Author: Yun Wang

The National Language Movement emerged in the late 19th century. Its organized nationwide work truly began in February 1913 with the convening of the “Conference for the Unification of Pronunciation,” which standardized the pronunciation of over 6,500 characters. It flourished in 1919 with the establishment of the National Language Unification Preparatory Committee (hereafter referred to as the “National Language Committee,” later renamed the “National Language Promotion Committee” in 1935), which successively promulgated the phonetic alphabet, the “National Pronunciation Dictionary,” promoted the transformation of Chinese language subjects to national language subjects in elementary schools, promoted vernacular Chinese and new punctuation marks, promulgated and promoted “National Language Romanization,” and introduced the “Common Characters of National Pronunciation” and the “National Language Dictionary” as standards for the national language. This movement sorted out a clear framework from the chaotic Chinese characters and language, determining their development path and direction. Unfortunately, this movement was ill-fated. In its early period, China’s political situation was turbulent, and the central government’s control over local regions was minimal; during its middle period, it encountered the War of Resistance, and although the central government realized the importance of unified language and writing for a nation, the mountains and rivers were shattered, leaving all forces unable to exert their influence; in its later period, China’s internal politics were torn apart, with civil war raging. Only Taiwan, which was incorporated into the National Language Movement after the 1945 regime change, ironically became the winner of the National Language Movement.

So how did the National Language Movement come to an end on the mainland? It should be said that this was determined by China’s mechanisms over thousands of years. The succession of China’s central governments throughout history has been through violent overthrow of the previous dynasty, without iterative upgrades of the previous dynasty’s culture, only complete negation and abandonment of the previous dynasty, including rewriting history. The process of the Communist Party replacing the Kuomintang in governing mainland China in 1949 was no exception. The termination process of the National Language Movement seemed gradual, but the outcome was predetermined.

I. Academic Discussion, Following the Previous Dynasty’s Path

During the Republican era, the National Language Committee that led the National Language Movement was subordinate to the Ministry of Education of the National Government. When the Republic of China government moved to Taiwan, this Ministry of Education could only lead the “Taiwan National Language Promotion Committee.” After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the Committee for Script Reform (abbreviated as “Script Reform Committee”) was established, whose functions corresponded to those of the National Language Committee. The Script Reform Committee was directly subordinate to the State Council, showing the importance the Communist government placed on this work.

As early as May 29, 1949, at Beijing Normal University, Wu Yuzhang, Li Jinxi, Ye Shengtao, Hu Yuzhi, Ding Yi, Lu Zhiwei, Lin Handa, Luo Shentian and others initiated the establishment of the Chinese Script Reform Research Association, whose nature was similar to the “National Language Research Association” established in 1916, belonging to a private professional institution. Everyone tended to change to phonetic script, and how to handle Chinese characters and transition from Chinese characters to phonetic script awaited research. This was actually still a continuation of the National Language Movement’s philosophy, just with a different name.

On August 7 of the same year, the above-mentioned initiators held a second meeting at North China University, determining the organization name as “Chinese Script Reform Progress Association,” as a national organization. The background of the fourth meeting held on September 5 was that Wu Yuzhang wrote to Mao Zedong, and Mao Zedong asked Ma Yichu, Guo Moruo, and Shen Yanbing to review it. The three replied that “new scripts should be researched, but have not yet reached the implementation stage. Research should focus on the Latinization of northern dialects, considering dialects would only disrupt the unified steps. As for the current urgent matter, it is to approve certain simplified characters for easy recognition and writing.” The meeting’s conclusion was basically as stated by the three above. Wu Yuzhang’s proposal to the Political Consultative Conference was thus shelved. This can be understood as Mao Zedong, as the first leader of the Communist government, not agreeing with the plans discussed by the above organization; he had his own ideas.

