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Current Events Science

jùfēng

jùfēng (jù·fēng cyclone; hurricane; typhoon · wind → [hurricane; typhoon] 飓风 颶風) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

During the week preceding the date of this post, Hurricane Ian hit the USA. As NBC News reported on the afternoon of Oct. 1, 2022:

The death toll from Hurricane Ian rose Saturday to more than 77 as one of strongest and costliest storms to ever hit the U.S. pushed northward from the Carolinas leaving in its wake a trifecta of misery—dangerous flooding, power outages and massive destruction.

At the time of this writing, jw.org was featuring the related article “Extreme Weather—Can the Bible Help You to Cope?”. The Mandarin version of this article uses this week’s MEotW, “jùfēng (jù·fēng cyclone; hurricane; typhoon · wind → [hurricane; typhoon] 飓风 颶風)”, to translate the English word “hurricane”.

Note that while one who is familiar with the Mandarin expression “dàfēng (dà·fēng {big → [strong]} · wind [→ [fresh gale]] 大风 大風)” (literally, “big wind”) might assume that the first morpheme in “jùfēng (jù·fēng cyclone; hurricane; typhoon · wind → [hurricane; typhoon] 飓风 颶風)” is the same as the first morpheme (meaning “huge; gigantic”) in “jùdà (jù·dà huge; gigantic · big 巨大)”, actually, the first morpheme in “jùfēng (jù·fēng cyclone; hurricane; typhoon · wind → [hurricane; typhoon] 飓风 颶風)” is a different one that specifically means “cyclone; hurricane; typhoon”.

A Tropical Cyclone by Any Other Name…

The English jw.org article mentioned above also mentions hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones. The corresponding expressions used in the Mandarin version are, respectively, “jùfēng (jù·fēng hurricane · winds → [hurricanes] 飓风 颶風)”, “táifēng (tái·fēng typhoon · winds → [typhoons] 台风 颱風)”, and “qìxuán (qì·xuán air · circlings → [cyclones] 气旋 氣旋)”. What though, are the differences between hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones?

The US government’s National Ocean Service explains it like this:

The only difference between a hurricane and a typhoon is the location where the storm occurs.

…

Hurricanes and typhoons are the same weather phenomenon: tropical cyclones. A tropical cyclone is a generic term used by meteorologists to describe a rotating, organized system of clouds and thunderstorms that originates over tropical or subtropical waters and has closed, low-level circulation.

The weakest tropical cyclones are called tropical depressions. If a depression intensifies such that its maximum sustained winds reach 39 miles per hour, the tropical cyclone becomes a tropical storm. Once a tropical cyclone reaches maximum sustained winds of 74 miles per hour or higher, it is then classified as a hurricane, typhoon, or tropical cyclone, depending upon where the storm originates in the world. In the North Atlantic, central North Pacific, and eastern North Pacific, the term hurricane is used. The same type of disturbance in the Northwest Pacific is called a typhoon. Meanwhile, in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean, the generic term tropical cyclone is used, regardless of the strength of the wind associated with the weather system.

Structure

Some might also find the following information interesting, on the structure and behaviour of tropical cyclones like hurricanes, etc.:

The main parts of a tropical cyclone are the rainbands, the eye, and the eyewall. Air spirals in toward the center in a counter-clockwise pattern in the northern hemisphere (clockwise in the southern hemisphere), and out the top in the opposite direction.

In the very center of the storm, air sinks, forming an “eye” that is mostly cloud-free.

Supercharged by Climate Change

Regarding hurricanes and similar storms, one thing that may be worthwhile to bring up in the field is that they are being made more destructive and difficult to predict by human-caused climate change.

An article on NASA’s website summarizes the situation and explains the basic mechanism:

Due to global warming, global climate models predict hurricanes will likely cause more intense rainfall and have an increased coastal flood risk due to higher storm surge caused by rising seas. Additionally, the global frequency of storms may decrease or remain unchanged, but hurricanes that form are more likely to become intense.

