Author Archives: Pinyin Info

Taiwan’s Aborigines urged to officially adopt original names

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Taiwan’s Cabinet-level Council of Indigenous Peoples is encouraging the members of the island’s twelve tribes to officially adopt their original, non-Sinified names. (Good for the Council of Indigenous Peoples. It’s about time.)

These names will be recorded using the Roman alphabet.

Earlier this evening, however, I heard a television report that many local officials were unaware that this name change was legal, much less encouraged. This doesn’t surprise me in the least. I’ve run into more than my share of officials who, because they misunderstand the laws it’s their job to deal with, make life difficult for those who want to get things done. (I”m hoping that renewing my residency will go more smoothly next month than it has in the past.)

Here’s a look at parts of Taiwan’s Full Name Registration Law:

Chapter 1 Local Legislation Authority

Section 1 Republic of China (ROC) nationals may have only one name, and said full name should be the official name stated in the census records.

So why must Aborigines who file to officially use their original, non-Sinified names have not only their names in romanization but also in Chinese characters (and thus are likely Sinified and therefore different than their original name)?

Taiwan indigenous peoples should be registered under their customary full names. Indigenous peoples registered under a Han’s full name should apply for restitution of traditional full name; those who have restituted their traditional full name should apply for the restitution of their Chinese full name; however an individual is entitled to a single restitution application.

Huh? (It’s late, so I’m not going to bother checking the Mandarin-language original to see if that’s any clearer.)

Section 2 The full name registered in the census record should be written in words found in the Ministry of Education Mandarin dictionary or Tzu-Yuan (origin of Chinese phrase or expression), Tzu-Hai (Chinese words collection), Kanghsi and other general dictionary; however, an exemption to paragraph 1 is the registered traditional full name of indigenous peoples which should be written using the Romanization system.
Full names that are not written with words found in any of the aforementioned general dictionaries shall not be registered.

That’s normal.

The Ministry of the Interior is renewing national ID cards from January 1 to December 31, 2006. This hadn’t been done in years.

Lin Chiang-yi, a council official and an Amis tribe member, said his council was asking the Ministry of the Interior to set up a “one-stop window” in counties with large aboriginal populations where people could officially change their Chinese name back to their aboriginal name.

Although a 1995 act allowed aboriginals to substitute their Chinese name with an aboriginal one, only 1,000 aboriginals have adopted their own name so far, Lin continued.

The official said his council was working to persuade several aboriginal communities to make the change en masse, with the purpose of increasing the number of aboriginals who go by their aboriginal name to 10,000.

With a population of 426,000 representing 12 different tribes, aboriginals account for nearly 2 percent of the country’s population.

source: Aboriginals encouraged to adopt indigenous names, CNA, January 31, 2006

URLs, Chinese characters, and the Roman alphabet

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In Will China Build a Separate Internet? John Yunker, citing Naseem Javed’s When Will The Internet Be Divided Among Nations?, states, “Naseem does raise a very important point — for Chinese speakers, the Internet is far from user-friendly. The major obstacle is the URL, which is still limited to ASCII (Latin) characters.”

I don’t see where Naseem Javed made that particular point — but no matter. I just want to note that URLs in ASCII do not present an obstacle to Internet users in China. After all, the Roman alphabet (specifically, Pinyin) is what most people use to enter Chinese characters on computers in the first place. And even those in China who don’t use Pinyin to input Chinese characters are perfectly capable of using their, yes, QWERTY keyboards to type the ASCII in URLs, the Roman alphabet having been taught for decades to every schoolchild in China (at least to those now literate enough to use the Internet in the first place).

On the other hand, having to enter Chinese-character URLs would be an obstacle to most of the world’s population.

Those looking to argue that ASCII URLs could be an obstacle would do better to look to Russia, Greece, or Saudi Arabia.

The folks at ICANN and IETF are working to upgrade the DNS to Unicode, but this will take time. There is a workaround in use that allows Web users to input Chinese characters as a URL which is then transformed into ASCII characters behind the scenes (known as “Punycode”) but I’m not sure how widely used this system currently is.

IE7 is supposed to have good support for Punycode. Now if only IE would finally get CSS right….

Here’s an example of Punycode: 拼音 is xn--muuy29i, according to an open-source Punycode converter. Thus, http://拼音.pinyin.info and http://xn--muuy29i.pinyin.info should both lead to the same page. And I would hope that the address bar in the browser would read http://拼音.pinyin.info instead of the xn--muuy29i ASCII version.

If you add a comment on how well the Punycode tests work for you, please mention your computer’s operating system and browser. (I’m using Win2K and Opera 8.51, and both http://拼音.pinyin.info and http://xn--muuy29i.pinyin.info work fine.)

arigatou/obrigado

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No Sword has an interesting post on the etymology of the Japanese arigatou. Matt adds that the notion the word is from the Portuguese word obrigado is “wrong, wrong, wrong.”

