software designer on Chinese

Professor Myles Harding, inventor of the Talking Chinese Dictionary and Instant Translator, sounds like a nice guy, and heaven knows the world needs more and better programs for learning Mandarin, but I can’t let some of his statements in a recent newspaper article pass without comment.

It’s no wonder that students of Mandarin and other Sinitic languages often make so little progress, given how mistaken their teachers and the designers of their learning materials are about the nature of the Sinitic languages and Chinese characters. Let’s take a look.

The very first paragraph, short though it is, contains many serious errors.

‘Take the English word ‘jealous’,” Professor Myles Harding says. “In Chinese, it consists of four characters or pictographs that translate as ‘fighting the wind and drinking vinegar’.”

First, conflating Chinese characters and pictographs is seriously misleading. Contrary to popular belief, pictographs represent only about 1 percent of Chinese characters. Let me repeat that: a mere 1 percent. And the greater the number of characters created, the smaller that percentage gets.

Also, many of those characters that did begin as pictographs no longer particularly resemble the object they are supposed to picture. So, counting them as pictographs is not particularly relevant, especially because that is not how experienced readers see/read them. As John DeFrancis succinctly put it:
QUESTION: When is a pictograph not a pictograph?
ANSWER: When it represents a sound.

Even many of the original forms — i.e. those closest to true pictographs — would still leave most people guessing. Most people have to have the identity pointed out before they can recognize what the so-called pictograph represents.

And not in any language are words made of Chinese characters. Chinese characters are a script, not a language, just as the Roman alphabet is a script, not a language. By saying that a word “consists of four Chinese characters” Harding is voicing (most likely inadvertantly) the notion that somehow Chinese characters are the “real” language (some sort of Platonic ideal), and that what people speak to each other is a bastardization of this. The outstanding linguist Peter Du Ponceau exploded this myth nearly two hundred years ago; yet it survives. (The Chinese and Japanese seem to have picked up this myth from Westerners, such as Ernest Fenollosa.)

Some people might think I’m being a bit picky about the wording here. But I’m being that way only because people tend to hear what they expect to hear; and as long as the myths continue to thrive, that’s what people will have reinforced unless they’re given the truth. These distinctions do matter.

Although I’ve already gone on at some length about the problems here, we’re still not finished with the first paragraph.

In speaking of the “word” for “jealous,” Harding appears to be referring to zhēngfēngchīcù (爭風吃醋), a Mandarin term that in English means “fight for the affection of a man or woman” and “be jealous of a rival in a love affair.”

But that’s hardly the same thing as the Mandarin word for “jealous,” of which there are several, perhaps the most common of which is simply dùjì.

The Swinburne University mathematician chortles with delight: “Isn’t that a wonderful way of expressing jealousy? You could study Chinese for six years at school and four years at university and never learn that expression – but with my system you can.”

This points to the fact that zhēngfēngchīcù isn’t really the word for “jealous.” Can you imagine studying a language for ten years and not learning such a relatively common word as “jealous”? Similarly, people studying English wouldn’t necessarily learn “pushing up daisies” — but it’s extremely unlikely they wouldn’t have encountered and learned the English word “dead.”

Professor Harding has designed CD-ROM-based software that provides instant translation of complex character combinations in Chinese, one of the world’s most difficult languages.

The language is not necessarily “difficult” in itself. (And no language is difficult to its native speakers.) Rather it is Chinese characters that are difficult — damn hard, even. Making matters worse, most people misunderstand the nature of Chinese characters, which has warped people’s understanding of the language itself, making it much more difficult for students to learn.

“In Chinese, the words aren’t spaced, so I had to figure out a way of using the computer to split the stream of characters into words. My system does that, splits them up, colours the words and separates them so the student can put the mouse on them, click and get the meaning of the fragments in a sentence and piece it together.”

Devising a computer program to do this took Professor Harding 18 months, mostly working at night. Eventually, he developed a system he thought could be adapted to make an English-Chinese, Chinese-English dictionary.

But to look up a Chinese word can take a long time because more than 10,000 are commonly used.

Unlike English, the words don’t start with A or B or any of the other letters of the alphabet.

Unless the text is written in romanization, of course. And unless the dictionary is arranged completely alphabetically, like the entries in the ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary, the fact of the matter is that Chinese dictionaries are relatively difficult to use, as even editors of such dictionaries have admitted.

Chinese people who have seen Professor Harding’s system are amazed: “They say things like, ‘Oh, I’ve been looking for that character for years and never been able to find it!’ ”

This statement provides an excellent anecdote on the difficulty of reading and writing characters — and, as above, of the difficulties of Chinese dictionaries.

“This system enables the student to start reading Chinese from day one. It takes the difficulty out of knowing the characters; it highlights them so you get used to the word order and learn how Chinese people think.”