As surface temperatures rise, more liquid water evaporates from the land and ocean. Evaporation adds moisture to the air. How much water vapor the air can hold is based on its temperature. Warmer air temperatures can hold more water vapor. The increased moisture in the air leads to more intense rainfall, especially during extreme events.

In a hurricane, spiraling winds draw moist air toward the center, fueling the towering thunderstorms that surround it. As the air continues to warm due to climate change, hurricanes can hold more water vapor, producing more intense rainfall rates in a storm.

Moreover, …most models show that climate change brings a slight increase in hurricane wind intensity. This change is likely related to warming ocean temperatures and more moisture in the air, both of which fuel hurricanes.

Another article, on the Yale Climate Connections website, discusses a phenomenon called rapid intensification:

Rapid intensification, defined as an increase of wind speed of at least 35 mph in 24 hours, has recently garnered a lot of attention…

…human-caused warming significantly increases extreme tropical cyclone intensification rates…

Rapid intensification is one of the least well-predicted tropical cyclone processes and also one of the most dangerous, because storms that intensify quickly tend to catch people off guard.

By the way, the Mandarin expression currently used on jw.org to translate “climate change” is “qìhòu (qì·hòu {air → [weather]} · conditions → [climate] 气候 氣候) biànhuà (biàn·huà changing · transforming 变化 變化)”.

Categories
Culture Language Learning Technology

yǔyán

yǔyán (yǔ·yán language; tongue · {(type of) speech} 语言 語言) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

The Mandarin field is an example of a language field. What though, is a language? For a long time, the production output of the earthly part of Jehovah’s organization was exclusively or mainly paper publications. So, when it would count the languages it was supporting in its production, it was really counting the writing systems that it printed on paper. Meanwhile, in worldly Chinese culture, there is an obsession with the Chinese characters writing system, which has become a proud and deeply embedded cultural tradition. Such factors may influence people serving in the Mandarin field to focus on the Chinese characters writing system when they think of the Mandarin language.

However, linguists, people who study language scientifically, hold that when it comes to languages, speech is primary, and writing is secondary. This excerpt from the MEotW post on “zuìchū (zuì·chū most · {at the beginning} [→ [initial[ly]; prime; [at] first; original[ly]]] 最初)” summarizes the scientific evidence in this regard:

First Things First in Language Learning

The way God made us, zuìchū (zuì·chū most · {at the beginning} 最初), language-wise, there was speech. Only later did imperfect humans eventually come up with some writing systems to visually represent and record some forms of speech. Indeed, there have been, and there still are, many speech-only languages, with no corresponding writing system. Ethnologue, a resource on world languages, says:

Ethnologue (24th edition) has data to indicate that of the currently listed 7,139 living languages, 4,065 have a developed writing system. We don’t always know, however, if the existing writing systems are widely used. That is, while an alphabet may exist there may not be very many people who are literate and actually using the alphabet. The remaining 3,074 are likely unwritten.

Technological First Priority

Writing systems are technologies. About writing, linguist Gretchen McCulloch says:

It really is a technology. It’s a thing you do on top of language to do stuff with language, but it’s not the language itself. There are thousands and possibly millions of languages that have never been written down in the history of humanity. We have no idea. We’ve never met a society of humans, or heard of a society of humans, without language. But those are spoken and signed languages, which are just kind of there. Writing, by contrast, was invented somewhere between 3 and 4 times in the history of humanity.

What Do the Words Actually Mean?

It’s also worth considering the actual root meanings contained in the words used in English and Mandarin to mean “language”. Regarding the etymology of the English word “language”, the Online Etymology Dictionary says:

late 13c., langage “words, what is said, conversation, talk,” from Old French langage “speech, words, oratory; a tribe, people, nation” (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *linguaticum, from Latin lingua “tongue,” also “speech, language,” from PIE [Proto-Indo-European] root *dnghu- “tongue.”

Clearly, the focus of the root meanings above is on speech and the tongue, which is used for speech—writing is not even mentioned.