Arigatou is the Western Japanese way of saying arigataku, the adverbial form (more or less) of arigatai. The basic rule is replacing ku with u, but in this case that produced au, which becomes ou († a lengthened o) through the magic of sound change. This also happened to omedetou († (o)medetai) and ohayou († (o)hayai). (It is not a coincidence that despite the Tokyo version getting “Standard Japanese” status, the standard politeness terms were imported from the old Imperial capital!)

source: Sorry, Portugal, No Sword, February 3, 2006

MRI study: literate vs. illiterate subjects

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For those who are interested in such things, here’s a new MRI study related to reading Chinese characters: Cognitive processing in Chinese literate and illiterate subjects: An fMRI study (also available in PDF).

Abstract:

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) were used to map brain activation during language tasks. While previous studies have compared performance between alphabetic literate and illiterate subjects, there have been no such data in Chinese-speaking individuals. In this study, we used fMRI to examine the effects of education on neural activation associated with silent word recognition and silent picture-naming tasks in 24 healthy right-handed Chinese subjects (12 illiterates and 12 literates). There were 30 single Chinese characters in the silent word recognition task and 30 meaningful road-signs in the silent picture-naming task. When we compared literate and illiterate subjects, we observed education-related differences in activation patterns in the left inferior/middle frontal gyrus and both sides of the superior temporal gyrus for the silent word recognition task and in the bilateral inferior/middle frontal gyrus and left limbic cingulated gyrus for the silent picture-naming task. These results indicate that the patterns of neural activation associated with language tasks are strongly influenced by education. Education appears to have enhanced cognitive processing efficiency in language tasks.

(emphasis added)

I have a lot of objections to some of the language in the article, such as describing the subjects as “pictographic-language speakers.” And I wish the article had indicated whether any of the literate subjects were also literate in a language with an alphabetic script. Be that as it may, some may well find this of interest.

source: Human Brain Mapping, vol. 27, issue 2, pp. 144-152

online course material from MIT

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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OpenCourseWare makes available selections from the teaching materials for more than one thousand MIT courses. Some of these, such as those in linguistics, may be of particular interest to readers of Pinyin News.

MIT also makes available much of the material from its classes on languages, including those for Mandarin:

and Japanese:

Many of these sections include audio and even video.

source: link spotted in Forumosa’s “learning Chinese” forum.

unfortunate results of appetite for ‘lucky’ moss

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The desire around Chinese New Year to consume fàcài (髮菜 / 发菜), which is an edible, hairlike moss, has led to desertification in Inner Mongolia, according to an article in the South China Morning Post. The problem is rooted in that fàcài sounds like fācái (發財 / 发财), which is the verb “to get rich.”

Note that fàcài and fācái are not true homophones, so there’s no problem distinguishing them in Pinyin — though even without tone marks the difference would be made clear by context, relative frequency of use, and the fact that one is a noun and the other a verb. The name of this moss and “get rich” also sound similar in Cantonese. (In Taiwan, the pronunciation of the fa of fàcài is in third tone.)

The main association with Chinese New Year is the polite phrase gōngxǐ fācái (恭喜發財 / 恭喜发财), which is tossed around a lot this time of year. (In Cantonese, it’s “kunghei fatchoi,” spelled in lots of ways.) It’s a way of wishing that the person makes a lot of money in the coming year. Although it doesn’t mean “happy new year,” in can be used in most of the same circumstances as that phrase.

Guangzhou diners are still consuming the banned fa cai black moss, with restaurants and seafood shops cashing in on the belief that eating it gives an auspicious start to the Lunar New Year because its name is a homonym for “get rich.” The harvesting and export of the hair-like plant called fat choi in Cantonese was banned in 2000 to protect the environment. Fa cai grows in the thin arid soils of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Ningxia, Qinghai, and Gansu, and harvesting damages the environment because topsoil is raked loose, leading to soil erosion and desertification.

Staff at Guangzhou’s Ting Cheng Restaurant said fa cai with oysters was one auspicious dish on its menu. Seafood shops along Yide Road were also stocking the moss and asking customers what grade they wanted, leading some consumers to wonder whether some of the produce could be corn silk dyed to pass as fa cai.

While one shop owner acknowledged the ban, he said he was selling stock bought before it was implemented. “It’s not allowed to be harvested any more. My suppliers in Xinjiang are giving me stocks harvested before the ban,” he said.

Teacher Shu Chang said she paid 230 Yuan for 250 grams of fa cai. “I can’t really tell the real stuff from fake fa cai, but it must be real because it is expensive. If you soak it and the dye comes off, it must be fake,” she said.

Excessive harvesting has turned millions of hectares of pasture into desert. Before the ban, 40,000 sq. km. had been laid to waste in 20 years in Inner Mongolia.

I wanted to use a desert/dessert pun in the headline of this post. Facai, however, is used in soups and a few other types of dishes, not desserts. Oh well.

source: Auspicious moss stays on menus despite ban, South China Morning Post

teaching in English in Malaysia

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In my previous entry I mentioned how in Malaysia students are taught math and science in English. Recently a few adjustments have been made to this policy, which began about three years ago. Here’s a little more information about this, especially as it pertains to schools in that country for ethnic Chinese.

