After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, languages of ethnic groups have become an important medium in China’s broadcasting, educational and publishing fields.
    Languages of twenty-nine ethnic groups who inhabit mid-south and southwest parts of China belong to the Sino-Tibetan language family, such as the languages of the Tibetan, Zhuang, Miao, Yao and Bouyei nationalities; languages of seventeen ethnic groups who inhabit northeast and northwest parts of China belong to the Altaic language family, such as the languages of the Uygur and Kazak nationalities; the languages of three ethnic groups like the Va nationality belong to the Donglai language family; two ethnic groups languages belong to the Indo-European language family, namely, the Tajik and the Russian languages; and the language of the Gaoshan minority nationality belongs to the Nandao language family. China has been a unified multi-national country since the ancient times, and her nationalities have always been capable of communicating with each other.
    China’s 55 ethnic grouops all have their own languages except the Hui and She nationalities, of which 22 nationalities have written languages, such as the Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur, Zhuang, Korean, Kazak, Sibo, Dai, Uzbek, Kirgiz, Tatar, Russian, Yi, Naxi, Miao, Jingpo, Lisu, Lahu and Va nationalities, and the Hui, Manchu and She nationalities who use the Chinese language. The written languages of some ethnic groups are popular and widely used, such as the Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur, Korean, Kazak, Sibo and Dai languages. The written languages of some ethnic groups are not so widely used, such as the Yi, Naxi, Miao, Jingpo, Lisu, Lahu and Va languages.
    In view of the types of written language, the languages of ChinaÕs ethic groups can be classified into the following four groups:
    1. The Dongba pictographic language of the Naxi nationality which has more than 1,300 words. Besides the feature of representing ideas with symbols, the language usually uses one or two words to stand for a whole sentence (which includes several words). The pictographic language of the Naxi nationality is of great significance in studying the development history of written language.
    2. The Chinese written language and its variations. For example, the written language of the Shui nationality borrows many words from and has many variations of the Chinese characters. The written language of the Bai nationality is a set of symbols that record the Bai spoken language with the written form of the Chinese characters.
    3. The syllabic language. The Geba written language of the Naxi nationality and the Laoyi written language of the Yi nationality belong to this type of language.
    4. The alphabetic language. Most of the written languages of China’s ethnic groups belong to this type of language, such the Uygur, Kazak, Dai and Mongolian written languages.
    I. The government has helped the ethnic groups in creating and developing their own written languages.
    For those ethnic groups without written languages or complete written languages, the Chinese government has created or reformed written languages for them.
    In the 1950s, the Chinese government created written languages for ten ethnic groups. They are, in the temporal order of the written languages being created, the Zhuang, Bouyei, Miao, Hani, Lisu, Va, Yi, Dong, Li and Naxi nationalities. The schemes for the ten written languages are based on the Latin letters.
    As for those ethnic groups with incomplete written languages, the government reformed the written languages for them, which was undertaken in two aspects. One was to fulfill and improve the written languages on the basis of the existed alphabetic letters. For example, the Jingpo and the Lahu nationalities had been using the Latin letters all the time; therefore the government designed the reforming schemes of the written languages based on the already existed letters. The Dai nationality had four sets of letters in the form of the Dai written languages. Theoretically speaking, a dialect should be chosen as the basis for establishing a standard language, and the four sets of letters should be reduced to only one set. However, the Dai dialects spoken in Xishuangbanna and Dehong (two places in Yunnan Province) are so different that two schemes of the Dai written languages have to be put to use. The other aspect is to carry out the reform with a brand new letter system. For example, the Uygur and the Kazak nationalities used the Arabic letters before. The government designed the schemes of the Uygur written language and the Kazak written language based on the Latin letters.
    In creating and reforming the minority nationality languages, a series of relevant dictionaries have been published in the past decades of years so as to generalize the usage of such languages. The Tibetan language dictionaries include The Gexiquzha Tibetan Dictionary with over 26,000 entries and Chinese explanations; The Grand Tibetan Dictionary with over 50,000 entries; The Tibetan-Chinese Colloquial Dictionary (the language spoken in Lhasa) with nearly 30,000 entries; The Chinese-Tibetan Vocabulary with over 46,000 entries of vocabulary, which is by now the dictionary with most newly appeared words and jargons; The Tibetan Vocabulary with the feature of popular explanations of classical Tibetan; The Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary that focuses on classical vocabulary; and The New Tibetan Dictionary which uses the Tibetan language in the explanations.
