Qiang Culture and Language Preservation

why it's important:

The Qiang people's struggle to keep their culture and language from dying out is important to me because I come from a multicultural background and I have a great interest and appreciation for cultural diversity. I was born in Germany and lived in Romania for seven years before my family moved to China. Helping the Qiang people's situation is also important to me because I have many Qiang friends who have asked me to help them in preserving their culture and expressed their concern about the future of their language. I have spent a significant amount of time in and around their culture, learning the Qiang language and history.

the plan of action:

As a result of the earthquake and the heightened cultural awareness, I found opportunities to meet with people interested in Qiang culture. I worked with a group of Qiang people in Wenchuan County who actively promote their culture through video documentation of cultural activities and religious ceremonies. I helped to start the website www.qiangzu.com, providing information about Qiang culture, language, religion and how people (both Qiang and Han Chinese) can get involved. These co workers were very helpful in putting me in touch with Qiang scholars and cultural experts who had experience in the area of cultural preservation and who encouraged me to work to prevent cultural loss. Through these connections I am able to actively promote the Qiang culture to outsiders.

Through a contact with an expert on Qiang languages, Dr. Randy LaPolla, I was able to help work on a Qiang Dialect Map project. The purpose of this dialect map was to survey the different dialects of Qiang and to study the mutual intelligibility of those dialects. I learned how to use the International Phonetic Alphabet to transcribe Qiang words and also recorded those words with a digital recorder. Working with Qiang friends from several different counties, villages and dialects, I documented dialects with which I was unfamiliar, as well as the variety of Qiang that I had been learning. This collected data was put into a specific wordlist format so that it can easily be compared to other Qiang dialects and be readily available to other people working on documenting Qiang and related languages. The end result of this wordlist will be a map showing which dialects are spoken where and which dialect speakers can understand one another. The more that is known about the Qiang language, the more can be done to help preserve it, adapt written systems for the language, and integrate it into the rural school systems.

Another way in which I helped was by volunteering for earthquake relief work through Red Cross and acting as a translator for Hua Mei International. I also introduced others to the language and culture by leading teams and translating for foreigners on week-long trips to the affected areas. These guided visits gave outsiders, interested in the Qiang minority, an opportunity to help with earthquake relief and cultural preservation.

how you can get involved:

People can help the Qiang rebuild their houses after the earthquake by donating to the Earthquake Relief Fund through the International Red Cross or through Habitat for Humanity.

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videos: