For years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pushed ethnic minority groups like Tibetans and Uyghurs to adopt an identity rooted in Chinese nationality and allegiance to the ruling Communist Party.
There are older Germans who have been living here for generations and don’t speak standard German. Germans learn it in school now, but not every school insisted on Hochdeutsch in the post-war period, especially in more rural areas.
Generally they all understand standard German, but not all of them can produce it. Their children can often understand and produce both their dialect and standard German, but their grandchildren have mostly lost the ability to produce the dialect.
It’s really sad to lose the diversity of dialects, and it’s a direct result of enforcing a standardized German dialect in schools and government institutions.
China is geographically massive in comparison to Germany and has that much more to lose.
There are older Germans who have been living here for generations and don’t speak standard German. Germans learn it in school now, but not every school insisted on Hochdeutsch in the post-war period, especially in more rural areas.
Generally they all understand standard German, but not all of them can produce it. Their children can often understand and produce both their dialect and standard German, but their grandchildren have mostly lost the ability to produce the dialect.
It’s really sad to lose the diversity of dialects, and it’s a direct result of enforcing a standardized German dialect in schools and government institutions.
China is geographically massive in comparison to Germany and has that much more to lose.