    As for the Mongolian language, ten dictionaries have been compiled. They are: The Mongolian-Chinese Wordbook, The Condensed Chinese-Mongolian Dictionary, The Chinese-Mongolian Dictionary, The Mongolian-Chinese Dictionary, The Explanatory Dictionary of the Mongolian Language, The Dictionary of the Mongolian Language, The Simplified Dictionary of Mongolian Idioms, A Vocabulary of Chinese and Mongolian, A Mini Dictionary of Chinese and Mongolian Idioms and The Dictionary of Standard Mongolian.
    As for the Uygur language, there are six dictionaries: The Simplified Chinese-Uygur Dictionary, The Chinese-Uygur Dictionary, The Vocabulary of Standard Uygur, The Simplified Mini Chinese-Uygur Dictionary, The Chinese-Uygur Idiom Dictionary and The Mini Chinese-Uygur Dictionary.
    The Korean dictionaries include The Korean-Chinese Wordbook, The Chinese-Korean Dictionary, The Mini Korean Dictionary, The Chinese-Korean Dictionary, The Mini Korean-Chinese Dictionary and The Dictionary of Commonly-used Phrases in Korean.
    Dictionaries of the languages of other ethnic groups include: The Zhuang-Chinese Vocabulary, The Miao-Chinese Dictionary (of the dialect in east Guizhou Province), The Miao-Chinese Dictionary (of the dialect in Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan), The Miao-Chinese Dictionary (of the dialect in north Yunnan Province), The Chinese-Miao Dictionary (of the dialect in east Yunnan Province), The Chinese-Bouyei Dictionary, The Bouyei-Chinese Dictionary, The Dong-Chinese Dictionary, The Chinese-Dong Dictionary, The Chinese-Kazak Dictionary, The Kazak-Chinese Dictionary, The Yi-Chinese Dictionary, The Chinese-Yi Dictionary, The Chinese-Jingpo Dictionary, The Jingpo-Chinese Dictionary, The Dai (spoken in Dehong)-Chinese Dictionary, The Dai (spoken in Xishuangbanna)-Chinese Dictionary, The Li-Chinese and Chinese-Li Dictionary, The Chinese-Bai Dictionary, The Hani-Chinese Dictionary, The Sibo-Chinese and Chinese-Sibo Dictionary, and The Daur-Chinese and Chinese-Daur Dictionary.

    It can be seen from the above that languages of the minority nationalities have had great development.
    II. Languages of ethnic groups are used as press media.
    The Central People’s Broadcasting Station of China now broadcasts programs in the Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur, Kazak and Korean languages, and publishes all kinds of books, magazines and newspapers in the above five languages. By the year xx, there have been xx  kinds of books published in languages of ethnic groups amounting to xx  volumes altogether; the magazines published in languages of ethnic groups  have been  xx kinds with xx       volumes in all; and the newspapers published in the languages of ethnic groups have been xx kinds. Take only Yunnan Province for example. From 1979 to xx, books published and issued in languages of ethnic groups have been xx volumes; magazines and newspapers established in various prefectures and counties have been       kinds;in Yunnan Broadcasting Station and the prefecture broadcasting station programs have been broadcast in the Dai, Jingpo, Lisu, Lahu, Shui, Yi, Miao and Yao languages; and more than 370 movies have been translated into languages of ethnic groups.
    Before the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, languages of ethnic groups had been discriminated or forbidden to use, let alone the creation of the written forms of some languages of ethnic groups. Today people of minority nationalities have the freedom to use their languages, and can even make a claim in their own languages as defendants in court. The sixth article of the Criminal Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China prescribes that “citizens of all nationalities have the right to make a claim in their own spoken and written languages. The People’s Court, the People’s Procuratorate and departments of public security should translate or interpret for those participate in lawsuit who do not know the local common spoken or written languages. In areas where people of ethnic groups live in concentrated communities or areas where a number of nationalities live in mixed communities, investigations should be undertaken in the local common languages. Court verdicts, notices and other documents should be written in the local common languages.”