10.000 different languages left in the world; others put the estimate at thousands lower, depending on how many are characterized as dialects of another language. Every two weeks or so the last elderly man or woman with full command of a particular language dies. At that rate, as many as 2.500 native tongues will disappear forever by 2100.
This is the present day situation in the world. A language is a living creature, and as any living creature it lives and dies. Languages live with a society, serve the society, change and develop with the society and die with or within the society. Languages live as long as they are used by the society and individuals of that society, and die with the society or when they are rejected.
Some, very few, languages have become world-wide accepted as international tools of communication – the languages of international society. Mostly because of historical reasons, due to the expansion of the societies-nations-states that brought their mother tongues to other less developed and more dependent societies-nations-states. In some cases these languages were imposed on them for the benefit of colonial administration, in some cases these languages were gratefully accepted by recipient societies as sort of “humanitarian aid” that spurred their own cultural development. Today we have six languages formally reconfirmed as world languages – the official languages of the United Nations. Russian language is among the six, and as a Russian I am proud of it.
The present day situation with the Russian language
To have a full-size picture of the situation with the Russian language nowadays we must take into consideration three levels or three scales of its presence on the world: inside the boundaries of the Russian Federation, on the territories of the newly independent states, which formerly were the national republics of the Soviet Union (USSR), and in other countries of the world.
Starting with the largest circle and going into the center we will have the following. Sizeable Russian-speaking communities exist in North America (especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Miami, and Chicago). In the first two of them, Russian-speaking groups total over half a million. In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, live in their self-sufficient neighborhoods (especially the generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early sixties). It is important to note, however, that only about a quarter of them are ethnic Russians. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union the overwhelming majority were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterwards the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat. According to the United States 2000 Census, Russian was reported as language spoken at home by 1.50% of population, or about 4.2 mln, placing it as #10 language in the United States.
Russian is also spoken in Israel by at least 750,000 ethnic Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union (1999 census). The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian. For have a century by now generations of young Africans used the grants provided by the government of the Soviet Union, and now Russia, to get higher education in Russian universities and master Russian language.
Significant Russian-speaking groups also exist in Western Europe. These have been fed by several waves of immigrants since the beginning of the twentieth century, each with its own flavour of language. Germany, Britain, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, and Greece have significant Russian-speaking communities totaling 3 million people. Two thirds of them are actually Russian-speaking descendants of Germans, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, or Ukrainians who either repatriated after the USSR collapsed or are just looking for temporary employment. But many are well-off Russian families acquiring property and getting education.
Sizable Russian-speaking communities existed even in China, up to now Russian is well-known language in the North-East region of the country. In nineteeen-fifties Russian was widely taught in the chinese schools due to the “socialist bonds” between the two countries. In Mongolia mastership of Russian language was a gate to brighter future and till now every educated citizen of this country speaks perfect Russian. The same was characteristic for the countries of East Europe - the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR, especially in Poland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. However, younger generations are usually not fluent in it, because Russian is no longer mandatory in the school system.
As to the countries that used to be part of the USSR and before that – of the csarist Russia. Until 1917, Russian was the sole official language of the Russian Empire. During the Soviet period, the policy toward the languages of the various other ethnic groups fluctuated in practice. Though each of the constituent republics had its own official language, the unifying role and superior status was reserved for Russian. Following the break-up of 1991, several of the newly independent states have encouraged their native languages, which has partly reversed the privileged status of Russian, though its role as the language of post-Soviet national intercourse throughout the region has continued. In Latvia, notably, its official recognition and legality in the classroom have been a topic of considerable debate in a country where more than third of the population is Russian-speaking, consisting mostly of post-World War II immigrants from Russia and other parts of the former USSR (Belarus, Ukraine). Similarly, in Estonia, the Soviet-era immigrants and their Russian-speaking descendants constitute about one quarter of the country's current population. A much smaller Russian-speaking minority in Lithuania has largely been assimilated during the decade of independence and currently represent less than 1/10 of the country's overall population. Russian is the official language of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Ukraine) and Transdniestria region of Moldova. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for many of the both native and RSL (Russian as a second language) speakers in many of the former Soviet republics. 75% of the public school students in Belarus, 41% in Kazakhstan, 24% in Ukraine, 23% in Kyrgyzstan, 21% in Moldova, 7% in Azerbaijan, 5% in Georgia received their education only or mostly in Russian, although the corresponding percentage of ethnic Russians was 10% in Belarus, 27% in Kazakhstan, 17% in Ukraine, 9% in Kyrgyzstan, 10% in Moldova, 1% in Azerbaijan, 1% in Georgia.
Recent estimates of the total number of speakers of Russian:
Source
|
Native speakers
|
Native Rank
|
Total speakers
|
Total rank
|
G. Weber, "Top Languages",
Language Monthly, 3: 12-18, 1997, ISSN 1369-9733 |
160,000,000
|
7
|
285,000,000
|
4
|
SIL Ethnologue
|
167,000,000
|
7
|
277,000,000
|
5
|
And now we shall focus on to Russia itself.
