A man takes a photo of the Nanjing Dialect and Slang Wall in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, October 29, 2010.

An old man and his grandson have travelled from southern China to visit the nation's capital. They're riding the subway but not sure where to get off.  The elder asks for directions but he can't make himself understood; the shy boy finally speaks up and a Beijinger politely tells them how to get where they want to go.

The scene neatly delineates three striking issues facing China's plethora of languages and dialects.  The old man doesn't just have a heavy accent that's hard to understand, his tongue is a language unto itself that has been spoken in the coastal regions of Zhejiang Province for 1,000 years.

He has watched television all his life so he can understand Putonghua, while his grandson, who has only been taught China's official language at school, can understand his granddad but speaks little of his family's dialect.

China's linguistics are a rich and confusing tangle of dialects and accent, which at the time of liberation was considered a hindrance to unity. Since early last century, Mandarin, or Putonghua which literally means "common speak" and is based on the Beijing and Northeast dialect, has been pushed on the populace.

While just about everyone now understands Putonghua, the old man's generation may be the last to be fully fluent in their "fangyan" or local language.

Now that the popularization of Putonghua is basically complete, historians and linguists worry that many local dialects are on the road to extinction over the next generation or two.

Yet a great many Chinese people remain bilingual if not trilingual, especially those from outside the northeast where Putonghua is spoken. Many people have some skills in their local dialect, but by necessity they speak Putonghua, which is China's lingua franca for business and official communication. 

This is made somewhat easier considering that the written language - simplified Chinese characters, is understood across most dialectically boundaries, although idiomatic phrases differ.

Linguists blame the dropping use rate of dialects on television, radio and the Internet. They say the media is overwhelmingly presented in official Putonghua to the exclusion of regional dialects.

"It's clear that disappearing dialects are a trend," said Sun Hongkai, the president of the Chinese Association of the National Linguistics. "We need government help so that the sound of their vanishing footsteps can at least be slowed before it's too late."

Recording for posterity

Although there is not yet a concrete policy on the protection and preservation of dialects, Wang Ping, the director of the Linguistic Society of China, isn't waiting until it's too late.  He's helped start a massive project recording dying dialects, by putting a microphone in front of elders in his hometown Suzhou, Jiangsu Province and getting them to talk.

He has asked the elders to translate a variety of everyday words:  "For example, we asked them to say all the words they could think of for the word bread," said Wang, "and then catalogued them in our database."

The recording project is being funded by the National Language Affairs Commission and in 2008 Wang's hometown was chosen as the pilot project and is now two thirds complete, said Wang. He also expects the linguistic recording project to expand. "Probably by the end of this year recordings will also begin in major cities and provinces like Beijing, Shanghai, Shandong, Zhejiang and Guangdong," said Wang, who has also tried to encourage younger people to learn their local tongue.

Wang started a speaking competition for primary and high school students who were asked to give speeches in Putonghua, English and the Suzhou dialect. He was dismayed when many of the kids spoke better English than they did their grandparents' language. For many it was the first time they had been encouraged to learn their dialect. "Some students even did some intensive study from their parents," said Wang.

Cultivating multilingualism

At this year's conference celebrating the 60th anniversary of the standardization of Putonghua, State Councilor Liu Yandong said multilingualism is a good thing for the country.  "We should not only be able to speak Putonghua and English but also our dialects. This directly reflects one's ability to communicate and become a better person," said Liu.

For Wang, the alarm bells warning of disappearing dialects began with a survey he conducted in 2003. He asked 300 middle school students from Suzhou about the use of their local dialect. He found that while 90 percent came from local families where the dialect was likely in use, 70 of the students used Putonghua in their daily lives. Only 15 percent of the students used their mother dialect to communicate.

Students recite Chinese literature at the Primary School Attached to the Nantong Normal University in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, March 15, 2010. Photos: CFP

Losing linguistic tradition

The survey also indicated that many people are unwilling to speak their own dialects. "The broad use of Putonghua is the biggest reason for the declining use of dialects. In the 1950s local dialects were common throughout the country and often the only way people communicated," said Wang, adding that at the time no one was worried about protecting dialects which were banned from the education system.

Now the tables have turned and dialects are being drowned out by Putonghua, which itself is spoken with many different accents that can clearly indicate where a person was raised.

"When a local dialect dies, its corresponding culture and traditions will inevitably die with it," said Dong Kun the director of the Institute of Linguistics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.  He told the Global Times the decline of dialects is inevitable. "You can't force people to speak their dialect these days," said Dong. "They need to be fluent in Putonghua to be able to get a job outside their own hometown," said Dong who doesn't believe officials can do much to save the dialects.

Dong's fatalistic attitude irks dedicated people like Sun, the head of the nation's linguist association. He says everyone knows the reasons behind vanishing dialects but that doesn't mean their preservation shouldn't be attempted. "It's always important we try our best to preserve them," said Sun, "our efforts might help slow the trend down at least a bit."

The Linguistics Society's Wang agrees with Dong on one point. The loss of a language entails more than losing a way of talking. "When a language disappears many other cultural traditions will also become extinct," said Wang. He worries about the future of Kunqu opera, which has been performed in the Suzhou dialect for hundreds of years and is listed on UNESCO'S Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Not taught in schools

Qian Nairong, the director of the research center of linguistics of Shanghai University, is even worried about the continued existence of one of the country's most widely spoken dialects. Shanghainese is a very distinctive regional language that isn't taught or officially sanctioned. "Dialects live in public and to guarantee their survival they must be used in a broad environment," said Qian.

Qian has seen a huge impact on the use of the Shanghai dialect since its use was discouraged in the education system in 1992. "The majority of primary and high school students can't speak the Shanghai dialect," said Qian. "Although they might learn to understand it outside school, they won't master it well."

Qian said the use of Shanghainese has been further oppressed by policies that encourage and award schools for their efficient implementation of Putonghua.

It doesn't take a scholar to see that the end is only a few generations away for a number of dialects.  If a child today only learns the basics of a dialect from their family but never learns to speak it, their child won't have the chance to even learn to understand the spoken word.

"There needs to be a balance between Putonghua and local dialects instead of over emphasizing or neglecting one or the other," said Sun.

There have been some recent breakthroughs in the use of local dialects.  In Shanghai some kindergartens are offering optional classes in the Shanghai dialect and some local dialects have also been heard on local radio and television programs.

Some representatives of the Shanghai People's Congress have also proposed that the Shanghai dialect be used for announcements on the city's subway system the way Cantonese is used on the Guangzhou subway in Guangdong Province.

So far the proposal has not been implemented in Shanghai and Sun Jianping, the director of the Shanghai Transportation and Port Authority doesn't seem to see the need. He told the web portal Shanghai Online News that to become more "internationalized" the city needs use only Putonghua and English. The report didn't explain why Sun believes subway announcements in the Shanghai dialect would hinder that effort.

Cantonese is one dialect in China that appears to be growing. It's not only used on subways in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, the region even has television stations that broadcast only in Cantonese. In fact since the 1980s when the region's economy began to boom, many speakers of Putonghua have studied Cantonese, which has also influenced the nation's official language.

The Guangzhou-base web link Yangchen News reported on a study by two linguists that points to the beauty of China's lively and ever-evolving languages. They found that 600 Cantonese words have come into widespread use by speakers of Putonghua.