[philplckthun]

With Cantonese being mentioned in particular it’s worth noting that China has always acted to eliminate other languages in the country to the point where Cantonese and other languages aren’t spoken anymore in the mainland.

This may seem more efficient to the OP but we’re not talking about a common official language being known by all, but a single language displacing all others for the purpose to homogenise a country that consists of many cultures into a single one.

So it’s important to say: language is not only a tool but a reflection of culture, identity, and your part of society. We can learn a lot about people by learning their languages, and the disappearance of a language is always significant.

[yorwba]

> China has always acted to eliminate other languages in the country to the point where Cantonese and other languages aren’t spoken anymore in the mainland.

Not really. Cantonese and other languages not part of the fifty-odd official standard languages of China aren't taught in most schools, but that doesn't mean Mandarin has completely taken over. With the exception of big cities that have seen a lot of recent migration (e.g. the number of Shanghainese speakers has grown with the Chinese population boom, but the number of migrants has grown even more, so now it's a minority language in Shanghai itself) if you listen to a random conversation between locals, you'll be more likely to hear a non-Mandarin language than Mandarin.

It's also not that non-Mandarin languages are completely excluded from official use, they're just called "dialects" instead of languages. For example, schools in Xiamen started teaching the local Hokkien in 2010 (a few years after a similar policy change in Taiwan) and most small TV stations have programs in the local language (especially traditional plays and songs).

[keiferski]

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8p7n/the-only-mongolian...

[yorwba]

The protests are about the introduction of some Standard Mandarin classes in schools that were previously using Mongolian exclusively. (Albeit again a standardized form instead of the full spectrum of Mongolic languages and dialects spoken throughout China.)

Those changes are unlikely to lead to phasing out official use of Mongolian in China anytime soon. (E.g. on the Mongolian version of the website of the government of Inner Mongolia: http://mgl.nmg.gov.cn/U_index.html )

[keiferski]

It takes some serious cognitive dissonance to think that the CCP isn’t slowly phasing out all non-Mandarin languages and cultures. This isn’t something unique to China, either: France eliminated most of its regional languages in the same fashion, although that was hundreds of years ago.

[yorwba]

France has had hundreds of years to try and eliminate regional languages, and yet there still are people speaking many of those languages, even if they only form a small minority. Language death is a very slow process.

I think you're also missing that the Chinese government's language policy is not driven by a single aim. Making the populace predictable and controllable are reasons for the central government to prefer a single language and culture, but trade with Mongolia and tourism where visitors get to experience living in traditional Mongolian yurts, listening to traditional Mongolian songs and riding horses in the traditional Mongolian way are strong economic incentives for the government of Inner Mongolia to retain the Mongolian language and culture.

[newsbinator]

I agree we can learn a lot about a people by learning their language and I agree that in some ways, but not all ways, language is a reflection of culture.

You can still have approximately the same root culture even with a completely different language as the daily driver. Jewish history is a good example of this.

If I could snap my fingers and eliminate all languages except for one, and have all cultures adjust/evolve to use that language instead, I'd do it. Not because we wouldn't be losing anything, but because the loss would be 1000x worthwhile.

[srtjstjsj]

Please say "Chinese Communist Party" or "PRC" or similar when making claims that critically only apply to that part of China.

As you note, Cantonese is not being extinguished in all parts off mainland China.