Upper primary school pupils in Chinese schools will learn Mathematics and Science in English for two periods each.

“After discussions with all parties concerned, we have decided on a 4-2-2 formula – that is, four periods of English, two periods of Mathematics and two periods of Science in English for upper primary pupils,” said Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.

He added that to accommodate the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English, there would be one period less for Moral Education.

Chinese-medium schools have adopted a bilingual approach, teaching Mathematics and Science in both Chinese and English.

For the lower primary level, a 2-4-3 formula has been used since the policy was implemented in 2003 – two periods for English, four for Mathematics and three for Science per week.

With the announcement, upper primary pupils now have eight periods of Mathematics per week – six periods will be taught in Chinese and two periods in English.

Previously, only seven periods were allocated for Mathematics.

To make room in the timetable for the additional period, Moral Education now will be taught in four periods instead of five.

For Science, of the five periods allocated for the subject, three will be in Chinese and two in English.

The idea of using English to teach Science and Mathematics was proposed to arrest the declining command of the language among students. The policy was implemented from January 2003.

Unhappiness with this, however, apparently extends beyond the ethnic Chinese community, as four students have asked Malaysia’s High Court to declare that the teaching of math and science in English is “unconstitutional, invalid and ineffective.”

For a scholarly examination of related issues, see the work of Wong Ting-Hong (English PDF), such as his book Hegemonies Compared: State Formation and Chinese School Politics in Postwar Singapore and Hong Kong.

sources:

pushing Mandarin in Xinjiang preschools

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Mandarin (a.k.a. Putonghua) will be pushed even in nursery schools in rural Xinjiang, according to an article originally in the South China Morning Post. Money is being offered to those who participate in the program. It’s interesting, too, that this comes at a time when lots of education officials in China have been complaining that nursery schools in the Han parts of China have been offering too much language instruction, especially in terms of literacy.

Also, in primary and secondary schools Mandarin will be used for the teaching of math and science, while the local languages will be used for humanities courses. This is somewhat similar to the situation in Malaysia, where English is used for math and science but not necessarily for other subjects. The attitudes toward the native languages of these respective areas, however, are very different.

Note, too, that few teachers in the area are capable of teaching in Mandarin. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Starting this year, children from seven agricultural prefectures in Xinjiang will start learning Putonghua in nursery schools to strengthen the hold of the national language in the autonomous region.

The move is part of an ongoing effort to implement what the government calls a “bilingual” education system in primary and secondary schools. Putonghua is to be the medium of instruction for mathematics and science, while minority languages such as Uygur will continue to be used in humanities classes.

Xinhua quoted Deputy Secretary Nuer Baikeli as saying the only way to solve the problem and improve the quality of education was to start from the “golden period” -toddlers.

To entice pre-schoolers and teachers to join the programme, students will receive a subsidy of 1.5 yuan a day and teachers 400 yuan a month.

According to the PRC’s statistics, the per capita income of farmers and herdsmen in Xinjiang is about 2,300 yuan per year. Elementary school teachers in Xinjiang make about 1,200 yuan per month. So, relatively speaking, we’re talking about a lot of money as an incentive.

The subsidies will not be offered for bilingual education in primary and secondary schools.

The policy has raised questions about the survival of the native culture of Xinjiang, where the largest ethnic group are the Uygurs (45 per cent), followed by Han (41 per cent) and Kazakhs (7 per cent).

“This is a well-planned strategy by the Chinese government to permanently assimilate the Uygur people into the Chinese culture or dilute the Uygur culture,” said Nury Turkel, president of the Uyghur American Association, a non-profit organization based in Washington DC.

“The Uygur language is one of the most important compositions of the Uygur culture. Taking away that right would create another type of Uygur culture.”

About 70 per cent of schools in the region are ethnic minority schools, which -until recently -started teaching Putonghua as a second language in the third grade. The other 30 per cent teach all classes in Putonghua and introduce English as a second language in the third grade.

Ma Wenhua, deputy director of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Education Department, said the goal was to implement bilingual teaching in all minority schools so students would speak fluent Putonghua when they finished secondary school.

“We plan to have all minority schools use bilingual teaching from the first grade in 10 to 20 years,” he told the South China Morning Post. “We think that if these children are not fluent in Putonghua, it could affect their job opportunities. It would also be difficult for them to continue their education.”

The only thing that was stopping the government from moving faster was a lack of qualified teachers, Mr Ma said. Most ethnic minority teachers do not know enough Putonghua to teach in that medium.

Mr Ma estimated that only 5 per cent of ethnic minority primary schools had started teaching in Putonghua. The level of participation varied depending on the number of qualified teachers.

One teacher from an ethnic minority school in Urumqi said her school planned to start teaching mathematics in Putonghua next year.

Most teachers did not know Putonghua and had started training in the language.

The teacher would not say whether she thought bilingual education was better.

“We’ll have to see how it goes,” she said.

China: Mandarin Introduced in Uygur Nursery Schools, South China Morning Post (via the BBC via another site), February 2, 2006