Russian language as state language and other national languages in the Federal Republic of Russia
The Russian Federation is home to as many as 160 different ethnic groups and indigenous peoples. As of the 2002 census, 79.8% of the population is ethnically Russian, 3.8% Tatar, 2% Ukrainian, 1.2% Bashkir, 1.1% Chuvash, 0.9% Chechen, 0.8% Armenian, and the remaining 10.3% includes those who did not specify their ethnicity as well as (in alphabetical order) Avars, Azerbaijanis, Belarusians, Chinese, Evenks, Georgians, Germans, Ingushes, Inuit, Kalmyks, Karelians, Kazakhs, Koreans, Maris, Mordvins, Nenetses, Ossetians, Poles, Tuvans, Udmurts, Yakuts, and others. There are 21 republics within the federation that enjoy a high degree of autonomy on most issues and these correspond to some of Russia's ethnic minorities.
104 languages are currently spoken on the territory of the Russian Federation. Russian language is the only official state language, but the individual republics have often made their native language co-official next to Russian (see the appendix). The origins of Russian language go back to the 6th century. Growing with the history of the society, the nation and the state it developed through the Kievan period (9th-11th centuries), Feudal breakup (12th-14th centuries), the Moscovite period (15th-17th centuries), Empire (18th-19th centuries), Soviet period and beyond (20th-21st centuries). In the mid 1800’s Standard Russian based on the Moscow dialect became the official language. But it should be pointed out that the difference between the language of Kievan Rus' and Modern Russian is not so great as to make impossible comprehension of the 11th-century texts by an educated Russian. This difference is much smaller than, say, the enormous gap between Old English and Modern English. This backbone feature of Russian language contributed greatly to the survival of the language through ages and the acquisition of the position of the dominant language on the vast territory of Russia, the common official language throughout the Russian Federation understood by 99% of its current inhabitants. With the expansion of the Russian state the language served the governors as a powerful tool to administer and unite the numerous ethnic groups and provide access to literary and scientific materials not available in minority languages.
That is why it is not a question of domestic policy to support and promote Russian as a national language on the territory of the Russian Federation – on the contrary, past several decades it was the policy of the Soviet and then the Russian state to protect and support languages of national minorities and ethnic groups (but it has become an issue for the foreign policy of Russian to protect the rights of ethnic Russians and those who consider Russian as their mother tongue against the suppressive and discriminate actions of authorities in some former Soviet republics). The Russian legal system, first of all the Constitution, declares and provides that every citizen has the right to determine and state his national identity, use his native language and his language of communication, education, training and creative work. Each of the 21 republics has the right to institute its own State Language (see appendix). At present 14 out of 21 national republics have issued Decrees on Language. The Republics of Kalmykia, of Tatarstan, of Chuvashia, Sakha and several republics in the Northern Caucasus have produced their proper programs pertaining to the preservation and development of their national language. The linguistic policy of the central government of the Russian Federation is based on three fundamental principles: the preservation of Russian as the common language of the Federation; the support and development of minority languages; the three-tier system of language treatment – those of the nations of Russia, the national minorities of Russia and the indigenous communities of Russia. The educational system is built up accordingly to this policy. Languages of minorities are taught at primary and secondary schools in all the autonomous republic irrespective of the status of the language. The national languages are taught in the pertaining republics and other regions with dense population of that nationality. Financing the education from both federal and local budgets provides for further development of institutions of all educational levels in reference to the local language particularities. Russian language remains the language of state administration, of judicial procedures (every citizen has the right to be provided with proper translation into his mother language) and of the armed forces, of the scientific communities.
Conclusion
A small subplot in Arthur C. Clarke's novelization of 2010 concerned the crew of a Russo-American spaceship, who attempted to break down boredom with a “Stamp Out Russlish!!” campaign. As the story went, both crews were fully fluent in each other's languages, to the point that they found themselves crossing over languages in mid-conversation, or even simply speaking the other language even when there was no-one who had it as their native tongue present. This is a very smart picture of the interaction of languages and people. It depicts the major trend of linguistic development of the human race - free from national, political and material prejudices it naturally tends to be what it “au fond”, as the French say, is to be – a most comfortable and enriching tool of communication. In the future, when the status of a nationality will not have to be proved through the status of its language and the sense of a nationality will not have an acute political sense, when the globalisation processes will bring together people from all parts of the world, as Internet communication is doing right now, we will witness, perhaps, the emergence of a new world language, a fusion of present languages, accepted and used by all the people of the globe. But in the meantime the natural way of development is: one language unites people, unites a society, a nation, a state and does not exclude the right for existence and flourishing of other languages present.
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