@article{oai:minpaku.repo.nii.ac.jp:00004345,
 author = {庄司, 博史 and Shoji , Hiroshi},
 issue = {4},
 journal = {国立民族学博物館研究報告, Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology},
 month = {Mar},
 note = {This paper presents an observation on developments in the
creation of writing systems for national minorities, as a part of
the Chinese policy towards its ethnic minorities.
When socialist China was founded, in 1949, many ethnic
minorities were present within its territory. These minorities,
who occupied over 60% of the land area, which, although mostly
marginal, was strategically and economically critical areas,
remained both economically and educationally far behind the
Han Chinese. Thus, inevitablly, China had to incorporate the
minorities into the unified nation building plan by bringing
their socio-economic levels near to those of the Han.
Therefore it was not surprising that the Chinese government
adopted, at a very early stage, the rather progressive policy of
guaranteeing the minorities the right to preserve and develop
their own languages and customs. But most minority peoples
lacked a written language or writing system. Thus China soon
put forward a strong measure based on the Soviet model, to
formulate writing systems for minority languages.
In China the realization of this plan involved several phases:
1. massive linguistic and sociolinguistic research on minority
languages;
2. selection of alphabet or writing systems (pictography or
phonetic alphabet; Latin or Cyrilic alphabet, etc.)
3. formulation of orthographical norms (i.e., the assignment of
letters to sounds). This was done for every language, taking
into consideration the problem of a unified system with other
languages and, especially, with pin-yin, which was then also
being planned as a phonetic writing system for the Han
language; and
4. preparation of a draft plan, and pedagogic and reading
materials for tentative use.
All these aspects progressed at varying ranges under the
influence of both Sino-Soviet relations and domestic Chinese
political conditions. The latter has been reflected in the varying
interpretations of the status of nationalities in relation to socialist
progress of China; between total cultural autonomy at one extreme
and assimilation or amalgamation with the Han at the
other.
Developments in the creation of the writing systems for the
minorities as a whole, falls roughly into three distinctive periods;
(1) (until ca. 1958) the urgent attempt to develop any one writing
system for every minority language, and a later attempt to
produce uniform systems on rather a theoretical basis; (2) (until
ca. 1978) the period of retreat and disruption of the minority
language policy; (3) (1978 — present) the period of the revival of
writing system creation on a more practical basis, i.e., according
to the conditions of the individual minorities.
It is not difficult to relate different political situations to
these periods. The present minority language policy is apparently
being conducted under the favorable atmosphere of the
recent political liberalization movements.},
 pages = {1181--1214},
 title = {文字創製・改革にみた中国少数民族政策},
 volume = {12},
 year = {1988},
 yomi = {ショウジ, ヒロシ}
}