Monthly Archives: May 2005

tattoos of Chinese characters / kanji

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Tian of the wonderfully amusing Hanzi Smatter Web site was kind enough to respond to some comments of mine by blurbing my site. I’d like to return the favor.

On a related topic, here’s a section from the Pinyin.info FAQ, which should be going up in June:

I want to get a tattoo with kanji / Chinese characters. What do you recommend?

This is probably not what you want to hear: Don’t get the tattoo. Most tattoos with Chinese characters are seriously flawed.

The chances of you getting something that looks good — and not just to you but also to others, including the hundreds of millions of people who can actually read Chinese characters and know how they’re supposed to look — are quite low. Moreover, tattoos of Chinese characters are seldom written properly or represent a correct, idiomatic translation of the wearer’s desired meaning. On the other hand, the chances of you ending up looking more or less like a fool — at least to those who know Chinese characters — are uncomfortably high. These are important considerations, given that you would need to go through pain and expense to have someone permanently stain your skin with an image that very likely will be done wrong in some important way.

Maybe with some assistance I could get a tattoo done right. Would you help me?

Sorry. I like to help people, but this just isn’t something I’d want to get involved with, especially considering all the things that could go wrong.

I already have a tattoo with Chinese characters. Can you tell me if it’s correct or not?

You might want to try Hanzi Smatter, a site “dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters (Hanzi or Kanji) in Western culture.”

Google, China, and censorship

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Although I strongly support the adoption of Hanyu Pinyin in Taiwan, many of the other outlooks of this Web site on language, Chinese characters, and romanization are unlikely to fit well with the official line in China. Will this site end up blocked by the Great Firewall? I doubt it. But I think censorship concerns everyone, so I’m adding this here:

Following Google’s announcement that it is to open an office in China, Reporters Without Borders has written to the company’s two founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, asking them for a clear response to the following question : “Will you agree to censor your search engine if asked to by Beijing ?”

rest of the article

Taiwan election, party names, and Chinese characters

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On Saturday, Taiwan held an election for members of the National Assembly, a body to be abolished after it completes the work awaiting it on the revision of the nation’s Constitution.

This was an unusual election in that people did not vote for candidates but for parties.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party — the Mínzhǔ Jìnbùdǎng (民主進步黨), or the Mínjìndǎng (民進黨) for short — won the largest share of the vote, followed by the former ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT).

One of the interesting results of the election is that the relatively unknown Chinese People Party picked up 41,940 votes, or 1.0822% of the ballots, outperforming better-known groups such as the New Party, the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union, and the Taiwan Independence Party.

How does all this relate to the themes of this Web site? I’m getting to that.

A spokeswoman for the KMT said that she suspected the Chinese People Party siphoned away some of the KMT’s votes because people were confused about the name. Although I tend to have little regard for the election-related claims of the KMT, especially since the 2004 presidential election, in this case I think the assertion is correct. (I should add, however, that even if the KMT had taken every single vote of the Chinese People Party, the DPP would still have come out on top by a comfortable margin.)

The full name of the KMT is the Zhōngguó Guómíndǎng (literally “Chinese Nationalist Party,” as the Taipei Times is fond of reminding its readers). In Chinese characters this is written 中國國民黨.

The Chinese People Party on the other hand is called Zhōngguó Mínzhòngdǎng, which is written 中國民眾黨 in Chinese characters.

Compare the following:
中國國民黨
中國民眾黨

I can see how some might confuse these two, especially since the Chinese People Party appeared third on the ballot, compared with the KMT, which appeared tenth.

But would the names be as likely to be confused in romanization? I doubt it.

Compare the following:
Zhōngguó Mínzhòngdǎng
Zhōngguó Guómíndǎng

The constitutional changes are slated to include a change to a two-ballot system: one for a local candidate and one for a political party. Thus, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone starts a party soon with a name similar to that of the DPP. Any suggestions for the new 民主XX黨?

Taiwan citizenship and Mandarin

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Today’s Taipei Times has the following note:

Citizenship changes proceed

Foreign nationals seeking Taiwanese citizenship will be required to have a basic grasp of Mandarin and an understanding of the rights and responsibilities of being a Taiwanese citizen if an amendment to the Nationality Law (國籍法 guójí fǎ) is passed. The amendment was approved by the legislature’s Home and Nations Committee yesterday and sent for further screening to a legislative plenary session. According to the amendment, the Ministry of the Interior will set the standards regarding basic language ability and knowledge of citizen rights and responsibilities. The ministry will also be responsible for testing applicants. Vice Minister of the Interior Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎) said that the amendment is aimed at bringing naturalization laws in line with those of such English-speaking countries as the US, Canada and New Zealand.

According to an official U.S. government Web site on U.S. citizenship and immigration services, “To be eligible for naturalization, you must be able to read, write, and speak basic English.” (Emphasis mine.)

The few Web pages I’ve scanned about Canadian citizenship are not as specific about the language requirement. I get the impression, though, that being able to read and write French or English is not required as long as speaking ability exists. I didn’t see anything specific about the English-language requirement for New Zealand, either.

Official talk of a language requirement for ROC (Taiwan) citizenship surfaced about a year ago. At the time, I called the Ministry of the Interior to inquire about the situation. If applicants for citizenship are required to be able to read and write Mandarin in Chinese characters, this would be a substantial barrier to naturalization — much more so than being able to read or write a language that is written in an alphabetic script.

