Category Archives: Chinese characters

interviews with Y.R. Chao

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I’ve just stumbled across a book-length series of interviews with Y.R. Chao (Zhao Yuanren / Zhào Yuánrèn / 趙元任 / 赵元任). Even better: The complete text is available for free on the Web!

China Scholars Series: Chinese linguist, phonologist, composer and author, Yuen Ren Chao. An Interview Conducted by Rosemany Levenson, with an introduction by Mary Haas.

Wow. This is absolutely fabulous. The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley, deserves praise for this. Other works of interest to readers of Pinyin News are also available; but more about those later, in separate posts.

In case any readers are not familiar with Chao (1892-1982), he was the finest linguist ever to come out of China. He was also a supporter of romanization; he was even the lead creator of an ingenious if somewhat complicated romanization system for Mandarin: Gwoyeu Romatzyh. But there’s no way a few short sentences could do justice to the depth and breadth of Chao’s learning. To get a better idea of the man, read the introduction to the work linked to above — and then read the rest!

Enjoy!

Further reading: Y.R. Chao’s translation into Gwoyeu Romatzyh of the Humpty Dumpty section of Through the Looking-Glass, with Hanyu Pinyin and English

Beginners should skip writing characters by hand, use computers instead: teachers

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Sino-Platonic Papers is rereleasing a much more recent issue this week. This issue, no. 102 from March 2000, is by two university professors of Mandarin Chinese who advocate a “penless” approach for beginning students of Mandarin: i.e., students should use specially designed software on computers to write characters and not bother at first with learning to write characters by hand.
Here is the abstract:

In view of the fact that hand-writing Chinese characters is the most frustrating factor in Chinese language learning, we propose in this article a fairly radical approach that could bring a fundamental change into Chinese language teaching. Our suggestion is abolishing the requirement for writing Chinese characters by hand at the beginning of Chinese language learning process, and utilizing Chinese word-processing software instead to help the students

  1. bypass the difficulties entailed by character hand-writing,
  2. achieve an early development of writing skill, and
  3. reach a comprehensive improvement of their language competence.

In this article, we have offered our assessment on the following three aspects:

  1. The degree to which character hand-writing constitutes a major obstacle to early Chinese language learning;
  2. The benefits of using Chinese word-processing software in acquisition of Chinese language skills;
  3. The side effects from adopting this approach and the possibilities of their overcoming.

We believe this proposal addresses one of the most pressing issues in today’s Chinese language teaching, and should generate fruitful discussions among Chinese language teachers, as well as general interest in the field of foreign language teaching.

The full article is here: Penless Chinese Character Reproduction, by Theresa Jen and Ping Xu. This is a quick-loading HTML file.

The “penless” approach also has a website: Penless Chinese Language Learning: A Computer-Assisted Approach. Has anyone tried the software available there?

Taipei to stick with Hanyu Pinyin, despite pressure from central gov’t: mayor

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Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (Hǎo Lóngbīn / 郝龍斌) said on Sunday that Taipei will not switch from Hanyu Pinyin to Tongyong Pinyin, despite pressure from the Ministry of the Interior to do so.

Questioned by reporters at the wedding of Taiwan’s top “Go” player, Hau stressed that the Taipei City Government would continue to use Hanyu Pinyin despite the Interior Ministry’s push as it’s the most commonly used pinyin system in the international community.

“Taipei City has decided to continue using Hanyu Pinyin to connect with other countries in the world,” Hau said.

He suggested that the Interior Ministry consult with linguistic scholars and learn to respect their expertise when standardizing the romanization of Taiwan’s place and street names.

Yes, the MOI would do well to follow this advice — as would the Taipei City Government itself. Taipei’s stupid @#$%! InTerCaPiTaLiZaTion and lack of apostrophes are significant errors. And sometimes the lack of tone marks is a problem. And don’t get me started about Taipei’s “nicknumbering” system.

Taipei City is the only city in Taiwan that has adopted Hanyu Pinyin.

This is incorrect. Several cities around Taiwan use Hanyu Pinyin, such as Xinzhu and Taizhong, though none as consistently as Taipei.

TVBS is reporting that Taipei will be forced to switch, which I very much doubt will happen — certainly not before the presidential election in March 2008.

