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Mother tongue: anchor of our life and spirit
By Prof Tu Weiming
LANGUAGE, spoken and written, is the most fundamental of all cultural abilites. Man is a cultural animal, and the use of language is indispensable for a human being to learn about himself, understand his fellow creatures, and comprehend Nature.
Our mother tongue is the medium through which we express feelings, convey messages, and form ideas while living in this world. This is an indisputable statement.
What can be done to make the Chinese language, both spoken and written, one of the cultural resources that ethnic Chinese in Singapore feel proud of? This should become the common concern of all public-minded intellectuals who care about society, political life and cultural affairs.
Chinese Malaysians have achieved a great deal in promoting their mother tongue. In recent years, Chinese students from Malaysia have won prizes in international debate contests and essay-writing competitions held in Taiwan. They have earned accolades from the cultured circles of various Chinese societies.
This shows that, given an able leadership with a consensus reached by the elite, plus the strong wishes of the families concerned, a Chinese community can do a good job in passing down its native language through persistent efforts even under not-so-conducive circumstances.
It must be emphasised that being able to converse, read and write a letter in one's native language is only the first step. Further upgrading is needed to make Chinese a major medium through which Singapore's public-minded intellectuals can discuss important national and even globalissues, pass down and enrich their cultural heritage and record their delicate and profound thoughts.
In this age of the Internet, English accounts for 70 per cent of the world's total volume of communication, French accounts for 5 per cent, while the other major languages including Chinese share a mere 5 per cent. Considering that Chinese－mainly Mandarin－claims the world's largest number of speakers, its share in global communication is far too small.
I hope that Singapore's public-minded intellectuals, with a global vision who will be playing an active role in academic pursuits, government and non-government affairs, mass media, business, religion and social activities, will help create greater scope for the development of the Chinese language.
We must bear in mind that language, spoken and written,is more than a useful tool. It is also the anchor of our life and spirit, namely, our deep-rooted cultural identity.
(The author is a professor at Harvard University and a member of International Advisory Panel on Culture, Lianhe Zaobao. Translated by Allen Zhuang)
母語是安身立命的助緣
杜維明教授
文化能力的基本工夫是語言文字。人是文化動物，因此運用語言文字是任何一個人在學習認識自我，理解他人和了解自然的過程中都不可或缺的條件。母語成為我們生活世界中表現(xiàn)感情，傳達信息和進行思考的媒介。這本是不刊之論。
如何使華語華文成為新加坡華人社會引以自豪的文化資源，應是關心政治、參與社會和重視文化的公眾知識分子的共同事業(yè)。
馬來西亞的華語華文的提倡近年來在國際大專辯論會和臺灣舉行的征文比賽中，獲得文化中國知識界同聲贊揚，充分顯示只要領導有方，社會賢達有共識，華人家庭有強烈的意愿，通過細水長流的積累，即使大環(huán)境很差，成績仍大有可觀。
必須強調的是，能夠用母語談天、讀書和寫信是第一步，接著便需要進一步提升，讓華語華文也成為新加坡公眾知識分子在討論家國天下大事，進行文化傳承和創(chuàng)新以及記錄精致思維的重要資源。
在網(wǎng)際網(wǎng)絡的時代，英文媒介的比重已在百分之七十，法文約占百分之五，包括中文在內的其他主要語言，才合占百分之五，但是普通話（華語）仍是世界口語人數(shù)之最，這個對比太懸殊。
希望將來新加坡具有全球視野的在學術、政府、媒體、企業(yè)、民間、宗教和社會運動中，扮演積極角色的公眾知識分子，能為華語華文創(chuàng)造發(fā)展的空間。我們必須牢記口語文字不只是工具，而且也是我們安身立命（深層文化認同）的助緣。
（作者是哈佛大學教授、哈佛燕京學社主任、新加坡《聯(lián)合早報》國際文化咨詢團成員。）
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