Umm….

Then there are the millions of people in China who want to learn English. As Professor Harding says, for every student learning Chinese there are 1000 or more Chinese who want to learn English.

This, however, is quite true.

Beijing to Shanghai: use Mandarin, or else

On Wednesday, September 14, China’s official China Daily announced that Beijing intends to crack down on people in Shanghai using their native language (often called “Shanghainese” but also known as “Zanghae Hewu” and other names). The excuse given for this is that visitors to the 2010 World Expo — that’s five years from now — might be confused if the first words people in Shanghai spoke to others were in Shanghainese rather than Mandarin. Imagine the shock and confusion! People in Shanghai speaking Shanghainese!

In the quotes below, I switch back and forth between two separate articles on this (identified at the end of this post).

The Shanghai government will require people who speak bad Mandarin to attend remedial classes in the run up to the exposition “to end the confusion,” the China Daily said.

“Chinese see Shanghainese as a foreign language,” Shanghai government spokeswoman Jiao Yang told reporters. “As we open up to the world, especially for the Expo, it’s vital to promote Mandarin.”

Shanghainese as a foreign language? That’s certainly not the party line!

And if opening up to the world is the idea, promoting English would make a lot more sense. But of course that’s not what’s behind this; rather it is simply a suppression of languages other than Mandarin — done in the name of a manufactured national unity.

A different article states:

The regulation will be submitted to the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress for approval on September 22.

It seeks to establish a comprehensive system to require local people to improve their putonghua, according to Sun Xiaoguang, an official with the Language and Character Department under the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission.

Every neighbourhood committee will form a team to patrol their area to correct incorrect Mandarin speech and characters used on signs, menus and notices.

Anybody who has difficulty speaking putonghua or writing correctly will be required to take remedial classes organized by the neighbourhood committee, while any shops displaying incorrect Chinese characters on their signboards will be asked to correct them.

Any individual or enterprise that refuses to comply will be fined.

All service industry workers would also have to pass a Mandarin test before 2010 and greet customers in Mandarin, the newspaper added, though they can then chat to customers in Shanghainese.

Speaking Mandarin, however, won’t be enough by itself to satisfy Beijing. People in the media won’t even be able to speak with certain accents:

the government is demanding that hosts and news anchors avoid slang words, speak only in standard Mandarin and drop any affected Taiwan or Hong Kong accents, according to rules posted on the State Administration of Film, Radio, Television’s Web site.

Some presenters deliberately adjust their pronunciation to sound more like natives of Hong Kong or Taiwan, the cultures of which, if not the politics, are fashionable across the mainland.

China has been promoting Mandarin for decades to ensure national cohesion in a country where dialects as different as French and Spanish share a similar written form.

This sort of statement is so common that I find myself having to correct this again and again. First, these are languages, not dialects. And, no, they do not share a written form. Rather, people in various parts of China are taught to read and write Mandarin — though they may translate this into their own language when reading.

Only just over half China’s 1.3 billion people can communicate in Mandarin, the official Xinhua news agency cited a national survey as showing last year, while almost 90 percent can speak dialects [sic] ranging from Cantonese to Hokkien and Hakka.

But wait! There’s more:

Additionally, all abbreviations and newly invented terms commonly used in Internet chat rooms are forbidden from use in schools and official documents.

Sources: China Daily, but found here, and another article by Reuters, Shanghainese told to mind their language for Expo, Wed. Sept. 14, 2005.

Taiwan naturalization and language exams

The Taipei Times reports that Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior has drafted amendments to the regulations for acquiring ROC citizenship.

The amendments, which are still under discussion, would require naturalization applicants to possess basic language ability in either Mandarin, Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), Hakka or any of the nation’s Aboriginal languages. I’m very glad of the inclusiveness of this test, which contrasts well with what is being done in China. (I’ll post about Beijing’s actions in Shanghai later.)

An exam on citizen rights and responsibilities, such as in regard to taxation and education, will be offered in any one of the above languages in both written and oral format. Applicants may choose either format, which will feature 20 questions. [emphasis added]

Those who have studied in private or public schools in Taiwan for more than a year or who have taken government-recognized classes for more than 200 hours will not need to take the exam.

Sample exam questions and answers should be available in about six weeks, with the final version of the proposal to be ready by the beginning of next year.

It may be too much to hope for a version of the test in romanization, but I’ll try to keep abreast of the progress of this.

source: Ministry floats draft changes to naturalization law

Addendum: The China Post, a much less reliable newspaper (in large part because it frequently relies on bad translations of badly written stories from the local Mandarin Chinese papers), reports this somewhat differently.

911 Restaurant?!

A restaurant in Wuhan, China, has decided to call itself “911.” The local authorities — good for them — are not happy about this and have ordered the place to change its name, noting that this is not the name used on the application for a business license. The powers that be also state — and here’s the part that relates to the theme of Pinyin News —

Tóngshí, qǐyè míngchēng bùdé hányǒu Hànyǔ Pīnyīn Zìmǔ (wàiwén míngchēng zhōng shǐyòng de chúwài), shùzì.
(At the same time, business names must not contain Hanyu Pinyin letters [i.e. alphabetic writing] (foreign-language names excepted) or numbers.)
(同时,企业名称不得含有汉语拼音字母(外文名称中使用的除外)、数字。)

But then the article says:

“027,” “778,” “2046,” “Sānwǔ chún,” děngděng, zhèxiē shùzì zhāopai shì-fǒu yě wéiguī? [Wuhan] Shì Gōngshāng Jú yǒuguān fùzérén biǎoshì, 《qǐyè míngchēng guǎnlǐ guīdìng》 zhōng suǒzhǐ de jìnzhǐ yòng shùzì shì Ālābó shùzì, dàxiě, xiéyīn bìngbù zài zhèige fànwéi nèi.
027、778、2046、三五醇等这些数字招牌是否也违规?市工商局有关负责人表示,《企业名称管理规定》中所指的禁用数字是阿拉伯数字,大写、谐音并不在这个范围内。

This seems to contradict the earlier paragraph, so it’s difficult to know what’s going on.

source

‘almost-bilingual signs’

Campaign targets almost-bilingual signs
www.chinaview.cn 2005-09-12 13:55:23

BEIJING, Sept. 12 — Sources with the Beijing Municipal Traffic Administration said a campaign was launched on September 6 to standardize bilingual signs along the city’s second and third ring arterials, including principal and minor ones. In addition, checks also cover signs in the city’s major tourist attractions and scenic spots. Confusing and misleading signs will be replaced.

“Should nothing unexpected happen (during this process), problems related with bilingual (Chinese-English) signs will be adequately addressed,” a member of staff with the administration told reporters.

Problems with translations ranging from careless spelling and bad grammar to cultural misinterpretation are commonplace due mainly to a lack of professional translators. A typical example would be “Stop cashier”, a sign often seen at supermarket or department store cash tills.

The message is confusing and takes an English-speaking visitor a second or two to understand that what it’s really trying to say is “Cashier Closed” or “Till Closed”.

The take-a-dictionary-and-translate-literally method of translation employed by substandard translators sometimes results in ludicrous errors. An example would be the shoddy translation from chukou (exit) to “export”, and from shusan (evacuate) to “scatter”.

The absence of uniform criterion and a designated standardization institution contribute to another major issue with bilingual signs: the mixed use of Chinese pinyin and English for road signs. For the Chinese characters which mean “minor arterial (road)”, some signs display the Chinese pinyin fulu while others use “service road”, which is not entirely correct.

Speaking of the mixed use of Chinese pinyin and English in road signs, a facilities official with the administration spoke about the dilemma they face.

“The National Chinese Committee orders the use of Chinese pinyin while the Beijing Citizen Speaking English Office demands the use of Chinese-English bilingual signs,” the official lamented.

source

temporary look for Pinyin News

Dear readers,

I apologize for Pinyin News not matching the look of the rest of the site. I had to rush through an upgrade to my blogging software. So please bear with me while I get things looking the way they should.

Until I get the main navigation back, you can access the rest of the site here: Pinyin.info.

As always, I welcome your comments. But please be patient; to stop spambots, I need to read and approve everything before it appears on the site.

Hakka and Chinese characters

I’ll comment on this later.

???? 2000??????
?????????? 09/07 09:46

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

???????12?????????????????????????????5????????????????????????2148???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

????????bu1 ngiong2 ??????????????????????????????????????????????????sim?pu??????????????????????du sii?????????????zang loi?lian??????????

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

?????????????????????5000????????????????????????????9????????????????????????CD????????????CD??????????????????????www.hakka.gov.tw?

????????9?9????11?5??6?????????????????

source

Taiwan’s first periodical in romanization

A blogger cites a 1962 study as noting that Taiwan’s first periodical, a Presbyterian newsletter, was in romanized Taiwanese.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????1962??

Táiwān dì-yī fèn bàokān shì 1885 nián chuàngkān de Táiwān fǔchéng jiàohuì bào, yóu Zhǎnglǎo Jiàohuì chuàngbàn, cǎiyòng Táiyǔ Luómǎ pīnyīn wénzì, bàodǎo jiàohuì dòngtài (Pān Xiánmó, 1962).

It’s also worth noting that the roman alphabet was the first real script of Taiwan, the Dutch colonialists having developed a means for writing one of the language of the Aborigines. This script continued to be used for hundreds of years, though by relatively few people.