Shanghaiist: Pulled over by the language po-lice

murphytalk

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 12:49:29 +0800

Well,my previous comment is just about some "technical" details,I agree that try to "protect" language by employing such laws is unreasonable.In the Western,the law is the law,but as you know,in China the law is only law,it barely can prevent ppl from borrowing,using or creating new vocabularies in their daily life,so what actually a live language is?the one ppl speak everyday or the one approved to be printed on papers? Speaking "almost" freely is one of the few freedoms left for Chinese,they have been watching us on what to say,but no way for trying to tell us how to say.

peijin

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 13:26:58 +0800

thanks for your comments. The point is not that "she hui" was made of Chinese characters, but the modern use of the word still represents a linguistic innovation that came from without China. The reason why i picked "she hui" as an example is because the modern idea of society was something that became necessary as China began to tackle its own modernization--in other words, the word came about in part because it was necessary to have that word. My point is was to wonder aloud why some people care to become the custodians of a language, why they care about the introduction of new words or else what they perceive is the general trends affecting the language. I wonder if anyone can actually believe that they are "protecting" something that needs protection and that they are doing someone a service. Languages are constantly changing and evolving, and almost every language, esp. major languages spoken by many people such as Chinese, has "foreign elements", has appropriated things here and there. So why protect is as if the state of the language right now is so sacrosanct? As i said before, literacy is important, of course, but there's no point in getting on a high horse about something over which you have little control and whose direction you cannot steer. In the long run we're all dead, i don't see what the point of these new laws are--protecting the environment or protecting the languages of small groups that are perhaps at risk of "extinction" should definitely be priority, but these little tinkerings in Shanghai seem to me fairly inessential in the large scheme of things, why waste the breath and paper and resources?

murphytalk

Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:49:53 +0800

===================== Consider the Chinese word for "society" -- 社会 or she hui -- great word, we think, useful in many everyday situations. Chinese word, right? Wrong. Japanese. ===================== I would like to comment on this. You should know it was Japanese borrowed Chinese charaters(汉字 or in traditional chinese:漢字.In Japanese it is pronounced as [kan ji],while in Chinese it is pronounced as [han zi],familiar? right?yes,they borrowed the pronuciations too) and a huge chinese vocabullary in first place.Yes,it was Japanese who firstly used 社会 to translate "society"，but what you might not know is that the word was actualy from Chinese classic works originally,Japanese just "picked" it to express the new concept of "society".Another example is 经济 (economy)，it is just a short for 经国济民,which was firtly used by 王通(or 文中子) more than 1000 years ago. to who knows the "era name"(年号) which is still used in Japan. 2006 is Japan's year Heisei 18(平成18年), the word Heisei(平成) is also from Chinese:内平外成,you can find it in 史记,which is written by 司马迁 2000 years ago.

Peijin

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 03:53:11 +0800

Thank you for your comments, you're right, i remember thinking that it would incorrect to state that they "got rid" of email, since the article itself stated that this was but an attempt and we know that certain habits die harder that governments would like to believe.

Marc Burleigh

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 01:52:34 +0800

Pointing out a small thing in your article: you say that France got rid of the term "e-mail" and replaced it with "courriel". Well, right and wrong. In France there are a bunch of really old writers (and at least one ancient ex-president) who are tasked with revising constantly the country's official French dictionary. And they (being old and ancient and not very web-fluent) decided last year on the "courriel" tag. The only problem for them is that nobody listens to them, not even the government. Everybody in France refers to an "e-mail" as, well, an "e-mail" or a "mail" (the word in French for the English term "mail" is "courrier"). And in government documents, the approved term is "Mél." (which -- surprise, surprise -- is pronounced almost exactly like "mail" but is meant to be short for "messagerie éléctronique"). Have a look: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/dglf/mel.htm