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duōyú

duōyú (duō·yú {(too) much/many} · surplus; excess → [unnecessary; surplus; superfluous; uncalled-for; redundant | excessive] 多余 多餘) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

Following on from last week’s MEotW post that discussed unnecessary ceremony, this week’s MEotW is “duōyú (duō·yú {(too) much/many} · surplus; excess → [unnecessary; surplus; superfluous; uncalled-for; redundant | excessive] 多余 多餘)”, which means “unnecessary; surplus; superfluous; uncalled-for; redundant”, or “excessive”.

Here are the usage examples for this expression provided by the Pleco app’s built-in dictionary:

📖 📄 📘 Shāndiào (Shān·diào delete · {to be dropped → [away]} 删掉 刪掉) duōyú (duō·yú {(too) many} · excess → [superfluous] 多余 多餘) de (’ 的) cíyǔ (cí·yǔ words · expressions 词语 詞語)

cut out superfluous words and phrases

📖 📄 📘 Zài (in 在) jíshì (jí·shì {gathered (things) → [country market]} · market → [country market] 集市) shang (upon 上) chūshòu (chū·shòu {put out} · {to sell} 出售) duōyú (duō·yú {(too) many} · surplus → [surplus] 多余 多餘) de (’s 的) nóng (farming 农 農) chǎnpǐn (chǎn·pǐn {given birth to → [produced]} · products 产品 產品)

sell surplus farm products in the market

📖 📄 📘 Shìshí (Shì·shí matters · {being solid} → [facts] 事实 事實) zhèngmíng (zhèng·míng proved · {to be clear} 证明 證明) wǒmen de ((wǒ·men us · [pl] 我们 我們) (de ’s 的) → [our]) dānxīn (dān·xīn {carryings on a shoulder pole → [bearings of (heavy)]} · hearts → [worryings] 担/耽心 擔/耽心) shì (were 是) duōyú (duō·yú {(too) many} · excess → [uncalled-for] 多余 多餘) de (’s 的).

Facts proved that our worries were uncalled-for.

Speaking of “unnecessary”…

Are Chinese Characters Necessary?

This question may be downright heretical to Chinese culture purists, who would say things like “Of course characters are necessary!” and “Chinese culture without the characters would be inconceivable, just inconceivable! Yes, that would be totally and utterly inconceivable!”

If one’s goal is to fit in with the current Chinese world, especially if one is living in a place where the characters are used in everyday life, government services, etc., then of course one will need to know at least some characters, eventually. But, does that mean that Chinese characters should be the primary focus of Mandarin field language learners from day one?

Both modern linguistics (language science) and God’s Word the Bible itself testify against this. A basic principle of modern linguistics is that speech is primary, not writing, and at 1 Corinthians 14:8–11, the Bible emphasizes the primary importance of understandable speech, not even mentioning writing when it does so:

8 For if the trumpet sounds an indistinct call, who will get ready for battle? 9 In the same way, unless you with the tongue use speech that is easily understood, how will anyone know what is being said? You will, in fact, be speaking into the air. 10 It may be that there are many kinds of speech in the world, and yet no kind is without meaning. 11 For if I do not understand the sense of the speech, I will be a foreigner to the one speaking, and the one speaking will be a foreigner to me.

So, while the characters seem necessary from the point of view of traditional worldly Chinese culture that’s intent on glorifying and perpetuating itself, someone whose primary goals in learning Mandarin are to praise Jehovah and to reach the hearts of Mandarin-speakers with the good news of the Kingdom should really primarily focus on understanding Mandarin speech and speaking Mandarin understandably, from the very beginning:

Your first linguistic goal should be to “utter speech easily understood.” [emphasis added] (1 Corinthians 14:8-11) Though people may be tolerant, mistakes or a heavy accent may distract them from listening to your message. Giving attention to proper pronunciation and grammar right from the start will prevent you from forming bad habits that are hard to break.
—“Serving With a Foreign-Language Congregation”, in the March 15, 2006 Watchtower.