Nèizhèngbù de xíngzhèng mìnglìng yīdàn bānbù, bùyòng sòngjiāo Lìyuàn tóngyì, Táiběi shìzhèngfǔ zhǐyǒu zhàobàn de fèn, 5 nián qián, Mǎ Yīngjiǔ qiángshì zhǔdǎo Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, ràng Táiběi Shì chéngwéi tā yǎnzhōng, gēn guójì jiēguǐ de dūshì, 5 nián hòu, Nèizhèngbù dìngdìng fǎlìng qiǎngpò zhíxíng, gěi le yī jì huímǎqiāng.

TVBS also gives the cost for changing Taipei’s signs at NT$8 million (US$250,000).

The TVBS video gives lots of pictures of signs.

sources:

China shifting its position on traditional Chinese characters?

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Many Web sites in China are running the story that Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese scholars have reached an agreement on unification of Chinese characters — and that this involves using many traditional characters.

If any “agreement” has indeed been reached, it probably won’t mean much, if anything at all — certainly not to the government of China. But the number of sites running this story and the prominence of some of the members of the PRC delegation make me wonder if this might just be a little more than much ado about nothing.

Zhōng xīn wǎng 11 yuè 5 rì diàn jù hǎiwài méitǐ pīlù, shǔyú Hànzì wénhuà quān de Zhōngguó, Rìběn, Hánguó Sānguó hé Zhōngguó Táiwān dìqū de xuézhě juédìng zhìzuò tǒngyī zìxíng (wénzì de xíngzhuàng) de 5000-6000 ge chángyòng Hànzì biāozhǔn zì.

Hánguó “Cháoxiǎn rìbào” kānzǎi wénzì jí shìpín bàodào chēng, dì-bā jiè “guójì Hànzì yántǎohuì” shàngzhōu zài Zhōngguó Běijīng chuánméi dàxué lóngzhòng zhàokāi, huìyì yóu Zhōngguó Jiàoyùbù yǔyán wénzì yìngyòng yánjiūsuǒ hé guójiā Hànyǔ guójì tuīguǎng lǐngdǎo xiǎozǔ bàngōngshì zhǔbàn. Huìyì jìhuà jiāng Yuènán, Mǎláixīyà, Xīnjiāpō, Xiāng Gǎng, Àomén xīshōu wéi xīn huìyuán, kuòdà Hànzì shǐyòng guójiā huò dìqū de cānyù fànwéi. Huìyì juédìng zhìzuò gè guójiā dìqū Hànzì “bǐjiào yánjiū cídiǎn”, zhújiàn tǒngyī gèguó shǐyòng de zìxíng. Huìyì hái jiù míngnián zài shǒu ěr jǔxíng dì jiǔ jiè yántǎohuì, gèguó fēnbié shèzhì 3 míng liánluòyuán (yánjiū fùzérén) dáchéng le xiéyì.

Jù bàodào, “guójì Hànzì yántǎohuì” yú 1991 nián fāqǐ. Qí mùdìzàiyú, yùfáng Dōngyà guójiā yīnwèi shǐyòng Zhōngguó Táiwān de fántǐzì, Zhōngguó de jiǎntǐzì, Rìběn de lüèzì děng bùtóng xíngzhuàng de Hànzì chǎnshēng hùnluàn, quèdìng chángyòng Hànzì de zìshù, tuījìn zìxíng biāozhǔnhuà (tǒngyī).

Běnjiè huìyì yǔ 2003 nián zài Rìběn Dōngjīng jǔxíng de dì-qī jiè yántǎohuì xiānggé 4 nián. Jù bàodào, běn cì huìyì tíyì, 5000 duō ge chángyòng biāozhǔn zì jiāng yǐ “fántǐzì” wéizhǔ jìnxíng tǒngyī, rúguǒ gèbié Hànzì yǒu jiǎntǐzì, jiù jìxù bǎoliú.

Chūxí cǐcì huìyì de Zhōngfāng dàibiǎo yǒu Wáng Tiěkūn (Jiàoyùbù yǔyán wénzì xìnxī guǎnlǐ sī fù sīzhǎng, Zhōngguó Wénzì Xuéhuì fùhuìzhǎng jiān mìshūzhǎng), Huáng Dékuān (Ānhuī Dàxué xiàozhǎng, Zhōngguó Wénzì Xuéhuì huìzhǎng), Sū Péichéng (Běijīng Dàxué jiàoshòu), Lǐ Dàsuì (Běijīng Dàxué jiàoshòu); Hánguó fāng dàibiǎo yǒu Lǐ Dàchún (Guójì Hànzì Zhènxīng Xiéhuì huìzhǎng), Lǐ Yīngbǎi (Shǒu’ěr Dàxué míngyù jiàoshòu), Jiāng Xìnhàng (Chéngjūnguǎn Dàxué míngyù jiàoshòu), Chén Tàixià (Rénjǐ Dàxué shǒuxí jiàoshòu), Jīn Yànzhōng (Gāolí Dàxué jiàoshòu); Rìběn fāng dàibiǎo yǒu Zuǒténg Gòngyuè (Zhùbō Dàxué jiàoshòu), Qīngyuán Chúnpíng (qīnshàn bù huìzhǎng); Zhōngguó Táiwān dìqū [sic] dàibiǎo yǒu Xǔ Xuérén (“Zhōngguó Wénzì Xiéhuì” lǐshìzhǎng).

