Category: Culture

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Culture Language Learning

fēicháng

fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

“Fēicháng (Fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常)” was probably one of the first words you learned as a Mandarin field language learner. In fact, one of the first things your Mandarin instructor may have said to you in Mandarin may have been “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usually → [very] 非常) hǎo (good 好)!”, if you had just said something well in Mandarin. So, having learned that “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常)” means “very”, you may have been confused when seeing how “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常)” is used in the Mandarin New World Translation Bible at 2 Timothy 3:1:

2 Timothy 3:1 (WOL CHS+Pinyin)

“Fēicháng shíqī ((Fēi·cháng un·ordinary 非常) (shí·qī {(particular) times} · periods 时期 時期) → [times of emergency])”? The corresponding term that the English NWT Bible uses in this scripture is “critical times”, but this Mandarin translation seems to mean “very times”, which doesn’t make sense. What’s going on here?

Breaking It Down

While especially as our Mandarin learning journeys begin we may want to keep things simple and mentally just have the view that this Mandarin word means that English word, eventually we encounter the more complex reality that Mandarin and English are two very different languages that come from different cultures, and that have different techniques and histories relating to how speech sounds are put together to convey meanings.

To help us get a grip on this sometimes messy reality, let us remember that while phrases and sentences can be broken down into words, words can in turn be broken down into morphemes. This excerpt from the introduction of a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus resource briefly discusses Mandarin morphemes and how they are handled in Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus material:

As far as is practical, the meaning of each individual Mandarin morpheme (smallest unit of language sound with meaning) is translated literally according to how it is used in the context in which it appears. (In Mandarin, morphemes usually correspond with syllables, but some syllables are sound-only (without meaning) and thus not morphemes, and some morphemes have more than one syllable.)

The morphemes in “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常) ” are:

  • “fēi (not; no; non[-]; un[-]; in[-] 非)”
  • “cháng (ordinary; common; normal | constant; invariable | often; usually; frequently 常)”

Putting It Together

So, while “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常)” as a whole word is often used to effectively mean “very”, a look at the literal meanings of the morphemes that make it up helps us to understand that it actually literally means “unusually” or “uncommonly” when it is used to effectively mean “very”. In the context of 1 Timothy 3:1, “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·ordinary 非常)” is used as an adjective meaning “unordinary” or “uncommon”, and it is put together with “shíqī (shí·qī {(particular) times} · periods 时期 時期)” to make up “fēicháng shíqī ((fēi·cháng un·ordinary 非常) (shí·qī {(particular) times} · periods 时期 時期) → [times of emergency])”, an expression that is used to effectively mean “times of emergency”.

Plus

The curious case of “fēicháng (fēi·cháng un·usual/common/ordinary | un·usually/commonly [→ [very [much]; extremely; highly]] 非常)” in 1 Timothy 3:1 illustrates some of the advantages of Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus material (which you may have noticed is used in this blog) compared to older generations of Mandarin language-learning material, such as 3-line material.

In 3-line material, which was originally designed for paper printouts, all the English information was always visible, and it had to be practical to print out and use on paper. So, there was no room to show luxuriously long amounts of information like literal meanings in addition to effective meanings. In contrast, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus material takes advantage of the dynamic displays of modern smartphones, tablets, etc. to put the English information (and other information too) in “flashcards” that can be hidden from view when they’re not needed. (Tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) word/expression to reveal its “flashcard”, tap/click on a “flashcard” to hide it.) Thus, there is room for more and richer information—as Doctor Who fans would say, “I thought it’d be cleaner it’s bigger on the inside/smaller on the outside”!

The “dimensional transcendentalness” and flexibility of Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus material also make it possible for it to render compound expressions such as “fēicháng shíqī ((fēi·cháng un·ordinary 非常) (shí·qī {(particular) time} · period 时期 時期) → [time of emergency])”, which I believe no one was crazy enough to even attempt with 3-line material.

A list of the currently available Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus resources can be found at tiandi.info/pyp.

Categories
Culture Theocratic

zìzhì

zìzhì (zì·zhì self-·{controlling → [control]} 自制) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

The ninth and final part of the fruitage of the spirit listed is self-control.— Jiālātàishū (Jiālātài·shū Galatia · Book → [Galatians] 加拉太书 加拉太書) 5:22, 23.