On October 10 of the same year, the “Chinese Script Reform Association” was formally established, with Wu Yuzhang as chairman of the standing council. This association remained a private organization, with most members convened by Wu Yuzhang. On October 20, the association held a council meeting with over 30 attendees. Most speakers advocated for phonetic script using the northern Latinization plan as a foundation, with improvements. On May 14, 1950, at a symposium of committee heads of the Script Reform Association, Hu Qiaomu said, “The new script of phonetic characters to be formulated in the future will be promulgated by the government. Before formulation, extreme caution must be exercised. Letters must accommodate local dialects and minority languages, and tones must be indicated, otherwise accurate pronunciation cannot be achieved.”

In September of the same year, the Ministry of Education asked experts to present their respective views on the simplified character list. Wei Jiangong, Ye Shengtao and others advocated that “simplified characters are only convenient for writing; corresponding traditional characters must still be recognized. Simplified characters should take existing ones and select from them, without creating new ones.” However, everyone felt that the Ministry of Education had considerable ambitions to act as Cangjie. Subsequently, Hu Qiaomu launched a movement to promote attention from all sides to script reform, advocating the creation of more simplified characters. Many experts initially disagreed, but subsequently everyone understood that this was also Mao Zedong’s idea. On October 29, 1951, at the third national committee group meeting, Peng Zhen spoke: “Chinese characters are used by a quarter of the world’s population. To say they don’t work and want to abandon them contains a sense of inferiority.” From this, everyone inferred that Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and other leaders did not advocate abandoning Chinese characters, but only hoped to change traditional characters to simplified characters.

II. Government Leadership, Exploring Forward

In December 1951, the “Chinese Script Reform Research Committee” (hereafter referred to as “Script Reform Research Committee”) was established under the Cultural and Educational Committee of the Government Affairs Council. Ma Xulun served as chairman, Wu Yuzhang as vice chairman, and Ding Xilin, Hu Yuzhi, Li Jinxi, Luo Changpei, Wang Li, Wei Que, Lu Zhiwei, Lin Handa, Ye Laishi, Ni Haishuo, Lü Shuxiang, and Zhou Youguang as the 12 committee members. This research committee’s transformation into a government institution meant that the script reform movement began to be led by the government.

In April 1952, regarding phonetic symbols, the Script Reform Research Committee discussed slightly modifying several character forms in the phonetic symbols and applying these modified symbols to phonetic script, not limited to phonetic notation. Subsequently, an event occurred. On May 6, the Ministry of Education invited Qi Jianhua to teach everyone his experience in rapid literacy education for soldiers. His method was to first teach phonetic symbols while simultaneously teaching characters, using soldiers’ daily common vocabulary to explain each character, utilizing the structure of phonetic-semantic characters for easy memorization, so students could learn one hundred to one thousand characters per day. After recognizing characters, students were asked to check each other and review together. This method fully utilized adults’ life experience. On the 19th, Hu Yuzhi, then Minister of Education, hoped to publish books for newly literate readers based on Qi Jianhua’s rapid literacy method. Subsequently, Qi Jianhua’s literacy method was widely promoted in various places. This literacy method was precisely the phonetic symbol literacy method promoted during the Republican era. During the War of Resistance, Mr. Wang Shoukang also used the same method to promote literacy among Nationalist army soldiers, achieving the same effect. It can be seen that phonetic symbols were widely accepted, and it’s no wonder that after half a day of discussion, the Script Reform Research Committee still didn’t depart from this prototype.

On February 24, 1954, the Script Reform Research Committee had drafted plans for unifying variant characters and stipulating simplified characters. The simplified characters were to use cursive script strokes and study simplified characters character by character to create more new characters. However, the proposed plans were quite controversial. On July 15, the Script Reform Research Committee held a general meeting, discussing over 500 simplified characters.

In October of the same year, the Script Reform Research Committee changed to the Chinese Script Reform Committee directly under the State Council, with Wu Yuzhang as chairman, Hu Yuzhi as vice chairman, Wei Que, Ding Xilin, and Ye Gongchao as standing committee members, Ye Laishi as secretary-general, and committee members including Ding Xilin, Wang Li, Zhu Xuefan, Wu Yuzhang, Lü Shuxiang, Shao Lizi, Ji Xianlin, Lin Handa, Hu Qiaomu, Hu Yuzhi, Ma Xulun, Wei Que, Lu Zhiwei, Fu Maoji, Ye Gongchao, Ye Shengtao, Ye Laishi, Dong Chuncai, Zhao Pingsheng, Li Jinxi, Nie Gannu, Wei Jiangong, and Luo Changpei - 23 people in total. On December 23, the Script Reform Committee’s first plenary meeting passed the “Chinese Character Simplification Plan,” which would be printed in 100,000 copies for nationwide discussion, and planned that next year’s main work would be to research what letters to use for phonetic script.

On February 26, 1955, at the Script Reform Committee’s second plenary meeting, Ye Laishi proposed a draft work plan for the phonetic plan committee, which would present a preliminary plan by the end of June. This committee belonged to the phonetic plan department of the Script Reform Committee, with 11 committee members headed by Wu Yuzhang, whose work was to formulate the phonetic system and promotion plan.

On March 15 of the same year, the National Political Consultative Conference held a report meeting for the Script Reform Committee, with over 1,000 attendees. Wu Yuzhang reported on the process of producing the draft Chinese character simplification plan. Hu Qiaomu spoke about the advantages and disadvantages of Chinese character simplification, the future of Chinese characters, and what work script reform should do. The Chinese character simplification plan was subsequently discussed at the Political Consultative Conference.

On April 9 of the same year, language workers held a tea party at the Script Reform Committee’s premises to discuss standard pronunciation issues, with most advocating Beijing pronunciation as the foundation. This had been the focus of debate in the National Language Movement in 1919, and the result of that debate was to determine “Beijing pronunciation” as the national pronunciation. On May 7, Lü Shuxiang proposed asking the Ministry of Education to transfer personnel to Beijing for training, then promote standard language. Another matter needed attention first: investigating dialects, proposed by Hu Qiaomu and a Soviet language expert. In fact, this had already been implemented by the pioneers of the National Language Movement in the 1920s and 1930s. Due to dialect investigation, Liu Bannong and Bai Dizhou even paid with their young lives. On May 9, the Script Reform Committee’s standing expanded meeting had the agenda of promoting standard language. The meeting believed that the nationwide movement for using the same language had been going on for decades, but with minimal results. Subsequently, discussions about Chinese language teaching outlines and Chinese language textbook compilation began. The Chinese Academy of Sciences Language Institute simultaneously hosted standard language training classes, focusing on phonetic letters and standard pronunciation. On July 13, 1955, the State Council separately established the “Chinese Character Simplification Plan Review Committee,” with chairman Dong Biwu, vice chairmen Guo Moruo, Ma Xulun, and Hu Qiaomu, and committee members including Zhang Xiruo, Shen Yanbing, Xu Guangping, Zhu Xuefan, Shao Lizi, Zhang Xiuzhu, Xiang Nan, Xu Xin, Lao She, Zeng Zhaolun, Deng Tuo, and Fu Binran. In September of the same year, the Script Reform Committee proposed the “Revised Draft of Simplified Chinese Characters,” and the Chinese Character Simplification Plan Review Committee held its first meeting, determining the policy of “established by convention, steady progress,” and reviewing the draft item by item, approximately 600 characters. On September 9, the Script Reform Committee held a script reform materials exhibition at the Beijing Library. In October, the Script Reform Committee meeting passed the simplified character plan. Zhang Xiruo, then Minister of Education, called on all people to learn standard language, and following Hu Qiaomu’s words, determined the name of standard language as “Putonghua based on Beijing dialect - the common language of the nation.” In November, the Script Reform Committee met to determine matters for casting simplified character copper molds.

Looking carefully at each of the above tasks and steps, none failed to repeat the process of the National Language Movement, except that at this time central authority was consolidated, scholar promotion became government leadership, and the issuance and execution of directives were swift and effective.

