The study of Chinese characters, which was dropped as one of the subjects in the College Scholastic Ability Test, has made a comeback as well.
The number of applicants taking the Chinese Character Competency Examination has steadily risen from 400,000 in 2001 to 760,000 in 2002, to 780,000 in 2003 and 1 million last year.
Monthly Archives: January 2005
Lonely Planet Mandarin phrasebook
The introduction to the new Lonely Planet Mandarin phrasebook begins, “It may surprise you to learn that Mandarin is not really the name of a language.” Then comes the usual nonsense about “dialects.”
Talk about getting off to a bad start!
The book takes a few more wrong turns. First, it drops Hanyu Pinyin altogether in favor of a Lonely Planet romanization that seems to have been created for this volume.
For example, “wǒr hwáy‧shwōr ēe‧dyěn” for “wǒ huí shuō yīdiǎn”.
“Wor”? “Shwor”? The whole book is like this, making the unwary traveller speak like a parody of a native of Beijing, which is not the way most people speak Mandarin.
Happy 100th birthday, Zhou Youguang!
Zhou Youguang is one of the main people behind the development of Hanyu Pinyin.
周有光 今天100岁(组图)
2005年01月14日04:00 人民网-人民日报
周有光 今天100岁(组图)
周有光和陪伴了他十多年的“小电脑”。本报记者 施芳摄
本报记者 施芳
1月13日,属蛇的周有光整整100岁了。
11日下午,我如约叩开北京后拐棒胡同一处朴素的寓所时,先生正安静地坐在 一张老式的、略显斑驳的书桌前,脸上露出如孩童般明净的笑容。
“我身体还好,就是耳背,你说话的时候大点声,说慢点。”先生一边说一边戴 上了助听器。
我们的谈话就这样开始了,我几乎是趴在他耳朵上说的,然而交流并不困难, 他思路敏捷,每每说出一些颇有见地的话,让我这个年轻人自叹弗如。
50岁,从经济学到语言学
谈话从先生改行说起。1955年10月,时任复旦大学经济学教授的周有光到北京 参加全国文字会议,为期一个月的会议结束后,组织上通知他到中国文字改革委员 会工作。
这真是一件出乎意料的事,他连连说:“我业余搞文字研究,是外行。”委员会 主任吴玉章回答说“这是一项新的工作,大家都是外行。”消息传出,朋友们纷纷相 劝:“经济学多重要啊,语言学可是小儿科。”“哪里需要哪里去”———凭着一份朴素 的热情,在50岁的时候,周有光乐呵呵地扔下经济学,半路出家一头扎进语言学中。
从此中国少了一位经济学家,多了一位著作等身的语言学家。在美国国会图书 馆里,如今既藏有经济学家周有光的著作,又有作为语言文字学家周有光的著作。
说来难以置信,身为语言文字学家,周有光却没有接受过一天专业教育。他在 读大学时,上海正兴起拉丁化新文字运动。周有光觉得好玩,就写了一篇题为《关 于语法问题》的文章,投给《语文》杂志,没想到不久后就刊登出来了。此后他便孜 孜不倦地致力于汉语拼音化的研究,成为享誉中外的语言学家。
83岁,“换笔”用电脑
书桌旁,摆放着用花布包裹着的一样东西。先生指着说:“喏,写文章全靠它 了。”小心地打开包裹,里面是一台陈旧的WL—1000C中西文文字处理机。那是1988 年4月,先生83岁时日本夏普公司送来的礼物。从此,先生便用它写文章、写信。
高龄“换笔”之后,先生开始关注汉字在计算机中的输入输出问题。在他看来, 汉语拼音输入法,不用编码,就可以输出汉字,值得大力推广。“改进电脑输入方 法,效率可以提高5倍,这是件大事。”
98岁,倡导“基础华文”运动
周老的重孙周安迪在美国读小学六年级,会说汉语,却几乎不会书写。于是, 在98岁高龄的时候,先生倡导发起了“基础华文”运动。在《提倡“基础华文”缘起》一 文中,先生言辞切切地写道:全世界华侨估计有5000万以上,能否使华文简易一 些,方便他们用较少的时间,得到较多的华夏文化享受?可以设计一种简易的华 文,作为进入华夏文化宝库的第一个台阶。
“开阔的世界眼光和深邃的历史眼光”———这是后学者对先生的评价。当世界各 地出现了“汉语热”时,一些人推断21世纪将是汉语的世纪,先生保持了相当的冷 静:“汉语的国际地位,应当作恰如其分的正确估计。汉语的国际性最弱,这是很 多中国人不愿意承认的,但是,不承认并不能改变事实。要想改变事实,只有改变 汉语本身,提高汉语的规范化水平。”
临走时,先生拿了与他相濡以沫70年、于2002年先他而去的老伴张允和的遗作 《最后的闺秀》送给我。那天是1月11日,离先生的百岁生日还有两天。
周有光,著名语言文字学家。1923年—1927年就读于上海圣约翰大学和光华大 学,解放前曾任上海复旦大学经济研究所教授,从事金融研究。他同时对语言学产 生兴趣,利用业余时间潜心研究汉语拼音,1952年出版了《中国拼音文字研究》。 1955年到北京中国文字改革委员会参加拟定拼音方案,该方案1958年正式公布。出 版《汉字改革概论》、《比较文字学初探》等20多种书籍。
‘Net influences writing in Chinese
Related sorts of Internet-influenced mixed scripts, abbreviations, and loan words are also popular in Taiwan and China among the young.
