Models for standard Cantonese in Education and Social Life
For initial literacy (perhaps focused on families of non-Han migrants), use a system of Jyutping+Hanzi similar to Japanese writing (kana-kanji). Only introduce characters for reference if they are not the most frequent full homograph.
Use Jyutping translations of English science texts (retaining English technical terms with Cantonese glosses), then teach from the English texts later.
1. Occitan - language shift to national norm, historical vernacular disappears as a living language
2. Swiss German - Bilingual, vibrant spoken language (and sung in Cantopop) but no interest in written form, defer to a larger standard form
3. Frisian - No university teaches it, but social space enlarging.
4. Letzeburgisch - Generally accept a larger external
language as standard for literacy and writing, a belated interest in promoting vernacular into a standard
5. Catalan - Bilinguals but vigorously defend social position of written standard from vernacular. Resist language shift, social policy to promote children of non-locals to become fluent in local vernacular.
6. Dutch - Full standard language, related foreign standard
is seen much like a foreign language.
Negative model:
. Bokmal and Nynorsk - disputed standard, especially
for newspapers and fangyan characters
From
John DeFrancis, “The
Prospects for Chinese Writing Reform”
Sino-Platonic Papers, 171 (June, 2006)
The Zhuyin Shizi, Tiqian Duxie ‘Phonetically Annotated Recognition Promotes Earlier Reading and Writing’ experiment came into being in 1982 in the northeast province of Heilongjiang
Reference:
John S. Rohsenow, “The ‘Z.T.’ Experiment in the PRC,” Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association. 31, 3 (1996): 33-44.
