The emerging influence of Mandarin

In this chapter, the author Debbie G. E. Ho tackles a linguistic concern. Chinese dialects – Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese, Foochow, etc. – are experiencing a slow death in many Chinese communities across the world. In many cases, the loss of dialects pointed to the emerging influence of Mandarin, the standard Chinese language. In Singapore, the beginning of the end of dialects was when the ‘Speak Mandarin Campaign’ was launched by the government in 1979, a policy initiative aimed to replace the various Chinese dialects with Mandarin; dialects posed as divisive elements. Its unqualified success since was conspicuous that today many of the Chinese dialects are hardly heard bringing upon all the attending issues of cross-generation communication and loss of history and heritage. In Penang, Malaysia, the loss of Chinese dialects was attributed to the preference for Mandarin and English among Chinese speakers. In the People’s Republic of China or mainland China, while Mandarin has quickly become the prominent lingua franca , it has resulted in an increasing decline in the use of hundreds of dialects and their subsequent demise. In the context of Brunei, a recent study on the vitality of Chinese dialects showed that these dialects are at the stage of being severely and critically endangered. Unlike the case of Singapore and mainland China, there was no attempt by the Brunei government to deliberately promote Mandarin or to discourage the use of dialects. Yet among the ethnic Chinese minority community, particularly among the younger generation, very few express an inclination and/or a desire to speak their ethnic dialects. This chapter reviews the findings and discussions of the said study and in turn to ascertain if the impending loss of the various Chinese dialects in the sultanate is also owed to the rising influence and power of Mandarin.