source: Zhōngguo, Rìběn, Hánguó yǔ Zhōngguó Táiwān dìqū xuéjiè jiù “tǒngyī Hànzì” dáchéng xiéyì (中日韩与中国台湾地区学界就“统一汉字”达成协议), November 5, 2007

variant Chinese characters and Unicode

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A submission to the Unicode Consortium’s Ideographic [sic] Variation Database for the “Combined registration of the Adobe-Japan1 collection and of sequences in that collection” is available for review through November 25. This submission, PRI 108, is a revision of PRI 98.

This set “enumerates 23,058 glyphs” and contains 14,664 tetragraphs (Chinese characters / kanji). About three quarters of Unicode pertains to Chinese characters.

Two sets of charts are available: the complete one (4.4 MB PDF), which shows all the submitted sequences, and the partial one (776 KB PDF), which shows “only the characters for which multiple sequences are submitted.”

Below is a more or less random sample of some of the tetragraphs.

Initially I was going to combine this announcement with a rant against Unicode’s continued misuse of the term “ideographic.” But I’ve decided to save that for a separate post.

sample image of some of the kanji variants in the proposal

Questions on the origin of writing: SPP 26

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卍 a cross potent, which looks like a plus sign with perpendicular stems on the end of each of the four lines, but not so long as to make a cross in a square; image copied from Wikipedia

Sino-Platonic Papers has rereleased another issue related to the history of writing: Questions on the Origins of Writing Raised by the Silk Road (1.0 MB PDF), by Jao Tsung-i (Ráo Zōngyí, 饒宗頤) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

This work focuses especially on the use of two symbols, shown at right, in China and elsewhere.

This is issue no. 26 of Sino-Platonic Papers. It was first published in September 1991.

additional reading:

The Tao of semiotics. Zen and etymology.

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Sino-Platonic Papers has rereleased for free Tracks of the Tao, Semantics of Zen (950 KB PDF), by Victor H. Mair.

After a brief introduction, Mair, who has translated more than one classic Taoist text, asks, “How did Tao and Zen enter our vocabulary? And what do these two extraordinarily powerful words really mean?”

He then enters into a “somewhat lengthy excursion into the neglected realm of philology” but keeps to his word to “try to make it as painless and entertaining as possible.”

It’s a fascinating and wide-ranging essay, especially for those interested in historical linguistics.

This is issue no. 17 of Sino-Platonic Papers. It was originally released in April 1990.

Street names in English translation: trend or error?

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Taipei street sign reading '園區街 Park St.'Ah, Park Street: Taipei’s lovely tree-lined boulevard next to a wonderful oasis of well-manicured nature.

Nope.

Here, “park” refers to Nangang Software Park (Nángǎng Ruǎntǐ Yuánqū, 南港軟體園區), an area in eastern Taipei of new buildings housing mainly software-development and biomedical companies. The software park itself is a pretty nice place and looks fine; its surrounding area, however, is anything but green and leafy, comprising mainly dreary brick buildings and vacant lots.

But what’s odder than the name itself is that it appears in English rather than in the mix of Hanyu Pinyin (with StuPid, StuPid InTerCapITaLiZaTion) and English (e.g., St., Rd.) that has become standard in Taipei. Also odd is that at one end of the street the signs read “Park St,” but at the other end “YuanQu St.” This is a fairly new street name, as the software park is only a few years old.

Taipei street sign reading '園區街 YuanQu St.'

The flash on my camera helps reveal that the part of the sign reading “YuanQu St.” is pasted on top of something else — quite possibly “Park St.”

I spent about 15 minutes today getting my phone call to the Taipei City Government transferred from one desk to another before I was able to speak with someone who knew what she was doing. She stated that the Park Street version is in error and would be corrected to Yuanqu Street.

I really wish I’d asked for her extension number, because I’m certain to be making similar calls in the future.