A Simple, Elegant, Effective Alternative

The above quote also appears in the article “SPEECH is Top Priority, Not Characters”, which contains other information as well showing why it is that characters and their visual extravagances and traditional complexities are often duōyú (duō·yú {(too) much} · excess → [excessive] 多余 多餘) for Mandarin field language learners. Here is an excerpt:

Publishers need to learn to understand Mandarin speech to benefit spiritually from Mandarin meetings, because the talks, comments, etc. at such meetings are made of Mandarin speech, not characters. In fact, focusing on characters makes this problem worse because it makes learning Mandarin speech harder and slower. At the very least, it distracts from learning Mandarin speech.

In contrast, the simple, elegant Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) writing system handily does the job of representing Mandarin speech in written form without the unnecessary complexities and ceremonial baggage of the characters. When you do need to use a writing system for Mandarin, then, use Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) when you can, and just use characters when you have to. Seriously, doing so is not inconceivable!

Categories
Culture Language Learning Technology Theocratic

Yēsū Xīshēng Jìniàn Jùhuì

Yēsū (Jesus’ 耶稣 耶穌)
Xīshēng (Xī·shēng {Sacrifice (n)} · {(as with a) Domestic Animal} → [Sacrifice] 牺牲 犧牲)
Jìniàn Jùhuì ((Jì·niàn Remembering · {Thinking Of} → [Commemorating] 记/纪念 記/紀念) (Jùhuì Meeting 聚会 聚會) → [Memorial]) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

This year’s Memorial is scheduled for this week, so this week’s MEotW is “Yēsū (Jesus’ 耶稣 耶穌) Xīshēng (Xī·shēng {Sacrifice (n)} · {(as with a) Domestic Animal} → [Sacrifice] 牺牲 犧牲) Jìniàn Jùhuì ((Jì·niàn Remembering · {Thinking Of} → [Commemorating] 记/纪念 記/紀念) (Jùhuì Meeting 聚会 聚會) → [Memorial])”. This is currently the official way to translate “the Memorial of Jesus’ death” into Mandarin, as can be seen by comparing the English and Mandarin pages for the Memorial on jw.org.

It’s worth noting that this is a simple, straightforward, functional translation, free of unnecessary sentimentality or ceremony. As one dictionary puts it, “ceremony”, in this case, refers to:

The formalities observed on some solemn or important public or state occasion in order to render it more imposing or impressive: as, the ceremony of crowning a king, or of laying a foundation-stone; the ceremony of inaugurating the President of the United States.

Indeed, for those of us who appreciate Jesus’ ransom sacrifice, the Memorial is about this appreciation, not about ceremony or empty or showy rituals.

What Price Ceremony?

The matter of unnecessary ceremony reminds me of something I heard in a podcast a while ago:

Here is a clip of the podcast referred to in the tweet above, in which Mr. Cohen speaks of the core goal to make Swift ceremony-free:

As the above tweet also mentions, Chinese characters have oodles and gobs of unnecessary, time-and-energy-consuming ceremony, especially compared to the simple, straightforward, and elegant Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) writing system. And, echoing Mr. Cohen’s observation that ceremony can weigh programmers down and rob them of the joy that they could otherwise feel when coding, many have found that the unnecessary, traditionally mandated complexity and ceremonial baggage of Chinese characters can weigh down Mandarin learners and take away much of the joy that they should be able to feel from learning how to really communicate with Mandarin-speaking people.

Is it appropriate for us to look at the Chinese characters writing system through the same lens that we use to look at a technological system like the Swift programming language? It really is, because while the Chinese characters writing system is indeed a matter of culture, all writing systems are simultaneously technologies, applications of skills and knowledge for practical purposes.

Categories
Culture Language Learning Science Theocratic

Yètèluó

Yètèluó (Jethʹro 叶特罗 葉特羅) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

Appendix A2 of the English New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), entitled “Features of This Revision”, discusses vocabulary changes that have been made in the current revision, words that have been translated differently than before. As noted in various entries in the excellent resource Referenced Theo. Expressions (RTE), Appendix A2 of the current Mandarin version of the New World Translation Bible (nwtsty) correspondingly discusses words that have been translated differently in the current revision of the Mandarin NWT Bible, compared to how they had been translated before.

Since we base what we say in Jehovah’s service on his Word the Bible, the vocabulary used in it—and the way those vocabulary words are translated—should be reflected in how we speak in our ministry, at our meetings, etc. So, it is beneficial for us Mandarin field language learners to be familiar with the latest thinking from the organization on how Bible terms should be translated into Mandarin.