Galatians 5:22, 23 (WOL nwtsty-CHS+Pinyin)

The English word “self-control” is translated into Mandarin in the above scripture as “zìzhì (zì·zhì self-·{controlling → [control]} 自制)”, this week’s MEotW.

Literally a Verb, Effectively a Noun

Note that in “zìzhì (zì·zhì self-·{controlling → [control]} 自制)”, “zhì ({work out}; formulate; stipulate | restrict; control; govern | system; institution; -ism 制)” is effectively used to mean the noun “control”, even though in this context its literal meaning is actually the verb “controlling”. This seems to be a case of “zhì ({work out}; formulate; stipulate | restrict; control; govern | system; institution; -ism 制)” acting as a verbal noun, or gerundial noun. Verbal/gerundial nouns were discussed in the MEotW post on “jiàodǎo (jiào·dǎo teaching · {guiding [→ [instructing]]} 教导 教導)”:

One interesting thing to note about “jiàodǎo (jiào·dǎo teaching · {guiding [→ [instructing]]} 教导 教導)” (and about “jiàoxun (teaching → [reprimanding | knowledge gained from an error] 教训 教訓)”, for that matter) is that their component morphemes seem to basically be verbs. In certain contexts, however, they are used as nouns. An example of this being done in English is that “teach” and “teaching” are verbs (e.g. “Jesus was teaching the crowd.”), but in certain contexts, “teaching” is used as a noun (e.g. “The crowd was amazed at the teaching Jesus shared with them.”). When a word is used this way, it’s called a verbal noun, or a gerundial noun. Verbal nouns are quite common in Mandarin.

Over-Simplified But Still Extaordinarily Complex?

The character “制”, used to write the “zhì ({work out}; formulate; stipulate | restrict; control; govern | system; institution; -ism 制)” in “zìzhì (zì·zhì self-·{controlling → [control]} 自制)” in both simplfied and traditional characters, is an interesting example of the different compromises involved in those two different writing systems.

If one looks up the simplified character “制” in a dictionary, one may see possible meanings as varied as “restrict; control; govern”, and “make; manufacture”. It turns out that this is because the simplified character “制” can correspond to the traditional character “制”, which can mean “restrict; control; govern”, and it can also correspond to the traditional character “製”, which means “make; manufacture”.

While using the single simplified character “制” to correspond to both “制” and “製” results in not requiring people to learn and remember the relatively complex traditional character “製”, it also results in the simplified character “制” getting “overloaded” (a term that’s used in computer programming) with multiple meanings, which in turn can result in greater ambiguity. At the same time, the simplified character “制” is still a character—it’s still significantly more complex and hard to learn and remember than an alphabetic represention would be. In comparison, the traditional characters “制” and “製” offer reduced ambiguity and can perhaps be said to work better as characters, but at the obvious cost of even greater complexity.

Too Many Words That Sound the Same?

Those invested in characters may point out that even simplified characters are often less ambiguous than Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), which renders “制”, “製”, and also every other character pronounced “zhì” as just “zhì”. The great advantage of Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), though, is its elegant simplicity and significantly greater ease of learning and remembering compared to any character writing system.

It is indeed unfortunate that Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) has inherited a spoken Mandarin language that has come to have many homophones in it, probably from centuries of inappropriate cultural reliance on characters that are seen to disambiguate speech that is heard, instead of just making sure that the speech itself is not riddled with homophones. Even so, the truth is that today homophones are no more a problem in Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) than they are in spoken Mandarin, which people speak to each other all the time without having problems with homophones. How do Mandarin speech and the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) that simply and directly represents it accomplish this? “Content is king, but context is God.”

(For a more in-depth discussion about homophones in Mandarin and whether they really make Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) unworkable as a writing system for Mandarin, see the subheading “But There Are So Many Words That Sound the Same!” in the article “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Was Plan A”.)

Categories
Culture History Names

dài

dài ({take the place of}; replace; subsitute | replacing; substituting → [acting; substitute | generation [→ [period; era; age]]] 代) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

This week’s MEotW, “dài ({take the place of}; replace; subsitute | replacing; substituting → [acting; substitute | generation [→ [period; era; age]]] 代)”, basically literally means “take the place of” or “replace”. Why, then, is it used to mean “generation”? This tweet briefly explains:

Yes, the Chinese concept of a “generation” is that it is something that takes the place of or replaces what was there before—the emphasis seems to be on continuation, and a new generation is viewed as having done well if it lived up to or maintained what came before it. In contrast, in the English-speaking world, a “generation” is something new that is generated—the emphasis seems to be more on innovation, progress, and a new generation is viewed as having done well if it improved upon what came before it, and moved things ahead. For example, the English expression “next generation” indeed implies innovation and progress compared to previous generations, such as when applied to vehicles, computers, and other technology.