III. Party Direction, Expert Implementation

On December 21, 1955, Mao Zedong instructed that future literacy phonetic notation should use Latin letters, with the plan yet to be formulated by the Script Reform Committee, and must be finalized within the year, published first, and tried for one month before revision.

In early January 1956, the Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, and Language Institute cooperated to comprehensively investigate national dialects over two years, using the results to promote the spread of Beijing pronunciation. Specialized personnel for investigating pronunciation would be trained by Beijing pronunciation research classes, and the investigation results would be researched by comprehensive universities, normal schools, and the Language Institute, writing books corresponding local pronunciations with Beijing pronunciation.

On January 9 of the same year, the Script Reform Committee’s plenary meeting discussed and passed the Latin alphabet “Chinese Phonetic Plan Draft.” Wang Li explained the process of this draft. Hu Qiaomu spoke, emphasizing that due to urgent needs, this draft must be passed today. After the meeting, the draft was distributed to committee members for further organized discussion, scheduled to be sent to the State Council in early May.

On January 28 of the same year, the State Council plenary meeting passed the “Chinese Character Simplification Plan,” which was officially published in the “People’s Daily” on January 31. On March 12, the State Council Committee for Promoting Putonghua held its first meeting, with over 50 committee members and Chen Yi as chairman.

On October 17 of the same year, the Script Reform Committee’s Phonetic Plan Review Committee held its first plenary meeting, with Guo Moruo as chairman and Zhang Xiruo and Hu Qiaomu as vice chairmen. Wang Li explained the plan and revision process. On October 25, the Phonetic Plan Review Committee held its second meeting, with Li Jinxi, Ding Xilin, and Wei Que each explaining their plans. It was decided to invite over 100 people from various Beijing circles to separate symposiums next week and conduct public opinion polls. On November 10, the review committee’s third meeting, Hu Yuzhi reported voting results, with committee members having different opinions on the plan. On November 21, the review committee’s fourth meeting, with 19 committee members total and 17 attending, conducted a trial vote, with unanimous agreement to support the first format.

On June 3, 1957, Hu Yuzhi met with Script Reform Committee members Ye Laishi, Wei Que, Lin Handa, Ding Xilin and others to discuss reconsidering simplified characters, because during the rectification movement, the simplification plan received much criticism, believing that “homophone substitution” should be removed, but Ye Laishi and Wei Que persisted. On July 22, most simplified characters with “homophone substitution” discussed by the Script Reform Committee reverted to their original forms, while radical simplification was limited to common characters for initial simplification.

On October 16 of the same year, the Script Reform Committee’s plenary meeting passed the Chinese phonetic plan. This matter was shelved for several months due to rightist opposition. On December 21, newspapers reported the “Chinese Phonetic Plan” and the State Council’s decision to publish this plan.

On January 10, 1958, Zhou Enlai presided over a meeting and delivered a report explaining the script reform work policy, covering three matters: first, simplifying Chinese characters; second, promoting Putonghua; third, using phonetic letters for pronunciation correction. This was the Chinese Communist Party government’s clear definition of script reform, marking the complete end of the National Language Movement on mainland China.

IV. The Pain Points of the Script Reform Process from Dictionary Compilation

Dictionary compilation is a key link in language standard formulation and promotion, and also a process requiring the participation of many language and script experts. During the National Language Movement, this matter was presided over by the Chinese Great Dictionary Compilation Office. When the Communist Party established its government, the Compilation Office was affiliated with Beijing Normal University due to Li Jinxi’s relationship. The core figures of the National Language Movement who remained alive and stayed on the mainland were Li Jinxi and Wei Jiangong. At this time, Li Jinxi was the academic dean and head of the literature department at Beijing Normal University and still presided over the Great Dictionary Compilation Office, while Wei Jiangong taught at Peking University.

