China has many endangered cultures, Of course, there are the commonly known ones, like the Uighurs, but throughout china, there are many less-known cultures that are being killed off at a similar rate. These, however, are being killed not by detainment camps, although as Wade Davis mentioned, many have been hurt by the political revolution and other past programs, the modern day, they are being killed by the government’s inclusion efforts. I know a woman from china, Guangxi province, part of the Yue ethnicity, who speaks their dialect, but it is slowly being lost. She forgot it as she moved away from her hometown to the massive city of shanghai for university. In the case of the Uighur, however, it is more purposeful discrimination in an attempt to erase their culture. The Chinese government feels that the Uighurs are a threat, so they are working to silence them. There are rules to ensure that they do not use their native Turkish tongue and speak mandarin. As Yasmeen Seran in the Atlantic said, ‘“Without the language as an organizing feature,” Naar said, “there is a lot that is lost.”’ (Yasmeen Seran). Many Uighur cultures are being hurt less explicitly than by the detainment camps and the arrests. Ethnologue lists nearly 300 languages within the Chinese borders, many of which are being slowly killed by the homogeny of the Chinese schooling systems. It is essential to save the language as that is the soul of the cultures being destroyed and lost by industrialization at the same rate.
Sources:
https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/06/on-saving-chinas-dying-languages/276971/
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/10/chinas-war-on-uighur-culture/616513/
