The ''Qapqal News'' ( Xibe: , Möllendorff: zh, s=察布查尔报, p=Chábùchá'ěr Bào) is the world's only newspaper in the

Xibe language The Xibe language (, also Sibo, Sibe) is a Tungusic language spoken by members of the Sibe minority of Xinjiang, in Northwest China. Classification Sibe is conventionally viewed as a separate language within the southern group of Tungusic lan ...

, a

Tungusic language The Tungusic languages (also known as Manchu–Tungus and Tungus) form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered. There are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the ...

spoken in

Northwest China Northwestern China () is a region in the People's Republic of China. It consists of five provincial administrative regions, namely Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Xinjiang. The region is characterized by a (semi-)arid continental climate. ...

.; has pictures of new digitally typeset editions of the ''Qapqal News'' It is one of roughly fifty minority-language newspapers in the

Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...

autonomous region An autonomous administrative division (also referred to as an autonomous area, zone, entity, unit, region, subdivision, province, or territory) is a subnational administrative division or territory, internal territory of a sovereign state that has ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

History

The predecessor of the ''Qapqal News'', the ''Sulfan Jilgan'' (Xibe: ; zh, s=苏尔凡吉尔干, p=Sū'ěrfán Jí'ěrgàn, l=Voice of Freedom, links=no), was founded in July 1946 in

Yining YiningThe official spelling according to ( zh, s=伊宁), also known as Ghulja () or Kulja (Kazakh language, Kazakh: ), is a county-level city in northwestern Xinjiang, China. It is the administrative seat and largest city of Ili Kazakh Auton ...

during the reign of the East Turkestan Republic. In 1954, it changed its name to ''Ice Banjin'' (Xibe: ; zh, s=伊车班津, p=Yīchē Bānjīn, l=New Life News, links=no). The paper moved its offices to its present location in the Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County in 1956. It was forced to stop publication in June 1966, during the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

, but was revived under its present name in October 1974, and has been in continuous operation since then.

Circulation

From about 300 copies in the 1970s when it was revived, the circulation of the ''Qapqal News'' grew to about 1,300 by 2007. It now comes out twice a week. Of the subscribers, about 500 are government organisations, twenty are enthusiasts of the closely related

Manchu language Manchu ( ) is a critically endangered language, endangered Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China. As the traditional native language of the Manchu people, Manchus, it was one of the official language ...

in places as varied as

Shenyang Shenyang,; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly known as Fengtian formerly known by its Manchu language, Manchu name Mukden, is a sub-provincial city in China and the list of capitals in China#Province capitals, provincial capital of Liaonin ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

Guizhou ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = , image_map = Guizhou in China (+all claims hatched).svg , mapsize = 275px , map_alt = Map showing the location of Guizhou Province , map_caption = Map s ...

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

, and a dozen other provinces, and the remainder are local Xibe people, mostly those in rural areas. It is sold at retail for ¥0.09, or at a full-year subscription price of ¥9. Their full-year

revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of product (business), goods and services related to the primary operations of a business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some compan ...

is thus only around ¥10,000; the county government gives them a subsidy to cover roughly ¥30,000 of annual

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...

and printing costs and ¥3,000 of salaries paid to reporters. In 2017 the price is ¥0.9 at retail or ¥90 at a full-year subscription.

Content

The newspaper's name is printed in four languages on its front page: Xibe, Chinese,

Uyghur Uyghur may refer to: * Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia (West China) ** Uyghur language, a Turkic language spoken primarily by the Uyghurs *** Old Uyghur language, a different Turkic language spoken in the Uyghur K ...

(, ''Chapchal Gëzit'') and Kazakh (, ''Çapçal Gazet''). About 80% of its content consists of translated reports from China's official

Xinhua News Agency Xinhua News Agency (English pronunciation: ),J. C. Wells: Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, 3rd ed., for both British and American English or New China News Agency, is the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China. It is a ...

and other

wire services A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswir ...

, with the remaining 20% written by the paper's own staff. Even the paper's own staff do not always write their articles in Xibe; sometimes, they write in Chinese, Uyghur or Kazakh and then translate it into Xibe later. The paper does not accept

advertisements Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of interest to consumers. It is typically us ...