In April 1949, the North China Government Textbook Editorial Committee was established, with Ye Shengtao as chairman. In May, Wei Jiangong approached Ye Shengtao, expressing his desire to compile dictionaries with four colleagues at Kaiming Publishing House. In July, the Textbook Editorial Committee was renamed the “Editorial Bureau,” specifically responsible for textbook editing and review, as well as social education books, dictionaries, character dictionaries, yearbooks, maps, etc. In November of the same year, the Publication Administration of the People’s Republic of China was established, with Hu Yuzhi as director and Ye Shengtao and Zhou Jianren as deputy directors. Ye Shengtao was in charge of textbook and dictionary editing and review work. Being from Suzhou, he considered his pronunciation poor, and Wei Jiangong voluntarily assisted him in textbook pronunciation correction work. In January 1950, Ye Shengtao visited Li Jinxi to understand the dictionary compilation situation. On March 8, he and Fu Binran and Jin Canran from the Publication Administration came to Beijing Normal University, visiting the new principal Lin Liru and the Great Dictionary Compilation Office. Li Jinxi introduced that he had presided over compilation work for 20 years, doing extensive collection work and obtaining many cards. At that time, the Compilation Office had 16 staff members. Besides re-editing four small dictionaries, business was basically stagnant. Ye Shengtao was interested in the Compilation Office’s one million cards but was not interested in these 16 compilation experts. The next day, Ye Shengtao discussed with Wei Jiangong whether these 16 people could be led by him if they came to the Publication Administration. Wei Jiangong expressed considerable ambition for dictionary compilation but feared he could not leave Peking University. A few days later, Li Jinxi invited Ye Shengtao to teach at Beijing Normal University, which was declined. Later, Ding Yi, who had taken over Beijing Normal University as a military representative and later taught in the Chinese department, gave Ye Shengtao detailed information about the 16 people in the Great Dictionary Compilation Office, comparing them to “burdens.” On May 27, Ye Shengtao discussed with Hu Yuzhi the disposal of the Great Dictionary Compilation Office. Because Li Jinxi had spoken to Mao Zedong about this matter, Mao Zedong consulted with Hu Qiaomu and suggested that the Publication Administration take it over. The result of Ye Shengtao and Hu Yuzhi’s discussion was still to persist in not taking it over.

After the Communist Party established its government, literacy and primary and secondary education were work priorities, making the compilation of new dictionaries an urgent task. In July, Ye Shengtao decided to have Wei Jiangong preside over dictionary compilation work, using the initial draft written by his close friend Lü Shuxiang at Kaiming Publishing House where he worked. On July 31, the Ministry of Education convened a literacy movement meeting, where Luo Shentian advocated that literacy should not be separated from language, and current research on common characters was insufficient, requiring investigation of common character vocabulary. In August, the Publication Administration established Xinhua Dictionary Society under its jurisdiction, with Wei Jiangong as director, specifically for dictionary compilation. Initially, there were only two employees in the society: Xiao Jialin and Kong Fanjun, a couple who were originally also personnel from the Great Dictionary Compilation Office and had left the Compilation Office after going to the southwest rear during the War of Resistance. Later, Xiao Jialin’s classmate Du Zijin and others joined.

On January 18, 1951, Ye Shengtao discussed with Xinhua Dictionary Society, determining that the compiled dictionary would be a small dictionary targeted at elementary school teachers to help them understand character meanings and usage. On March 17, the Dictionary Society’s administrative meeting determined the dictionary completion time as September. However, Ye Shengtao was consistently dissatisfied with the Dictionary Society’s compilation work. He felt that although their work was not perfunctory, it was “biased toward expert viewpoints, and for general application, might be considered cumbersome and unclear.” The Dictionary Society had planned to compile a primary school student dictionary after completing this dictionary, but was helpless due to manpower shortages. By the end of August, the small dictionary manuscript was completed on schedule, but revision progress was slow. During this period, the Dictionary Society also participated in revising “Punctuation Usage,” which according to Ye Shengtao “also failed to grasp the key points.”