The Case of Star Trek: The Next Generation

Fans of Star Trek also generally naturally accept that of course in many aspects the world of Star Trek: The Next Generation is more advanced than the world of Star Trek: The Original Series—the ships are faster and more powerful, the special effects are better, etc. (Note that Star Trek: The Original Series was just called Star Trek when it first came out. “Star Trek: The Original Series” is a retronym that was applied to the show after other shows based on it began to appear.)

However, some Star Trek fans prefer Star Trek: The Original Series to Star Trek: The Next Generation, and do not view Star Trek: The Next Generation as better in every way compared to the original show. For example, many fans view original series characters like Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy as their favourite characters in all the Star Trek shows. Indeed, some would say Mr. Spock is the most iconic Star Trek character of them all.

By the way, the Mandarin translation of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in mainland China is apparently “Xīngjì Lǚxíng: Xià-Yí-Dài ((Xīng·jì Stars · {Boundaries → [Among]} → [Interstellar] 星际 星際) (Lǚ·xíng Travelling · Going → [Journeying] 旅行): (Xià Below → [Next] 下)-(Yí One 一)-(Dài Replacing → [Generation] 代) → [Star Trek: The Next Generation (mainland China translation)])”, according to the mainland Chinese version of Wikipedia. In contrast, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” is apparently called “Yín Hé Fēilóng (((Yín Silver 银 銀) (Hé River 河) → [Milky Way]) (Fēi·lóng Flying · Dragon [→ [Pterosaur]] 飞龙 飛龍) → [Star Trek: The Next Generation (Taiwan translation)])” (obviously not a literal translation) in Taiwan. While Wikipedia is of course not always right, in this case I have not been able to find any better source.

However, in an article on the official Star Trek website, I did find out about a big (literally) Chinese connection to Star Trek:

The building, according to Mashable.com, is the headquarters of NetDragon Websoft, a Chinese gaming and mobile Internet company. And the site notes, “Company Chairman Liu DeJian is reportedly an uberTrekkie, licensing from CBS the rights to build an Enterprise replica. Construction began in 2008 and was finished in 2014; the project cost $160 million total. The building is the only officially licensed Star Trek building on the planet.”

The Case of Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音)

Speaking of generations of technology, and of replacings, it’s good for us Mandarin field language learners to remember that writing systems are technologies, and technologies are known to sometimes get replaced by newer generations of technologies. Also, with regard to Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) specifically, the original plan for modern-day China was for Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) to one day replace Chinese characters. As the article “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Was Plan A” says:

Pīnyīn was actually Plan A for modern-day China, but Plan A has not been fully followed through on, largely because of old-fashioned selfish pride, nationalism/“culturalism”, and traditionalism, with some intellectual self-indulgence thrown in there for good measure. As Jehovah’s people, we have been trained to recognize that these are very bad reasons for doing something, or for not doing something.

Letter from Mao Zedong re a “basic reform” of Chinese writing, involving a transition from Chinese characters to alphabetic writing

(The above picture is from the book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, by John DeFrancis.)

Nostalgia, Progress, and Generations

While humans of different cultures and generations disagree as to whether new generations are necessarily better, whether in technology, Star Trek, writing systems, or life in general, God’s Word helps us to understand his view of passing generations of humans and human activity.

Here are a few scriptures that come to mind in that regard:

A generation is going, and a generation is coming,
But the earth remains forever.
—Ecclesiastes 1:4

Do not say, “Why were the former days better than these?” for it is not out of wisdom that you ask this.
—Ecclesiastes 7:10

Jesus said to him: “No man who has put his hand to a plow and looks at the things behind is well-suited for the Kingdom of God.”
—Luke 9:62

Brothers, I do not yet consider myself as having taken hold of it; but one thing is certain: Forgetting the things behind and stretching forward to the things ahead,
—Philippians 3:13

“In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed. And this kingdom will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it alone will stand forever,
—Daniel 2:44

Furthermore, the world is passing away and so is its desire, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.
—1 John 2:17