Consider also this week’s MEotW, the Mandarin word generally used to mean “language”, “yǔyán (yǔ·yán language; tongue · {(type of) speech} 语言 語言)”. As can be seen from this expression’s Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus information, the morphemes used in this Mandarin expression also focus on speech and the tongue, which is used for speech—writing is not even mentioned.

So, when we think of a language, a yǔyán (yǔ·yán language; tongue · {(type of) speech} 语言 語言), even a Chinese one, we should really be thinking about a way of speaking, a variety of speech, not any writing system, even one as traditionally revered and glamourized as Chinese characters are. Thus, the Mandarin language field is not the field in which we preach to and teach people who read and write with Chinese characters. After all, if people speak Mandarin but cannot read or write the Chinese characters, they still count as being among those we are trying to help in the Mandarin field. That’s because the Mandarin language field is actually the field in which we preach to and teach people whose mother tongue—their first language or way of speaking—is Mandarin.

Categories
Culture Experiences History Language Learning Languages

jī‐tóng‐yā‐jiǎng

jī‐tóng‐yā‐jiǎng ((jī chicken 鸡 雞/鷄)‐(tóng {together with} 同 同/仝)‐(yā duck 鸭 鴨)‐(jiǎng speaking 讲 講) → [people not understanding each other because of speaking different languages (from Cantonese)]) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Yes, this expression comes from Cantonese, but the above Mandarin version does appear in Mandarin dictionaries, so it qualifies as a Mandarin expression!]

Recently, while out to dinner with one of the first families to serve in the local Cantonese congregation, along with the circuit overseer serving the local Chinese circuit and his wife, the subject came up of how Mandarin and Cantonese are actually different languages, not just dialects of the same language.

Chickens Talking with Ducks

The wife of the circuit overseer asked what the difference is between a language and a dialect. So, I proceeded to explain something that is emphasized by American sinologist and University of Pennsylvania Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations Victor H. Mair, that a primary way accepted by most linguists to distinguish a language from a dialect is mutual intelligibility, as is discussed in this excerpt from the MEotW post on “fāngyán (fāng·yán {direction → [place]} · speech → [topolect; dialect (common but misleading translation)] 方言)”:

It has been said that “a language is a dialect with an army and navy”, but in his article Professor Mair gives us a more linguistically correct and useful way to distinguish between a language and a dialect:

Regardless of the imprecision of lay usage, we should strive for a consistent means of distinguishing between language and dialect. Otherwise we might as well use the two terms interchangeably. That way lies chaos and the collapse of rational discourse. Mutual intelligibility [emphasis added] is normally accepted by most linguists as the only plausible criterion for making the distinction between language and dialect in the vast majority of cases. Put differently, no more suitable, workable device for distinguishing these two levels of speech has yet been proposed. If there are to be exceptions to the useful principle of mutual intelligibility, there should be compelling reasons for them. Above all, exceptions should not be made the rule.

What is mutual intelligibility? Simply put, in linguistics, two or more speech varieties are said to be mutually intelligible if they are “able to be understood by one another’s speakers”. For example, if one person only knows English, and another person only knows Spanish, they can’t really understand each other if they try to talk to each other—English and Spanish are not mutually intelligible, and are suitably recognized as being different languages, not just different dialects of “European”.

Similarly, if one person only knows Mandarin, and another person only knows Cantonese, they can’t really understand each other if they try to talk to each other—Mandarin and Cantonese are not mutually intelligible. So, while they may be “fāngyán (fāng·yán {direction → [place]} · {(patterns of) speech} 方言)”, linguistically, Mandarin and Cantonese should really be considered to be different languages, not just different dialects of “Chinese”.

Indeed, I have heard people use this week’s MEotW, “jī‐tóng‐yā‐jiǎng ((jī chicken 鸡 雞/鷄)‐(tóng {together with} 同 同/仝)‐(yā duck 鸭 鴨)‐(jiǎng speaking 讲 講) → [people not understanding each other because of speaking different languages (from Cantonese)])”, to specifically describe Mandarin-speakers and Cantonese-speakers trying to talk to each other, and not understanding each other. 🐓 🦆

After I explained the gist of the above, one of the daughters of the family at the dinner—who had been labouring for decades under the misconception that Mandarin and Cantonese are just dialects and that someone who knows one can easily learn the other—said, “Now I don’t feel like an idiot.”

