An exhibition to show progress in research of the country's ethnic minority languages opened Saturday in the Central University of Nationalities, a major institution for the study of ethnic languages and cultures.

"China is a unified multiethnic nation and ethnic minority languages are valued cultural resources for the entire Chinese nation," according to the exhibition introduction.

It said "remarkable accomplishment" has been achieved in the use, study and development of minority languages, and a comprehensive, trans-regional network in regulating and researching minority languages has been formed.

The exhibition, jointly hosted by the State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC) and the Ministry of Education, runs through next Wednesday. The event displays recent achievements in fields such as publishing, film, broadcasting, literary translation, language standardization, ancient book collections and calligraphy of ethnic minorities.

Ismail Amat, a member of the Uygur ethic group and vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), and Oyunqemag, a member of the Mongolian ethnic group and vice-chairwoman of the NPC Standing Committee, attended the opening ceremony.

China has 55 ethnic minorities that account for only 8.4 percent of the population. Most of the ethnic groups live in impoverished western regions and border areas in 10 provinces and autonomous regions such as southwestern Yunnan, Guizhou, northwestern Xinjiang and northern Inner Mongolia.

The SEAC said the government was recording the threatened languages of small minority groups and offering bilingual education to protect and rescue these groups' cultural heritage.

About 20,000 ethnic minority students each year attend preparatory courses in Mandarin in more than 100 Chinese universities, the SEAC statistics show.

"Culture is the soul, the root and the essence of a people," said Dainzhub Ongboin, vice director of the SEAC, at a press conference in March.
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(Xinhua News Agency November 25, 2007)