A language under attack: China’s campaign to sever the Uighur tongue

https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/06/18/language-attack-chinas-campaign-sever-uighur-tongue/

by hker • 7 years ago

11 10 7 years ago

hongkongfp.com

profalseidol• 7 years ago

Is this even on-topic for Hacker News?

Although looking at the guideline, it seems to be dependent on the reader:

[1]Hacker News Guidelines

What to Submit

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

9nGQluzmnq3M• 7 years ago

Complaining about things being off-topic is one of the few things that is actually off-topic on HN.

jgwil2• 7 years ago

From the link you cite:

Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.

ETHisso2017• 7 years ago

I don't understand the recent spate of China articles on HN. Most appear far more polemic and have a looser relationship with the truth than your typical HN article.

Barrin92• 7 years ago

Well the reason for the existence is pretty straight forward if one looks at the climate of US foreign politics and its treatment of China at the moment.

And that's not to say that the discrimination against the Uighur minority isn't real, but language unification policies have been practised by pretty broad array of countries, for example France, where Corsican or Breton and many other dialects were eliminated from education and public life, and where the official language is still nationally administered.

The reason being that it's essentially seen as anti-republican and communitarian and that someone who does not speak the national language cannot participate in affairs of the state.

throwaway1997• 7 years ago

Hong Kong Free Post is considered to be a reputable news source

lostmsu2• 7 years ago

I know it is an unpopular opinion, but I'd prefer everyone to switch to the same language. That would greatly simplify a lot of real-world situations, and increase culture proliferation.

Along the same reasoning, the less active languages there are out there, the better.

girzel• 7 years ago

Would that include you being willing to switch to a completely new language that takes you a good decade to become fluent in?

lostmsu2• 7 years ago

Yes, it would. In fact, I am an immigrant.

happytoexplain• 7 years ago

I think the unpopularity is more in the practical issues than in the theory. I'm sure everybody would be happier understanding each other, but not if it's accomplished by force or discrimination.

A language under attack: China’s campaign to sever the Uighur tongue

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