From Diversity to Homogeneity

Abstract

This article explores the shifting connotations of two key terms in propaganda texts on bilingual education policy in Inner Mongolia. The two terms are dumdadu-yin ündüsten (Ch.: Zhonghua minzu, Chinese nation) and ulus-un neidem hereglehü üge hel (Ch.: guojia tongyong yuyan, national common language). I examine how the meanings of these key terms have begun to shift as China strives to shed its multinational character and build a linguistically homogenous Chinese nation-state. The new prominence given to the term dumdadu-yin ündüsten (Chinese nation) and the gradual substitution of the terms neitelig hel (Ch.: putonghua) and khitad hel (Han language) with the term ulus-un neidem hereglehü üge hel (national common language) in propaganda texts in Inner Mongolia reflect and shape China’s changing policies on its borderlands. In this brief exploratory article, I underline how the Mongolian terms referring to the Chinese nation and national common language undergo shifts in their meanings as what sits at the very core of these terms – the Han – irrepressibly exposes itself and subsumes other meaning potentials.