If you want to get rid of a group of people, the best way is to get rid of their language and stop them speaking, reading and writing their language. Language and culture are inextricably linked - get rid of one's language and one's culture disappears as well.
For me to access our Teochew culture, I need to be able to read, write and speak the language. It has taken me many years to learn our language.
Overseas Teochew people will always call our language and culture "Teochew" which is a word in the English Oxford dictionary. However, some people in mainland China, due to political reasons, call us Chaoshan or Diosua 潮汕 in Teochew dialect. I hope I am not offending anybody by just using the word Teochew, an English word, to describe our people, language and culture, in this blog.
In East Guangdong province, there is a city known as Shantou 汕頭. which is just about half an hour from Chaozhou 潮州 [Teochew or Dioziu] by bus. Shantou in English is listed as Swatow and this word too is in the Oxford English dictionary.
In future postings of this blog, I will focus on our Teochew language / dialect. I hope you will join me in discovering this beautiful Tang dynasty language. Did you know that Tang dynasty poems is best read in Teochew for it to sound good? Tang dynasty poems do not sound good in Mandarin. However, we are Chinese and we must study Mandarin and must be able to speak this language well too. So see it as a challenge and learn both Teochew and Mandarin. For us to be good in Teochew, we need to learn Mandarin well.