. The ''Qapqal News'' plays an important role in Xibe

language planning In sociolinguistics, language planning (also known as language engineering) is a deliberate effort to influence the function, structure or acquisition of languages or language varieties within a speech community.Kaplan B., Robert, and Rich ...

and standardisation. The editors are highly conscious of their role as the modern caretakers not just of their own language but of the Manchu language which few besides Xibe people can read and write anymore; Manchu proper is nearly extinct, with the last

native speakers A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongue'' refers ...

believed to be 18 octogenerian residents of the village of Sanjiazi near

Qiqihar Qiqihar (also spelled Tsitsihar) is the second-largest city in the Heilongjiang province of China, in the west central part of the province. The built-up (or metro) area made up of Longsha, Tiefeng and Jianhua districts had 959,787 inhabitants, w ...

in Northern

Heilongjiang Heilongjiang is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country and contains China's northernmost point (in Mohe City along the Amur) and easternmost point (at the confluence of the Amur and Us ...

. The problem is that the Xibe language exhibits increasing

diglossia In linguistics, diglossia ( , ) is where two dialects or languages are used (in fairly strict compartmentalization) by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled "L" or "low" v ...

, with the old Manchu terminology in the

standard Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object ...

written language A written language is the representation of a language by means of writing. This involves the use of visual symbols, known as graphemes, to represent linguistic units such as phonemes, syllables, morphemes, or words. However, written language is ...

being replaced by a large body of

Standard Chinese Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). ...

loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

s in the spoken language; many younger readers lack familiarity with the older Manchu words. The editors of the ''Qapqal News'' thus worry that their desire to reach the widest audience possible conflicts with their role as a guardian of the standard language and of Manchu culture in general.

Staff

The current editor-in-chief, Iktan (, ''Yīkètǎn''), is a graduate of the

Minzu University of China The Minzu University of China (MUC) is a national public university in Beijing, China. It is affiliated with the National Ethnic Affairs Commission of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construc ...

; aside from Xibe, he also speaks Chinese, Uyghur, Kazakh and

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

. He began working for the ''Ice Banjin'' in 1958 and took over as editor-in-chief of the ''Qapqal News'' in 1985. The paper has a total staff of 25 people; however, all but two lack a formal

journalism education A journalism school is a school or department, usually part of an established university, where journalists are trained. 'J-School' is an increasingly used term for a journalism department at a school or college. Journalists in most parts of the ...

background and 20 only have a middle-school or lower educational background.

Equipment

From 1946 to 1954, the newspaper had to be written out by hand and

mimeograph A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator or stencil machine) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a co ...

ed. In 1954, the paper was manually typeset using movable lead type, a practise which continued up until 2007. The editors had long hoped to move to digital typesetting and printing, but were delayed by lack of both software and hardware. Researcher Tungga Cingfu (, ''Tóngjiā Qìngfū'') spent over ten years starting in 1994 to do research on the Xibe and Manchu languages and develop further fonts, input methods and related software, as well as write and submit standards documents, with the aid of a grant from the

National Natural Science Foundation of China The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC; ) is an organization directly affiliated to China's State Council for the management of the National Natural Science Fund. History NSFC was founded in February 1986 by theoretical chemist ...

. Initial versions of the software were unsatisfactory because they only supported three typefaces and so the editors continue to wait for further development. The government of the

Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture in northern Xinjiang, China. Its capital is Yining, also known as Ghulja or Kulja. Covering an area of 268,591 square kilometres (16.18 per cent of Xinjiang), Ili Prefecture shares ...

contributed ¥150,000 (US$24.000) in 2002 to upgrade the newspaper's printing facilities. A further governmental contribution of ¥800,000 (US$170.000) in 2007 enabled the newspaper to upgrade its aging equipment: new equipment they purchased included a

hectograph The hectograph, gelatin duplicator or jellygraph is a printing process that involves transfer of an original, prepared with special inks, to a pan of gelatin or a gelatin pad pulled tight on a metal frame. While the original use of the technol ...

y machine, a scanner, industrial staplers and paper cutting machines, a blade sharpener, three

digital camera A digital camera, also called a digicam, is a camera that captures photographs in Digital data storage, digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film or film stock. Dig ...

s, two digital

video camera A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos, as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film. Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of other ...

s, nine computers, two

multifunction printer An MFP (multi-function product/printer/peripheral), multi-functional, all-in-one (AIO), or multi-function device (MFD), is an office machine which incorporates the functionality of multiple devices in one, so as to have a smaller footprint in a ...

s, a

laser printer Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a Electric charge, negatively charged cylinder call ...

and two

fax machine Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other out ...

History

Circulation

Content

Staff

Equipment

References

Further reading