"Traffic Police", a sign found in Huhhot, capital of IMAR. Three out of the four Mongolian words are written incorrectly.
Five out of six Mongolian words are written incorrectly. (Sign from Huhhot)
Four out of five Mongolian words are incorrect. (Sign from Huhhot)
None of the three Mongolian words is correct. (Sign from Huhhot)
None of the two Mongolian words is correct. (Sign from Huhhot)

According to one of China’s state controlled official presses, Inner Mongolia News Net (www.nmgnews.com), the 31^st Meeting of the 10^th People’s Congress of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR) spent a half day on November 29, 2007 to discuss issues related to the implementation of the “Regulation of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Mongolian Language Work” which was passed by the 12^th Meeting of the 10^th People’s Congress of IMAR on November 26, 2004.

The report says, during the evaluation of the implementation, many discussion group members admitted that serious problems exist with the implementation of the regulation:

“Mongolian language translation departments of the Party Committee and government branches have sharply reduced in number and dramatically dropped in capacity. There are only 6 translation units with a total number of 23 full-time translators; the number of students studying in Mongolian and the number of people using Mongolian language have rapidly declined; the number of students learning in Mongolian has dropped from 380,000 in 1986 to 240,000 at present; the number of Mongolian Language Textbooks for elementary school first grade has been reduced from 68,600 books in 1992 to 22,500 in 2006, being reduced by 2/3 in 15 years; the number of copies of ‘Inner Mongolia Daily’ printed in Mongolian has dropped from 13,800 copies to 6,000 today.”

Recommendations made at the Meeting include:

“Urging the government leaders to pay close attention to these issues and come up with a detailed implementation plan, focusing on the promotion of Mongolian teaching as a major nationality education, improving the schooling condition of nationality education; Enhancing the teacher’s workforce and improving the educational quality; Re-arranging the existing curriculum; Increasing job opportunities for students who learned in Mongolian.”

China has always claimed that the Mongols in the region enjoy freedom and prosperity similar to other citizens of the country. In August, Yang Jing, governor of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said during the celebration of 60^th anniversary of the Autonomous Region that “Mongolian culture has never flourished as it does today and the Mongolian language has never been used as widely as it is now.” In response to this claim, an ethnic Mongolian cyber dissident nicknamed Bayaguud writes in his article entitled “The Discussion Regarding Mongolian Language Issues in Response to Governor Yang’s Interview with Correspondents”, asking Yang Jing “as the Chairman of the People’s Government of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where and when did you use Mongolian language in your speeches even once? Have you ever published a single article in any Mongolian language publication? Which public occasion did you speak Mongolian? Is there a single government branch that uses Mongolian language as the language of administration and governance?” Bayaguud continues, “if answers are no, how can you say a language is widely used in a region where even the governor doesn’t use it?”

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