I was told that reading and writing Chinese characters would not be required. I hope that is still the intention of the government.

I also inquired whether languages of Taiwan other than Mandarin would be acceptable, and I was told they would be. Thus, someone able to speak Taiwanese (Hokkien, Minnan, Holo…), Hakka, or, rather less likely, one of the languages of Taiwan’s tribes, would be able to meet the language requirement without knowledge of Mandarin. I hope that this, too, is still the intention of the government.

I suspect some of the ambiguity may lie in how Guóyǔ (國語) is translated. Most of the time the word refers to Mandarin. Recently, however, the government has occasionally chosen to translate Guóyǔ not as “national language” (i.e. Mandarin) but “national languages” (i.e. the more than one dozen languages of Taiwan: Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka, and the languages of Taiwan’s tribes).

Naxi pictographs

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The following is the text of a note I have sent to the U.S. Library of Congress concerning its discussion of its collection of Naxi materials. Much of this beautiful and fascinating collection is available for viewing on line.

The section of your Web site devoted to “Selections from the Naxi Manuscript Collection” makes frequent reference to Naxi as a “pictographic language.” This is a serious error, rooted in a common but mistaken conflation of language and script. No language is pictographic, as even common sense should be sufficient to reveal. (Surely no one believes that Naxi people are unable to speak to one another but must instead draw pictures in order to hold conversations.)

Moreover, the Naxi pictographic texts are not even writing, properly speaking. The following is from The Languages of China, by Robert Ramsey:

In the strictest sense it is wrong to call these pictographs writing, because they do not normally represent the units of a language. They serve, rather, only as mnemonic devices to remind a priest of the details of a story he already knows by heart. … Moreover, many words of the text — especially those representing abstract concepts — are left completely unrepresented by symbols and must be totally supplied from memory. Sometimes a symbol is inserted into a frame only to elucidate the meaning of another symbol and is itself left unread. … The Naxi have never used these pictographs to communicate with each other — they do not exchange letters, write books, or even keep simple accounts and records with them. Anyone can appreciate the graphic beauty of a Naxi text, but only someone well-versed in the mystical lore of Naxi religion can interpret its meaning and translate it into language. It is not enough simply to be able to speak Naxi.

The Naxi have a different but less interesting script that can be used for real writing.

I hope you will correct the text of your beautiful and informative site accordingly.

This tendency to conflate language and script is one of the main problems interfering with many people’s understanding of the nature of Chinese characters.

Mayor Ma on learning Hakka and Taiwanese

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In 馬英九怕被叫馬爺爺 開心唱客家歌, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou offers a few remarks on Hakka, Taiwanese, and how they may be learned.

Mǎ Yīngjiǔ shuō, Kèyǔ hé Táiyǔ qíshí dōu kěyǐ yòng zhùyīn fúhào, zàijiā shàng jǐ gè yīn lái jiào, xiǎopéngyou kěyǐ yīcì xué sān zhǒng yǔyán, bùyīdìng yào yòng Luómǎ pīnyīn, zēngjiā xuéxí nándù.

馬英九說，客語和台語其實都可以用注音符號，再加上幾個音來教，小朋友可以一次學三種語言，不一定要用羅馬拼音，增加學習難度。

The article isn’t very well written. But Ma seems to have a prejudice against romanization that should be corrected. Nonetheless, it’s hard for this Pinyin advocate to get too worked up about this because Ma is the one who finally brought some order to the signage of Taipei with the thorough implementation of Hanyu Pinyin.

Whatever they might think of other aspects of his politics, many foreigners in Taiwan are deeply appreciative of Ma’s administration for this, despite the awful, awful InTerCaPiTaLiZaTion.

romanization in old documents by Pingpu (Taiwan tribe)

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平埔族人 曾用羅馬拼音寫契約
記者溫筆良／枋寮報導 05/10 04:06

中央研究院台灣研究所博士研究員陳秋坤最近發現，平埔族人在清朝乾隆到嘉慶年間，使用羅馬文字拼音書寫契約，閩南話中的「牽手」、「抓狂」等都沿用自平埔族用語，閩南話也可以用羅馬文字拼寫出來。

專門研究台灣近代史的陳秋坤博士最近受高雄縣政府委託，以大崗山地區古契約書為題作專題研究，在高雄、屏東地區蒐集近兩、三百年來的古契文書，找出清朝康熙、乾隆年間到民國初年的各種土地買賣契約。

陳秋坤昨天說，平埔族、漢人買賣土地可推演到荷蘭人佔據台灣時代，當時荷蘭人教導不識字的平埔族人用羅馬拼音書寫買賣契約，買賣雙方用羅馬拼音書寫閩話或漢字，把買賣約定內容寫成白紙黑字。

陳秋坤說，難得發現的羅馬拼音平埔族文字，流傳至今已找不到可以完全解讀的人，不過還好這些羅馬拼音都有漢字對照，互相比對可以完全了解契約內容。有深入研究價值，正帶領研究人員深入研究。

對客家六堆有深入研究的客家公益會理事長李貴文說，用羅馬拼音書寫平埔族、閩南話，在台南、高屏曾發現過，但數量稀少，中央研應引導專家作更入研究，根據古契約文書留下資料，閩南話常用的「牽手」、「抓狂」、「搞丟」都是平埔族用語，平埔族漢化後繼續使用。