Multilingualism in China: The Politics of Writing Reforms for Minority Languages 1949–2002. By Minglang Zhou. [Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003. xxiv+458 pp. €94.00. ISBN 3-11-017896-6.]

Extract

This book is a detailed examination of reform in the writing of minority languages under the PRC, including the adaptation of languages to scripts never before used to write them. Considering how closely language is related to culture and society, this entails a good deal of treatment of issues such as PRC politics, external influences, such as from the Soviet Union and the West, the impact of modernization and factors like education and religion. Of course, there is quite a bit about China's spoken minority languages as well.

The book is generally well written, though there are places where the language becomes dense and difficult to follow. The source material for the book is four summers of fieldwork in China's minority areas (1997–2000) and a vast amount of printed material. The list of references takes up no less than 40 pages (pp. 407–446). All items are in Chinese or English. The author makes judicious use of this array of material to mould his own viewpoints on specific issues.

My only real problem with this book as a work of scholarship is the lack of clarity in the aims and central argument. The introduction gives extensive historical background on China's ethnic relations and policies, including in the PRC. It also forecasts the topics of the individual chapters, concluding with the author's hope that China's experiences in multilingualism will “facilitate the maintenance and development of minority languages in the world community” (p. 35). The conclusion summarizes answers to some of the crucial questions the book tackles, and again returns to the hope that the Chinese experience will be of use to the world as a whole.