rùqīn (rù·qīn enter; {go into} · invade; {intrude into} → [invade; intrude into] 入侵) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”
On February 24, 2022, Russia sent significant military forces into Ukraine, resulting in the largest scale open warfare in Europe since World War II. Knowing certain Mandarin expressions will help us in the Mandarin field as we hear about and talk about Ukraine in the time ahead.
The article “Russia Invades Ukraine” has been featured on jw.org since not long after the crisis began, and the Mandarin translation of that article’s title is “Éluósī (Russia 俄罗斯 俄羅斯) Rùqīn (Rù·qīn Enters · Invades → [Invades] 入侵) Wūkèlán (Ukraine 乌克兰 烏克蘭) 🔗”. So, we can see that this week’s MEotW, “rùqīn (rù·qīn enter; {go into} · invade; {intrude into} → [invade; intrude into] 入侵)”, corresponds with the English word “invades”.
To Be Resultative…
Another way to say “invade” in Mandarin is “qīnrù (qīn·rù invade; {intrude into} · {enter | [go] into} → [invade; intrude into] 侵入)”, which has the same morphemes as “rùqīn (rù·qīn enter; {go into} · invade; {intrude into} → [invade; intrude into] 入侵)”, but in reversed order. There may be a difference between these two words, since the ABC Chinese-English Dictionary refers to “rùqīn (rù·qīn enter; {go into} · invade; {intrude into} → [invade; intrude into] 入侵)” as a verb, while it refers to “qīnrù (qīn·rù invade; {intrude into} · {enter | [go] into} → [invade; intrude into] 侵入)” as a resultative verb, in which “rù (enter; {go into}; join 入)” is taken to mean “into”, as opposed to the verb “enter”.
Or Not to Be Resultative?
On the other hand, the dictionaries I have checked re “rù (enter; {go into}; join 入)” itself, including the ABC Chinese-English Dictionary, emphasize its meaning as being the verb “enter”, and not so much as being the preposition “into” (although I think it can be used that way). If we indeed take both their morphemes to be verbs, then it would seem that the case of “rùqīn (rù·qīn enter; {go into} · invade; {intrude into} → [invade; intrude into] 入侵)”/“qīnrù (qīn·rù invade; {intrude into} · {enter | [go] into} → [invade; intrude into] 侵入)” is similar to the case of “fǎlǜ (law 法律)”/“lǜfǎ (law 律法)”.
Regarding “fǎlǜ (law 法律)”/“lǜfǎ (law 律法)”, the MEotW post for “fǎlǜ (law 法律)” had this to say:
But, Why?
If “lǜfǎ (law 律法)” and “fǎlǜ (law 法律)” both mean basically the same thing, why did the world’s Mandarin-speaking population bother to switch the order of “lǜ (law; statute; rule; regulation 律)” and “fǎ (law | method; way; mode | standard; model | {magic arts} | {follow; model after} 法)” in popular usage? Who knows? Appendix A2 of the Mandarin NWT Bible, probably wisely, does not get into the why of it, just mentioning that “fǎlǜ (law 法律)” is now the more common usage. Even if it turns out that there was a reason, it may not be what most would consider a good reason. Sometimes people are just weird, and, speaking as a Chinese person myself, that includes Chinese people—just look at some of the arbitrary ways in which Chinese characters have been designed, that have turned trying to figure out the pronunciations and meanings of unfamiliar Chinese characters into a guessing game.
Speaking of what’s commonplace or popular and why, I am reminded of this quote from William Goldman, who wrote the screenplay for The Princess Bride as well as the screenplays for several other successful, well-known movies:
Nobody knows anything…Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess
Speaking of The Princess Bride, that movie is a treasure trove of quotable quotes, including this one that serves as a precautionary admonition to us Mandarin language-learners:
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
2 replies on “rùqīn”
Russia insists it is not an invasion (and the NWT is not a Bible: they seem to like changing the boundaries of what words mean when it suits them).
Mainland China is trying not to upset Russia, so official media there also avoids calling it an invasion (although CGTN did call it a war 战争 on 28th February, which is another word Russia wants to avoid; perhaps CGTN didn’t realise).
jw.org (which was already blocked by both countries anyway) are committed to being politically neutral. They must have considered that neutrality does not require us to avoid using the internationally-accepted meanings of words just because one or two countries want to change those meanings. The Oxford Dictionary of English 3rd edition defines “invade” as “enter a country or region so as to subjugate it”, which seems to be what is happening. Perhaps Russian officials would like to change this dictionary entry so that the action has to meet some additional conditions before it counts as “invading”, but it seems neutrality does not require us to go along with this, at least not unless actual popular usage of the word changes first.
I suppose brothers in those areas might be avoiding unnecessary use of the word so as to avoid adding unnecessary extra years to the prison terms which they will probably be getting anyway; I don’t know. The Russian version of the article uses нападает which means attacks, but this is also an officially-restricted word in Russia.
When the jw.org article came out I did try to start some conversations by asking Chinese contacts for their opinions on whether or not it was OK to use the word “invasion” in the article title. They either said it was OK or didn’t want to say anything at all.
Indeed, if we parroted Russia’s (or China’s, or anybody’s) obviously politically-motivated distortions of the meanings of certain words rather than using words according to their generally accepted meanings when no politically-motivated distortions are applied, then we would actually be taking a political stand in support of those applying said politically-motivated distortions.
These days, we must truly be “cautious as serpents” so that we can stay neutral and thus “innocent as doves” in God’s eyes.—Matt. 10:16.
***
BTW, “politically-motivated distortions of the meanings of certain words” reminds me of how the government of China likes to say that all the different kinds of speech in China are just “dialects” of the one Chinese language. It does this to bolster political unity in support of its political power as the central government, when the scientific truth is that Cantonese, Shanghainese, Mandarin, etc. are mutually unintelligible, and at least as different from one another as the various languages of Europe are. It would be like if long ago, a central government had been established in Europe, and in order to bolster its central political authority, it had proclaimed that French, Spanish, German, etc. are just dialects of “European”!
Also, if the government of China views it as a politically unifying factor to have the people of China all writing using Chinese characters when they actually speak different languages (it probably does hold that view), then it may be fair to say that its apathy/opposition towards Mandarin-specific Pīnyīn and other language-specific writing systems is at least partially politically motivated.
So, unfortunately, with so much political propaganda infecting popular and traditional thought regarding the Chinese languages, we must be careful to stay politically neutral in how we view and talk about language-related matters in the various Chinese language fields. Otherwise, we could end up unwittingly parroting political propaganda, and giving political support to part of this world.