Talk Show Discussion About Dialects

[WilsonFong]

Did anyone watch yesterday's episode of 锵锵三人行? They were mainly discussing the current state of dialects in China.

Some interesting points:

- most 90后 Shanghainese can barely speak Shanghainese, if at all.

- Guangzhou is actually much more Mandarin-ized than most people think. I actually read from the paper that a lot of elementary schools there occasionally have a "Cantonese day" to prevent "粤语盲"

- The CCTV New Year's Gala usually has skits that make fun of Cantonese accents.

- The official government policy is that only Putonghua is encouraged for national TV broadcasts, but in reality northern dialects are also OK too, whereas southern ones are a definite no-no.

Youtube Links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSXVBHVfkIA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9w6tSAKKGk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0hSetN8KzU&NR=1

[anonymoose]

most 90后 Shanghainese can barely speak Shanghainese, if at all.

I think it's true to say that the trend is for fewer young people to speak Shanghainese, but I'd like to know exactly what is meant by 'most', 'barely' and 'Shanghainese (people)' in the quoted statement. From what I've observed, the majority of 90后 who are of 100% Shanghainese origin (that is, with both parents being Shanghainese) can speak Shanghainese fairly well.

[skylee]

Thanks for the links. Very interesting discussion.

I've stopped watching this programme as I thought it was stopped.

[WilsonFong]

I think it's true to say that the trend is for fewer young people to speak Shanghainese, but I'd like to know exactly what is meant by 'most', 'barely' and 'Shanghainese (people)' in the quoted statement. From what I've observed, the majority of 90后 who are of 100% Shanghainese origin (that is, with both parents being Shanghainese) can speak Shanghainese fairly well.

I was just writing what I heard on the show. Maybe I misunderstood what they said because my Chinese isn't that great.

[msittig]

You probably heard correct. I think what happens is that younger Shanghainese don't speak "good enough" Shanghainese to satisfy the older purists, so they moan and groan. There's reason to worry, but I don't think it's as bad as they paint it. Shanghainese has always been a flexible and evolving dialect, hasn't it?