From Diversity to Homogeneity

Abstract

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.