Master of Shui language takes painstaking efforts to keep traditional language of ethnic group in SW China’s Guizhou alive

Yang Shengzhao is in the middle of an interview with the media. (Chinanews.com/Pu Wensi)

 Having started to learn the Shui language, the language of the Shui ethnic group, at the age of 13, and being able to host events related to the culture of the Shui language at 22, Yang Shengzhao is a well-known folk artist in Sandu Shui Autonomous County in southwest China’s Guizhou Province.

Aside from this, he is also an inheritor of the art of the Shui language, which is a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage in Guizhou.

“Teaching the Shui language is a mysterious and respected job. People of the Shui ethnic group would like to invite masters of Shui language to help them set the exact date at which they should hold such events as wedding ceremonies and funerals, as well as starting to build their own houses and kicking off spring ploughing, according to guidance offered by books in the Shui language,” Yang explained.

Shui language books are classics that contain a wealth of information about the Shui ethnic group, including astronomy, geography, calendar culture, and philosophy.

Yang Shengzhao hosts the opening ceremony of a festival of the Shui ethnic group held in 2016. (Chinanews.com/Pan Shigao)

In 2006, the Shui language was inscribed on the list of the first batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage in China.

“The language of the Shui ethnic group was discovered earlier than the oracle bone scripts. There are only several hundred characters of the Shui language, but each character has multiple pronunciations, meanings and usages,” Yang explained, while reading several lines of the Shui language. Although the lines contained only dozens of characters, he didn’t finish them until several minutes later.

“These lines are just a part of the Shui language. To master these lines, you have to understand the meaning and the usage of the characters. A master of Shui language keeps such content in his mind, and without his help, you wouldn’t be able to decipher the characters even when you know about them,” Yang introduced.

Yang Shengzhao (in black headwear) translates a book in Shui language together with staff members of the Shui Language Culture Academy in Sandu Shui Autonomous County in southwest China’s Guizhou Province. (Chinanews.com/Pu Wensi)

Traditionally, the Shui language has been passed down exclusively to male inheritors. However, during the past decade, it has become difficult to find qualified male inheritors. Furthermore, because a number of elderly masters of the Shui language had passed away, some content of the Shui language that had previously been passed down through oral communication has been lost.

Meanwhile, as young people chose to work or study outside their hometown, there were no people available to inherit the traditional language.

In 2015, Yang made a bold decision to teach the language to female students in order to keep the Shui language alive. This was unprecedented move.

Yang Shengzhao holds a ritual to mark the occasion when new apprentices join his class. (Chinanews.com/Pan Shigao)

As a matter of fact, Yang started to teach the Shui language to students at a local primary school in 1998. He didn’t stop passing down the traditional language to younger generations at the school until he retired from the post of the dean of the primary school.

Yang said he is delighted to see that the country has attached great importance to the protection and inheritance of the history and culture of ethnic groups. Currently, Sandu Shui Autonomous County and the cultural circle of Guizhou Province are taking vigorous efforts to rescue and protect the Shui language by promoting it at schools and translating the language, among other efforts.

Since his retirement in 2015, Yang has been devoting himself to the social practice, translation, research and inheritance of the Shui language. Over the past few years, he has led the efforts to translate a valuable ancient book in Shui language, and guided and assisted researchers to translate over 10 ancient books in Shui language. In 2018, Yang was appointed as a researcher by Guizhou Minzu University, becoming the only master of Shui language specially invited by a Chinese university.

Yang Shengzhao teaches Shui language to students in a classroom. (Chinanews.com/Pan Shigao)

Yang Shengzhao (right) and Pan Chaolin, an expert of Shui language and a professor from Guizhou Minzu University, record a lecture on the Shui language. (Chinanews.com/Pan Shigao)