Dr. Michael Prosser

Applied Linguistics Department, Valencia Polytechnic University

Monolingual minority language communities can undergo complete language shift from the minority language to the official nationwide language in a very short time. For example over 100 years ago many Western European minorities could only speak their mother tongues, having no knowledge of the official state languages. In these areas today, due to pressure from the official state languages, virtually all speakers of minority languages are also competent in the state languages. Moreover, language shift is widespread to such an extent that a large proportion of members of the minority communities no longer speak the languages of their forefathers. Because of this it is of key importance that long-term measures be taken to protect minority languages (at the same time as promoting majority state languages) before minority language communities are completely competent in the majority language.

Although a large proportion of Naxi are still not competent in Mandarin, many Naxi in the town of Lijiang have already stopped talking to their children in Naxi. In other words, Naxi-Han language shift has already commenced. Many ordinary Naxi who wish to get on in the world are likely to imitate this urbanised Naxi elite in abandoning their mother tongue, which does not create an ideal atmosphere for the promotion of the Naxi script. Although the Naxi script has been in existence for some decades, the number of Naxi who have studied it has been extremely small and there are probably many ordinary Naxi who do not even realise that they have a romanised script.

This writer is of the opinion that if the population of rural Lijiang, the urbanised Naxi elite and the concerned authorities all urgently took action, they would still be in time to establish balanced Naxi-Han bilingualism and ensure the future of the Naxi language and script. This paper, using examples from outside China, explores some possible measures and strategies which could be taken to protect and promote the Naxi language and script. Such measures should encourage the Naxi elite and local Han residents to study, use and support both spoken and written Naxi and should also stimulate widespread bottom-up activity among all sections of the public. It is of key importance to involve the whole population of Lijiang, at the same time publicising everywhere the advantages of balanced bilingualism and bilingual education and to transform the extremely few experimental Naxi classes that exist at present into generalised (affecting the whole of Lijiang), long-term, normal, balanced bilingualism.

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Linna Huang     Yihong Yang

The second Saturday of every June is the National “Cultural Heritage Day ”. The theme of the first “Cultural Heritage Day” is “Preservation of Cultural Heritage, Protection of Spiritual Homeland”  .

Among the intangible cultural heritages, the language is very fragile because it could not be seen or touched. Scholars say that there are 6000 different ethnic languages in the world, among which more than 5000 will be disappearing in the following 100 years. Thus, the protection of language got more attention from many related institutions home and abroad. Among the fist group of the Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage announced by the UNESCO, 14 are related to language, which is accounting for 74%. Among the 518 items of National Intangible Cultural Heritage announced by China in 2006, 255 items are related to the language.

How to inherit and promote these languages? How to help the public understand, like these languages and transmit them to future generations?

Based on our experience in transmitting Naxi language and Dongba culture in the primary schools of Old Town District, we suggest that school inheritance is a very efficient and important way for inheritance of the languages.

1. Well-Aware Naxi language and Dongba culture’s danger of disappearing

Naxi language was a popular language in the Old Town before 1950s, however, it is replaced by the Han Chinese language at present. There are only 30% of Naxi students in primary school could understand Naxi language, and18% could speak. Moreover, the rate is going down.  The 12 old Dongba priests, invited for Dongba Daba Meeting in 1983, died one by one in recent years, and only one is still alive at present. Hence, Dongba  is facing a problem of disappearing.

2.  It is a good way to inherit Dongba culture in School

There are 3 traditional ways for transmitting Dongba culture:

a. inheritance within family—from father to son

b. inheritance from a teacher—teacher and apprentice

c. “private school” inheritance—it was planed, but did not practice

After the Liberation(1949),  the inheritance of Dongba culture has been broken for half of century due to related social reasons. Although Lijiang Dongba Cultural Museum and Dongba Cultural Research Academy has made great contributions on Dongba culture inheritance in the past 10 years, they are still facing a lot of difficulties in inheritance work due to their limitation on work scope.

After serious research and many times of practice, we find there are following benefits in conducting inheritance work in school:

a. enough students    b. enough time    c. school regulation and enough teachers

3. The principle and methodology of school education related Naxi language and Dongba

Culture

a. the course time is local course time

b. dismiss its religious perspective, and strengthen its cultural perspective; in other words, the principle is not spread religion in school;

c.  the sources of teachers are mainly depending on  local Education Bureau’s training, moreover,  some external teachers will be invited;

d. No examination, but a small test at the end of term

The practical methodology:

a. open Naxi language course in the forth grade of primary school

b. goal: based on Naxi Romanized characters, and mainly focus on the teaching of Naxi language and Dongba culture

c. textbooks: divided into two levels. The first level is the starting level.  Each school could , taking “Naxi Old Saying” as its guidebook, compile textbooks by themselves before a series of textbooks related to inheritance of culture got published;

d. make up inheritance  proposal; combined with National school education system, and conduct traditional culture, patriotism and spiritual civilization education.

4. got some achievements in inheritance work

a. to establish a inheritance net started “from point to line and from line to area”;

b.the Naxi culture inheritance work are accepted by the parents and the society;

c. the Naxi language environment has changed into a relatively better situation; more children show their interest in learning the language.

5. compile and publish textbooks; promote the inheritance work

A series of textbooks, including Naxi pictographs, international Romanization , Naxi Romanized characters, Han Chinese Pinyin and Han Chinese characters, has been published and used in grade 1 –grade 4 of the primary schools in Old Town District and Yulong County of Lijiang.  The CD accompanied with this series of textbooks has been made , and the DVD are in the process of compiling.

6. the inheritance work depend on the combination of family, society and school

The inheritance work could not depend only on the school. It needs the support and concern from the whole society. Each family should become the students or teachers of the inheritance project.

7. the inheritance work need the input from government’s support

Only depend on the input could the textbooks be published and walked into the students’ bags with free charge; only depend on the input could the inheritance work continue and get results.

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「世界遺産登録による観光開発と住民の生活環境の保護の両立について」（关于为了开发观光利用世界遗产与保护居民的生活环境的两全其美）。

高仓健一, 日本神奈川大学

现在丽江古城发生一个问题，就是由于开发观光，丽江古城的环境带来了变化。之所以，原来居民往外移住，而从外部商业为目的的人流入丽江古城。我觉得一方面为了开发观光利用世界遗产，又一方面保护被命名为世界遗产的房屋和创建的居民，才是真正保护世界遗产和纳西族文化的有效途径。关于我这个见解，想把丽江古城作为个案例子进行实地调查，同时已被世界遗产登录的日本富山县五个山人字木屋顶建筑村落进行实地调查，并进行比较分析。

1997年，丽江古城的房屋和街景成为登录世界遗产的对象，但是从古以来居住在丽江古城而创造这里的房屋和街景的居民的生活和文化确没成为登录世界遗产的对象。其实登录世界遗产的房屋和街景是表现居民的历史和文化。所以我想探讨怎样才能把开发观光和保护居民的生活和文化两全其美方法。

日本富山县五个山人字木屋顶建筑村落登录世界遗产的时候，“結い（互相帮助组）”受到很高的评价，可是最近由于人口在急剧减少和老龄化，越来越难维持那“結い”状况。这次进行调查五个山人字木屋顶建筑村落的现状，并进行比较丽江古城的现状，论述开发观光有防止人口在急剧减少的效果，还有保护居民的生活文化的必要性。

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