User:ChelseaBlueForever/Shanghainese

Chinese Policy toward Shanghainese
90% of the Chinese population are Han Chinese, who speak seven topolects. However, the seven topolects are not interchangeable, and they each have many subdialects. The rest 10% of people, who belong to the minor ethnic group, speak more than 300 dialects. China has a long history of unifying language and writing systems. Before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, there were already attempts to establish a common language system. Therefore, the language issue is always one of the most important sections of the Party policy. Other than the government language-management efforts, the rate of rural-to-urban migration in China also accelerated the shift to Putonghua and the disappearance of dialect in the urban areas.

As more people moved into Shanghai, the economic center of China, Shanghainese had been threatened although it was originally a strong dialect of the Wu topolect. According to Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau, the population was estimated to be 24.28 million in 2019. 14.5 million of them are permanent residents and 9.77 million are foreign residents. To have better communication with foreign residents and develop a top-level financial center among the world, the promotion of the official language, mandarin, became very important. Therefore, Shanghai Municipal Government banned the use of Shanghainese in public places, schools, and work.

A survey of students from the primary school in 2010 indicated that 52.3% of students believed Mandarin is easier than the Shanghai dialect for communication, and 47.6% of the students choose to speak Mandarin because it is a mandatory language at school. Furthermore, 68.3% of the students are more willing to study Mandarin, but only 10.2% of the students are more willing to study the Shanghai dialect.

The youth could no longer speak the Shanghai dialect fluently because they had no chance to practice it at school. Also, they were unwilling to communicate with their parents in the Shanghai dialect, which accelerated the disappearance of the Shanghai dialect. The survey in 2010 indicated that 62.6% of primary school students use Mandarin as the first language at home, but only 17.3% of them use the Shanghai dialect to communicate with their parents.

Immigrants’ Opinions toward Shanghainese
Shanghai dialect is sometimes labeled as a tool to discriminate against immigrants. The migrant people, who move from other Chinese cities to Shanghai, had few abilities to speak the Shanghai dialect. Among the migrant people, they believe Shanghai dialect is actually the superiority of native Shanghainese. They also believe that native Shanghainese intentionally speak Shanghai dialect in some places to discriminate against the immigrant population to transfer their anger to migrant workers, who take over their homeland, take advantage of housing, education, medical, and job resources.