Chinese Language and Culture Collection

Editor-in-chief: Cao Zhiyun

Publisher: Commercial Press

The landmark achievement of the Chinese language resource protection project, the academic work Chinese Language and Culture Collection was published on Dec. 18. The series consists of 20 volumes covering Chinese languages, such as Mandarin, Jin, Wu, Hui, Min, Xiang, Gan, Hakka, Cantonese and other dialects and minority languages like Huaiji. The book strikes a balance between innovative content and preserving history, while being both advanced in a technical sense while remaining easily accessible to wider audiences.

The “language and culture” aspect of the title refers to local cultural phenomena embodied in various aspects of language, including local names, folk activities, taboos, proverbs, and folk art; here “collection” refers to their preservation and display through multimedia, databases and network technology based on field surveys. 

In May 2015, the Ministry of Education and the State Language Commission announced a plan to carry out surveys on the dialects of 1,500 locations nationwide between 2015 and 2019 (1,080 Chinese dialects and 420 minority languages). In addition to field investigations, the project will continue to collect and integrate language resource data through online records and as well as resource pooling. By the end of 2017, 1,073 investigation locations had been completed, accounting for 72 percent of all 1,500 locations. In terms of the development and application of achievements, the display platform of the Chinese language resource protection project was completed and put into operation in 2016.

Chinese Language and Culture Collection is written based on the first-hand information collected from field study. Before further investigation, the project team made elaborate academic preparations and formulated strict work rules and academic norms, and published the Handbook of Investigation on Chinese Dialect Culture Collection. The handbook set the work standards for investigation, corpus collation, book cataloging, audio-visual processing and data submission. It also contains a special questionnaire including nine categories-housing construction, daily tools, costumes, diet, agricultural art, daily activities, marriages and funerals, festivals, story telling and singing performances-a total of more than 800 survey entries. 

The authors made extensive use of various means, such as literal and phonetic transcription, audio and video recording, as well as photography to record dialects, cultural phenomena (such as weddings, funerals, festivals, folk songs and plays), as well as items and activities.

In order to complete the investigation, the authors had to cross dozens of kilometers of mountainous terrain looking for an old pavilion. In addition, the book series includes illustrations and an extended-play record. Entries with local characteristics are followed by a two-dimensional code, involving video, audio, text, pictures and other content. Readers can access to the online audio and video by scanning the code.