“Tibet: China’s policy paper on Tibet”. Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China. May 2004 – “Tibetan language is widely studied, used and promoted. The regional government promulgated and implemented the “Stipulations of the Tibet Autonomous Region on the Learning, Use and Promotion of the Tibetan Spoken and Written Language (Interim)” and its “Rules of Implementation” in 1987 and 1988, respectively, and revised the first as the “Stipulations of the Tibet Autonomous Region on the Learning, Use and Promotion of the Tibetan Spoken and Written Language” in 2002. These stipulations and rules make clear that equal attention be given to Tibetan and Han-Chinese languages in the Tibet Autonomous Region, with the Tibetan language as the major one, thus putting the work of using and promoting Tibetan spoken and written language on a legal basis.
Both Tibetan and Chinese languages are used in all schools in Tibet, with the Tibetan as the major one, and the textbooks and teaching reference books from primary to high school have been edited, translated into and published in Tibetan language. All the resolutions and regulations of the people’s congresses at various levels in Tibet, and formal documents and public announcements of the governments at all levels and all governmental departments in the Tibet Autonomous Region are printed in both Tibetan and Chinese languages. In judicial lawsuits, Tibetan language is used when Tibetans are involved and in the writing of legal documents. The official seals, certificates, forms, envelopes, letter paper, standardized writing paper and emblems of all units, and the signs and logos of all government agencies, factories, mines, schools, bus and train stations, airports, shops, hotels, restaurants, theaters, tourist destinations, stadiums and libraries, and all the road and traffic signs and street names are all written in both Tibetan and Chinese languages.
At present, both radio and TV stations in Tibet have special Tibetan-language channels. There are 14 magazines and 10 newspapers published in Tibetan in the autonomous region. The Tibetan edition of the Tibet Daily is published every day, using advanced Tibetan-language computer editing and typesetting systems. In recent years, more than 100 titles of books have been published in Tibetan every year, with a circulation of several hundred thousand. The standardization of specialized terms and information technology in Tibetan has made great progress. The encoded Tibetan language has reached the state as well as international standard, making Tibetan the first ethnic-minority language in China to have attained international standardization.”
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