“よøぎㅎビλĦㅎコ_¤ 읍ㅎF_しち흐ロっㅉヴ”_≥∇≤☆”
This is one of the commonly used words of teenagers on the Internet. It means: “Hello. You are so cool.”
The language used on the Internet is passing over the danger level for breaking down Hangeul, the Korean alphabet.
Up until recently, it was just writing down the words as they were heard or shortening words, like “ban-ga-wo” (meaning ‘glad to see you’ in Korean) to “bang-ga” or “yeo-ja-chin-gu” (meaning “girlfriend” in Korean) to “yeo-chin.” However, lately, it has gotten to the point where words that the general public cannot understand at all are being used.
The language for these words used by some netizens for communication, mixing special characters, Japanese, Chinese characters and Korean, are called “alien words.”
The meaning of alien words such as “㉯㉯납별뉨ⓔ는ⓔ렇퀘글쓰능高☆로㉯뽀게생각안훼 (I, Byeol-nim, do not think using words this way is that bad)”, can be guessed when looking closely, but some seem like codes, such as “읍ㅎ℉를_ㅁ|てつ효_∩∇∩★ (I believe in you)”.
These alien words are becoming popular among some teenage netizens who want to share secrets of their own. They even make community clubs on the Internet and talk with each other in alien words.
However, these alien words are not in the Korean spelling system, and so netizens using this language sometimes misunderstand each other. Accordingly, a translation program for alien words has appeared. It translates Korean words into alien words.
The problem here is that this language used by teenagers on the Internet is continuing into use in everyday life, becoming a serious threat to breaking down the Korean language.
In fact, teachers are pointing out that many students are writing “추카” instead of “축하” and “겜” instead of “게임” during writing classes. (Words are written by the way they sound or by shortening the original word.)
Accordingly, the Education and Human Resources Development Ministry (MOE) has published a teachers’ guide to refine the Korean language and effectively teach students the manners in language for everyday life to be distributed throughout schools on Monday, January 10.
This teachers guide, titled: “Refining Internet Language, Manners for Language in Everyday Life,” was written by the MOE, the National Academy of the Korean Language, the Information Communication Ethics Committee, the Korean Education and Research Information Service and the Teachers’ Clean Media Movement, and will be used during classes starting this semester.
left to right, not top to bottom
The Chinese characters in government documents in Taiwan are now to be written from left to right rather than from top to bottom, as was often seen before. The move is not a surprise but was announced months ago.
I find it interesting that the premier is willing to state the truth so directly: The reason the government didn’t change earlier was because of reactionary obstructionism based on the fact that China was already using the left-to-right format. If only the government would be so direct about its decision to adopt Tongyong Pinyin. The let’s-not-use-what-China-uses system is much more of an impediment to internationalization than Chinese documents being written top to bottom.
Premier Yu Shyi-kun said on Monday that the government’s decision to reform the format of official documents is aimed at facilitating globalization, not at de-sinicization. Yu made the remarks while presiding over a ceremony marking the launch of a new style of official documents and government gazettes. From now on, Yu said, text in official documents will run from left to right horizontally instead of the traditional style in which the Chinese characters run from right to left and from top to bottom. He noted that the new format complies with the general world trend and said the move has nothing to do with de-sinicization. Whether official documents should adopt the horizontal style caused heated debate more than three decades ago. At that time, Yu said, the then-Kuomintang administration decided to stick to the traditional vertical right-to-left style mainly because mainland China had adopted the horizontal left-to-right text style. Nowadays, Yu went on, such an argument is no longer justifiable. In the face of ever-growing global competition, he said, the government has to implement various reform programs to upgrade operational efficiency and overall national competitiveness. Starting this year, all government notices have also been integrated and posted on the Internet for local citizens to collect first-hand information about government policies regardless of whether they are at home or abroad
No to pre-school Pinyin?
哈市教育行政部门幼儿教育相关负责人在接受采访时表示,杜绝幼儿园“小学化”必须禁止幼儿园教授小学课程,年底之前取消学前班,幼儿园不允许教孩子拼音、识字和百以内加减法。幼儿园应主要培养幼儿良好的学习习惯和语言表达能力及想像力。
How do you say…?
From Xinhua
????4??????????“DAZHALAN”?????????????“DASHILAN”??
???????????????????“??????‘DASHILAN’???????????????????”
?????????????????????????????????????
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????“DASHILAN”??????????????????????????????????????????“DASHILAN”?????????????????????“DASHILAN”?
How do you say…?
From Xinhua
大柵欄的4個公交站牌的拼音都為“DAZHALAN”,這讓許多路人納悶:不是讀“DASHILAN”嗎?
昨天,家住大柵欄、年逾七旬的張大爺說:“我讀了一輩子‘DASHILAN’,從來沒人說我讀錯,是不是站牌寫錯了?”
北京市公交總公司運營部的李女士表示,站牌的拼音是按正確的中文拼音來標注的。
到底哪個讀音是對的?北京師范大學中文系研究現代漢語的週一民教授認為:大柵欄的讀音屬於地名的特殊讀音,歷史悠久的“DASHILAN”讀法屬於保留古音。雖然目前國家還沒有專門的地名名詞規範,但播音教材中都專門談到應讀為“DASHILAN”。從保留民俗民情的角度來說,他更傾向於讀為“DASHILAN”。