The authorities have also managed to help ethnic groups to retrieve and better understand their native tongues, especially the ones indigenous people could only speak but not write; and those made up of only symbols.

For instance, the Dongba language native to Yunnan is experiencing growing interest. Experts have invented 2,000 new Dongba characters based on 1,000 retrieved ancient characters while local students are also learning the dying language, said He Shiyong, an official with the Lijiang Ancient City Protection Administration. Lijiang is now a popular tourist destination as well.

"But many efforts turned out to be irrelevant for people's daily communication needs. A head of a Manchu county in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region even asked me once to check the spelling of Manchu language on his name card," said Pan Shouyong, a Minzu University professor.

"We have acted like firefighters these years to rescue endangered languages, but the people themselves actually don't care about it. They are more closely linked to a modern way of life and are gradually abandoning traditional methods of communication," he said.

"It's unrealistic for ethnic groups, who only number several hundred or less, to speak and write in Mandarin outside but resort to their own languages back in the villages," Pan said. "We haven't yet found an effective way to revive dying languages."

Archiving a reasonable choice?

"We should archive the languages and let people make their own choices," said Georg Pfeffer, professor with Freie University of Berlin.

The opinion that the death of a language indicates the extinction of an ethnic culture could be too exaggerated, and the social elite should not force ordinary people to share their views about resurrecting antique languages, said Pfeffer.

Language is basically, and most importantly, a tool of communication for common people, and its survival or death has been natural selection of the environment. "We should not blame people for not carrying on with a language that becomes less useful," said Latami Dashi, an ethnologist with a research center in Ninglang, Yunnan.

Indigenous people should not have to shoulder the responsibility of preserving a language just because they are members of an ethnic group, and no one should interfere in their decision-making, Pan said.

"Rescuing a language requires enormous funding and research efforts. Although Chinese law guarantees ethnic people's cultural rights and the government has enacted preferential policies to do so, is it wise and worthwhile trying to turn an unstoppable natural trend around?" Pan asked.

Wang Zhifen said natives of her hometown have a favorite language form -- singing. Through this medium, many songs in the Yi language were passed down from generation to generation and people also created new ones, as did many other ethic clusters.

"The development of such popular art forms -- which will be more effective - should be encouraged," she said.

(Xinhua News Agency July 29, 2009)