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Unnecessary language test

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-22 07:48

The call for the grade test for the ancient Chinese language is unnecessary, says an article in Yangtze Evening Post. The following is an excerpt:

Peng Guojun, a professor with Yunnan University, recently wrote in his new book that foreign language studies are compulsory in colleges and students are required to pass grade tests. Should college students be required to pass grade tests of the ancient Chinese language, too?

He also wrote that it is quite necessary to teach ancient Chinese, which is, in fact, an emergency measure to popularize traditional cultures. That is the original intention for 78-year old professor Peng to write the book titled Concise and Practical Ancient Chinese Grammar.

It is true, as Peng said, that the Chinese people cannot abandon the ancient Chinese language, which is a basic tool for us to learn traditional Chinese culture. Both primary and secondary schools and higher educational institutions should emphasize and strengthen ancient Chinese teaching. But in my view, it is not necessary to open grade tests for it.

Since the May 4 New Culture Movement in 1918, baihua, or vernacular Chinese, was forcibly promoted in society. Now, the ancient Chinese language has been completely removed from the daily written and verbal communications. If we over-stress and push so hard to promote grade tests for ancient Chinese, it actually signals a cultural regression and may probably lead to chaos in daily language usage. Ancient and modern Chinese combined will definitely bring troubles for our language exchanges.

On the other hand, it is not practical to promote such a grade test. At present, college students are already burdened with heavy academic pressure. A single English grade test causes them great troubles. Some colleges even stipulate that students cannot obtain the diploma upon graduation without the English grade test certificate. Moreover, most employers have strict requirement of English proficiency. Students may not accept the ancient Chinese grade test even if we promote it mightily.

Finally, it is an unavoidable law for vernacular Chinese to replace the ancient one. Every era has its own language. The current form of ancient Chinese has actually evolved for more than 6,000 years, from inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty (c.16th century-11th century BC), Jinwen script (or bronze script), small seal script, clerical script to regular script. In the intervening years, not only the forms of words have been changed, but also the meanings of words have been altered. In fact, the ancient Chinese language cannot include all the traditional Chinese culture. Therefore, we do not need to feel worried about its decline.

(China Daily 10/22/2008 page8)