XN000022-1974-02-13 — Page 4

Wednesday, February 13, 1974

LANGUAGE BILL PASSED

Call For Further Improvements In Standard Of Chinese

The government was today urged to draw up a long-term programme to improve the standard of the Chinese language among residents and to

use simple Chinese in its communications with the public.

The suggestions were made by the Hon. Hilton Cheong-Leen when

speaking in support of the Official Languages Bill which passed its third

and final reading in the Legislative Council this afternoon.

Steps should be taken, he said, to improve and standardize the

quality of Chinese communications with the public, such as by avoiding

the use of esoteric and outmoded terms or by giving too literal a Chinese

translation of the English original.

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In this regard, the forthcoming publication of the bilingual

glossary, containing nearly 30,000 terms commonly used by government

departments, would be a step in the right direction, he said.

Nr. Cheong-Leen appreciated that improvements in the standard of Chinese could not be achieved overnight as it might require "strategic decisions" by the government. But he emphasised that there should be no

undue delay arising from any government department in answering members of the public in the Chinese language. "As soon as it is practicable, all communications in the Chinese languaga fram government departments to the

public should be typewritten instead of handwritten."

/Mr. Cheong-Leen

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