In June 1952, at Lü Shuxiang’s initiative, Wei Jiangong and Xiao Jialin compiled common character vocabulary from the 1,500 common characters designated by the Ministry of Education for use by newly literate people. Later, Xiao Jialin, Zhang Keqiang, and Du Zijin compiled “Examples of Common Character Usage.” During the “Three-Anti and Five-Anti” movement, Wei Jiangong was criticized by the masses for not following the mass line, resulting in a complete change of approach, following behind the masses and doing whatever they thought was right. Another matter was also unsatisfactory: the Publication Administration repeatedly coordinated with Peking University about Wei Jiangong’s transfer. Peking University had agreed, but Wei Jiangong was hesitant. In Ye Shengtao’s view, Wei Jiangong’s leadership role in the Dictionary Society was weak, his style was “quite sticky, unwilling to express his meaning clearly, repeatedly speaking without departing from old tracks, with no achievements in two years.” Wei Jiangong believed this was due to the social atmosphere at the time where colleagues liked to talk about democracy. Dictionary compilation still suffered from “unclear targets, undefined formats, unclear principles of inclusion and exclusion, detail and brevity, all done according to intention, without standards.” At this time, the Dictionary Society had 10 people, but very few could actually write. Wei Jiangong and Xiao Jialin both didn’t write themselves, specializing in review, making it very difficult to achieve complete manuscripts. At this time, the People’s Education Publishing House began to seek to jointly hire Ye Shengtao’s friend Lü Shuxiang with the Chinese Academy of Sciences Language Institute.

In January 1953, Lü Shuxiang stated that Wei Jiangong’s dictionary must be revised. He also talked about the People’s Education Publishing House’s poor leadership in publishing, “seemingly only having two paths: getting good people and trusting them; letting people write rough drafts without fear of the trouble of revision. Both of these don’t match today’s work style and are bureaucratic.” After discussion, Wei Jiangong’s dictionary was named “Xinhua Dictionary,” scheduled for completion in June and printing in July. On July 15, Wei Jiangong and Xiao Jialin drafted a promotional piece about the “Xinhua Dictionary.” Lü Shuxiang still insisted that the quality of Xinhua Dictionary was not high, but things had reached this point and it had to be typeset. Wei Jiangong stated that this dictionary was only a pioneering effort, not copied from others. Ye Shengtao believed: “The general principles of ‘Xinhua Dictionary’ came from Jiangong’s hand, with quite a few items, each item also speaking verbosely, with unclear meaning.” In December, to promote the completion of “Xinhua Dictionary,” the Publication Administration appointed Yun Yiqun as deputy director of the Dictionary Society. In January 1954, 300,000 copies of the printed “Xinhua Dictionary” contained errors, interpreting “guomin” (nationals) as “objects of people’s democratic dictatorship.” Yun Yiqun had discovered this, but Xiao Jialin hadn’t changed it. At this time, there were still 200,000 copies unprinted, and emergency remedial measures were taken. In July, the printed “Xinhua Dictionary” was nearly sold out, but the People’s Education Publishing House was actually unsatisfied with the “Xinhua Dictionary” and considered revision for republication, proposing to change from the original phonetic order to radical arrangement, because non-Northern dialect regions found it difficult to search due to different pronunciations. In November 1954, the “Xinhua Dictionary” arranged by radicals was officially published by People’s Education Press, with the title written by Wei Jiangong.

On March 31, 1956, the Script Reform Committee held a dictionary planning committee meeting, aimed at adjusting dictionary institutions. Attendees included Hu Yuzhi, Wang Li, Lü Shuxiang, Wei Jiangong, Li Jinxi, Pan Zinian, and Ye Shengtao. The result determined that dictionary institutions would be led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Language Institute, first compiling a medium-sized dictionary within three years, hoping to play a standardizing role. This became the later “Modern Chinese Dictionary,” whose compilation personnel mainly came from the Chinese Great Dictionary Compilation Office. These professionals became the backbone of the institute after entering the Language Institute.

The “Xinhua Dictionary” is still currently a reference book for primary school students in mainland China, but it has been criticized for many years. Looking back at its birth process, we can see that on one hand, a large number of professional personnel were abandoned, while on the other hand, there was a shortage of personnel and capability, making the birth process of this dictionary tortuous, difficult, and unsatisfactory. The emergence of this phenomenon was actually a manifestation of the contradictions during the transition between China’s two political regimes at that time.

As early as the 1930s, there had been disputes between “national language” and “mass language,” and between “national language romanization” and “Latinized Chinese characters.” Those who insisted on “national language” were represented by Li Jinxi, Qian Xuantong, Zhao Yuanren and other leaders of the National Language Movement, while those who proposed “mass language” were left-wing journalists and writers like Chen Wangdao, Chen Zizhan, and Lu Xun. In fact, “mass language” today seems no different from the vernacular Chinese advocated by the National Language Movement, except that during the initial transition from classical Chinese to vernacular Chinese, literati’s expressions were more characterized by classical Chinese, which was considered by the left wing as not being “mass language.” The dispute between “national language romanization” and “Latinized Chinese characters” was more clearly a struggle between two lines. “National language romanization” was the romanized Chinese characters invented by national language advocates to replace Chinese characters in the future. Its writing standards were the same as Western languages, aimed at connecting with Western languages. “Latinized Chinese characters” came from the Soviet Union; it was the Latinized Chinese characters compiled for Chinese as a minority language within the Soviet Union during the Soviet Latinization movement. In fact, both had the same purpose: moving toward Western alphabetization. The difference lay in the compilation foundation: one was invented by scholars and experts like Zhao Yuanren who understood both Chinese and Western cultures, the other was formulated by Soviets according to Soviet Latinization rules. It’s not difficult to see that in the above disputes, the National Language Movement advocates were scholar-centered groups, and the advancement of the National Language Movement was a process of scholars promoting academic bureaucrats, then pushing toward the masses. The left-wing movement in language and writing, however, had promoters who were all publishers and writers favored by the Communist Party’s propaganda departments, with almost no real linguists. They also had no clear, feasible plan, but they controlled pens and propaganda tools, making their voices particularly loud.

After the Communist Party established its government, the new government’s managers were naturally leftists. The first three leaders of the Publication Administration in the 1950s - Hu Yuzhi, Ye Shengtao, and Zhou Jianren - were all left-wing journalists. During the Republican era, textbook and dictionary publishing was initiated and compiled by schools and academic institutions, with publishing organizations handling publication and distribution. Some capable publishing organizations would also employ experts to compile independently. The new government unified textbook and dictionary publishing under the Publication Administration’s management. In this regard, the Publication Administration’s power was exclusive, making private initiatives impossible. These measures made it impossible for private resources to correspond with managers’ will, reflected not only in personnel but also in the management of private publishing organizations, because textbooks had been their most profitable segment.

Whether it was the emergence of Putonghua and Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, or the publication process of “Xinhua Dictionary,” we discover a problem: those guiding these professional academic matters were not experts. The Republican era’s National Language Committee consisted of language and writing experts and academic bureaucrats, with decisions basically made through democratic voting processes. The corresponding Script Reform Committee, however, was composed of officials from various parties, publishing circles, and writers, with language and writing scholars being rare, and the decision-making process, though full of discussion, ultimately had all discussions revolving around the highest leader’s instructions. Such discussions gradually silenced experts. A Chinese Phonetic Alphabet plan ended the process of Chinese-Western integration, not only because it was only used to indicate pronunciation, but also because its tone-marking method completely failed to conform to Western spelling rules, making further development impossible.

If we say that in the early period of Communist rule, the National Language Movement was still being implemented on the mainland under a different name, then the introduction of simplified characters and Chinese Phonetic Alphabet completely ended the National Language Movement. Originally, linguists and scholars’ beautiful aspirations to unify the national language, popularize education, and ultimately achieve Chinese integration with the world were ultimately replaced by ruling concepts dominated by rulers. This has to be said to be a lamentable outcome.

References:

“Complete Diary of Ye Shengtao” by Ye Shengtao, China Education Publishing & Media Group People’s Education Press, October 2024

“Outline History of the National Language Movement” by Li Jinxi, Commercial Press, May 2011

September 17, 2025, Beijing