New pronunciation list sparks confusion, criticism

Following online criticism of suggestions that the pronunciation of some Chinese characters should be changed, education authorities noted that any changes have yet to be approved.

The criticism was sparked by a recent article online that listed new pronunciations for some characters that many people have been taught are incorrect.

One example is the first character in the word shui fu, which means “persuade” in English. The article said the character should be pronounced “shuo”, even though students have been taught for years that it’s wrong to pronounce it that way.

The slightly different pronunciations are roughly equivalent to variable pronunciations of the same English word in Britain and the United States — “tomato”, for example. The suggested change is something like forcing a native Briton to speak “correctly”, as a native US English speaker would.

Examples of words with altered pronunciation on the list can also be found in some famous ancient Chinese poems, prompting concerns among educators that the poems might lose their original rhymes.

Ge Yinlian, a teacher of Chinese at Jianxin Primary School in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, told news website Thepaper.cn that although education should keep up with the times, attempting to change a long-standing pronunciation is too casual an approach.

“With the changes, the artistic concepts in ancient poetry will disappear,” Ge said. “Students will find it more difficult to understand the classics, and they will no longer be able to appreciate their beauty.”

The article sparked heated discussion among netizens, with many saying that what was deemed incorrect pronunciation when they were at school was now being touted as being correct, which is confusing.

The article said the changes were proposed because most people make the same pronunciation mistakes, so the authorities decided to follow the usage of the majority, since language should keep up with the times.

But the Ministry of Education said on Tuesday that it was still deliberating over the altered pronunciations, and members of the public should stick with what they were taught for now.

A researcher at the ministry’s Institute of Applied Linguistics told the Shanghai Morning Post that the authorities had solicited public opinion about the altered pronunciations in 2016 and had received a lot of feedback and suggestions — which is why changes had not been officially released.

A report by online news portal Jiemian said the final pronunciation list will be released later this year.