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Twelve-year-old Ayi Gugli devours the colorful pages of a children's encyclopedia, obviously disappointed she does not quite understand its Mandarin text.

 

To the Uygur girl's delight, however, the book will soon be available in five ethnic languages including her own, its publisher said at a recent national book fair in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

 

China's 123 million ethnic population - half of whom speak and read Mandarin as a second language - now have wider access to world culture as more publications are being made available in their own dialects.

 

The recent book fair, the 16th of its kind, showcases 12,000 copies of publications in 23 Chinese ethnic languages, covering fiction, cultural studies, animal husbandry and gardening, said Wang Yingli, an official with the State Administration of Press and Publication.

 

"Across China, 38 publishers are publishing in 23 ethnic languages in 14 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. Their publications involve politics, economics, culture and science and technology," he said.

 

In 2004, the country published at least 63 million copies of books in ethnic languages, said Wang.

 

Dawuti, a 46-year-old Kazak peasant farmer, said he bought a booklet on horse-rearing in 2005. "It was printed in Kazak and contained many helpful hints on how to prevent horse diseases," he said.

 

More than 10,000 people in 5,000 book distribution outlets are working to deliver these publications to their readers, primarily those living in the largest ethnic communities in Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Tibet, Ningxia and Xinjiang, said Wang.

 

"These distributors also carry out market surveys and provide us with first-hand information on what publications the ethnic people need," said Li Chengquan, President of Yanbian People's Press that publishes books in Korean.

 

As scholars worldwide are increasingly interested in China's ethnic cultures, particularly Tibetan, Mongolian and the ancient Naxi cultures, the Chinese government has had more research findings published in ethnic languages to encourage further studies in these fields.

 

"Members of a certain ethnic community are entitled to be informed of the latest developments in their own cultural studies," said Wang.

 

He said China set up a special fund in the 1990s to encourage publishers to publish more ethnic books. To date, the fund has raised more than 10 million yuan (1.25 million U.S. dollars).

 

Meanwhile, publishing houses in the developed regions are helping those in the ethnic regions by donating equipment and technologies, helping them train professionals, and sponsoring publications to exploit ethnic cultural resources to the maximum.

 

The People's Publishing House of Tibet, for example, has published 35 categories of books through collaboration with nationwide publishers since 1997.

 

China's 123 million ethnic people, about 9.4 percent of the 1.3 billion population, live in 55 minority groups, 22 of which have their own languages.

 

A 2000 survey shows about 63.94 million Chinese speak an ethnic language as their mother tongue.

 

(Xinhua News Agency June 23, 2006)