Avoiding Rarely‐Used, Hard‐to‐Recognize Characters

Appendix A2 of the current Mandarin version of the New World Translation Bible (nwtsty) mentions that one of the goals for this version was to reduce the number of hard-to-recognize, hard-to-read Chinese characters used, and to replace them with more commonly used characters. The first example it provides is that “Yètèluó (Jethʹro (old way of writing with characters) 叶忒罗 葉忒羅)” was changed to this week’s MEotW, “Yètèluó (Jethʹro 叶特罗 葉特羅)”.—Exodus 3:1.

Exodux 3:1 (WOL CHS+Pinyin Parallel Translations)

While the pronunciation and the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) were kept the same, a relatively rarely-used, hard-to-recognize character (“忒”) was replaced with a different, more common and recognizable character (“特”). As we can see, the translators who worked on the current version of the Mandarin NWT recognized that it was good to preserve the spoken pronunciation of the expression, an expression that as a whole was not changed. At the same time, they did not consider the particular character that was replaced to be sacred. This reinforces to us the basic principle of linguistics (language science) that SPEECH is primary, not writing, which shows up the traditional and ongoing Chinese cultural emphasis on characters as being fundamentally misplaced.

A Real-Life Example

The importance of avoiding unnecessarily hard-to-recognize characters was well demonstrated by the incident discussed in the tiandi.info blog post “An Avoidable Minefield of Human Tradition and Cultural Pride” (Email me if you need login information, and include information on who referred you and/or what group/cong. you are in.):

A few nights ago, my Mandarin congregation had a Memorial meeting that went well overall. However, there was a momentary hiccup that I think we Chinese field publishers can learn from.

The speaker who gave the talk is a fluent, eloquent native Mandarin speaker originally from mainland China, and he is one of the best Mandarin speakers in a city of several Mandarin congregations. In fact, he was one of the instructors in the very first official Mandarin class ever held in this country. However, while reading a scripture from his paper Bible as he was giving the Memorial talk, he, of all people, just…got…stuck…on…a…Chinese…character…. He struggled with it for what felt like quite a while, and eventually, a young brother who was serving as an attendant at the side of the stage approached and gave him a hint, and he was able to carry on.

…

While not a showstopper, this unfortunate incident was indeed an awkward showpauser, during the very meeting, out of all the meetings in the entire service year, at which the highest proportion of interested ones from the field was present—truly a nightmare scenario for anyone who gives Chinese talks!

FYI, in this case, the character that the brother couldn’t read was the “虺” in “虺蛇”, which has been replaced in the current version of the Mandarin NWT with “眼镜蛇”. (Isaiah 11:8) (While not being especially visually complex compared to some other Chinese characters, “虺” is relatively rarely used, ranking way down at #5543 on Prof. Dá Jùn (Dá {Tow Rope} (surname) 笪) ((Jùn {Fine Horse} 骏 駿) (Associate Professor of Linguistics, Director of the Media Center for Language Acquisition Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Middle Tennessee State University))’s character frequency list of Modern Chinese. “眼” is #281 on that list, and “镜” is #1251.)

Mitigations and Alternatives

In a way, though, even such fine efforts on the part of the NWT translators, working with what they have, are mere mitigations. On a more basic level, the incident mentioned above also highlights the problematic nature of the Chinese characters writing system itself, which makes it all too possible for such hard-to-recognize characters to exist, without any reasonable, consistent, and reliable system to work out their pronunciations. This makes any block of Chinese characters a potential minefield that can blow up in the face of even the most knowledgeable and experienced native speaker, because even such a one is still a mere imperfect human contending with the inhumanly complex and numerous Chinese characters, of which there are over 100,000.

In contrast, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), with its Latin alphabet letters and four tone symbols, is a simple, elegant full writing system for Modern Standard Mandarin that is eminently learnable by mere imperfect humans. Thus, it is an eminently good thing that Jehovah, through his organization, has made official Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) available for the current version of the Mandarin NWT Bible, unlikely and uncommon though such a provision is from a worldly, human viewpoint. (Work is also ongoing to provide unofficial Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus material for the current version of the Mandarin NWT, as language-learning material, not as spiritual food.)