Uncommon Knowledge?

It could be said that ones such as this family and this circuit overseer and his wife, who have all worked so hard and served for so long in the Chinese language fields, should already have known such a basic thing about the Chinese languages. However, the following things are unfortunately true:

  • Even publishers who are learning a language to serve in that language’s field generally consider such linguistic (language science) knowledge to be specialized technical knowledge that is beyond what they need to learn, and possibly beyond what they could even comprehend.
  • Western-educated publishers learning a Chinese language may unwittingly go along with the Western worldly tendency to exoticize things related to China. (John DeFrancis, in his book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (p. 37), calls this “Exotic East Syndrome”.) They may be content with—or even enjoy—the alluring veil of mystery and mystique surrounding certain things related to China and Chinese culture. Thus, they don’t seek to learn about and understand deeper truths about such things, that may pierce through this obscuring veil, and burst this bubble.—Compare 2 Corinthians 3:14, including the margin note.
  • The central ruling authorities of China have long actively promoted the scientifically incorrect idea that the different varieties of speech in China are just dialects of the one Chinese language. This idea is political propaganda supporting the idea that it’s good for there to be central ruling authorities in China.
  • Traditional worldly Chinese language instructors and others who are knowledgeable about Chinese languages and Chinese characters are eager to promote and perpetuate the traditional thinking about Chinese languages and characters, that they have invested so much time and effort in, and that they are so proud of.
  • Chinese-educated publishers who are already steeped in the traditional ideas about Chinese languages, Chinese characters, etc., and who are thus lauded and deferred to as experts by other publishers, may be eager to simply unquestioningly pass on the cultural knowledge and ideas that they were taught, and that they are lauded and respected for.
  • The Bible makes it clear that Satan the Devil is “a liar and the father of the lie”. It also describes him as “the great dragon…who is misleading the entire inhabited earth”. So, while we can only speculate about the details of what strings are purposely pulled in the spirit realm by Satan and his demons as opposed to what human folly they simply passively observe, we can be sure that Satan is delighted with all the ways in which people are misled in and about the Chinese culture, in which the dragon is considered a positive, revered symbol.—John 8:44; Revelation 12:9.

So, for reasons such as the above, even the basic linguistic truth that Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc. actually function as different languages is unfortunately not yet common knowledge among those serving in the Chinese fields. As the saying goes, which some say is a Chinese proverb, “error will travel over half the globe, while truth is pulling on her boots”.

Jesus said, though, that true worshippers worship “with spirit and truth”, and that “the truth will set you free”. With regard to Chinese languages, Chinese characters, etc., the truth about them can even set one free from unnecessarily feeling like an “idiot”, as the sister mentioned above so eloquently put it, because of labouring under all the political propaganda, traditions, and other kinds of misinformation and wrong thinking that unfortunately surround Chinese languages, Chinese characters, etc.—John 4:23; 8:32.

Huge Worldwide Effects

In addition to being hugely freeing for individual language learners, spreading the truth about the Chinese languages, Chinese characters, etc. is also important on a larger scale, since the worldwide Mandarin field, for one, is the largest language field in the world, and probably the largest language field that has ever existed in human history. For comparison, according to Ethnologue, a resource on world languages, the worldwide Mandarin field (those worldwide whose mother tongue is Mandarin) is about twice the size of the second largest worldwide language field, the Spanish field, and it’s about two and a half times the size of the third largest worldwide language field, the English field. Allowing various untruths to continue to divert and bog down the language-learning efforts of those who come to help in the worldwide Mandarin field can have incalculable overall negative effects on the preaching work in this enormous field.

So, even as we hang on to Bible truth, let us also hang on to the linguistic truths that we learn, and let us do what we can to share them with our fellow workers in the vast worldwide Chinese fields.