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Culture Language Learning Languages

ài

ài (love 爱 愛) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

The Mandarin word for “love”, “ài (love 爱 愛)”, is undoubtedly one of the first Mandarin words learned by Mandarin field language-learners.

One noteworthy thing about the Mandarin word “ài (love 爱 愛)” is that just like the English word “love” can be used as either a verb, as in “to love and be loved”, or a noun, as in “a crazy little thing called love”, “ài (love 爱 愛)” can also be used as either a verb or a noun.

Also noteworthy about the Mandarin word “ài (love 爱 愛)” are the contrasting ways in which it is written using a Traditional Chinese character, a Simplified Chinese character, and Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), and what those contrasting ways of writing tell us about those different writing systems:

 

Besides Traditional Chinese characters, Simplified Chinese characters, and Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), there is actually also another way in which the Mandarin word for “love” can be written:

Categories
Culture Languages

zìmǔ

zìmǔ (zì·mǔ character; word · mothers → [letters (of an alphabet) [→ [alphabet]]] 字母) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

As previous MEotW posts (like this one) have shown, “zì (character; word; letter 字)” in Mandarin can mean “character”, such that “Hànzì (Hàn·zì {Han (Chinese)} · Characters 汉字 漢字)”, for example, means “Chinese characters”. In fact, even though “zì (character; word; letter 字)”, like its English counterpart “character”, can refer to printed or written letters or symbols in general, Hànzì (Hàn·zì {Han (Chinese)} · Characters 汉字 漢字) are such an 800-pound gorilla in Chinese culture that in Mandarin, “zì (character; word; letter 字)” by itself is often understood to specifically mean the Hànzì (Hàn·zì {Han (Chinese)} · Characters 汉字 漢字), the Chinese characters. This way of thinking has spilled over into the English-speaking world as well, which is why when English-speaking publishers in the Chinese fields speak of “the characters”, that’s generally understood to mean “the Chinese characters”, which in turn is understood to mean the 汉字 and not the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), even though Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) is also Chinese and made up of characters (printed or written letters or symbols).

So, when we want to refer to a letter of an alphabet, as opposed to a Chinese character, when speaking Mandarin, we can make that clear by using this week’s MEotW, “zìmǔ (zì·mǔ character; word · mothers → [letters (of an alphabet) [→ [alphabet]]] 字母)”. In Mandarin, a zìmǔ (zì·mǔ character; word · mothers → [letters (of an alphabet) [→ [alphabet]]] 字母) is literally a “character/word mother”, something that characters or words come from.

How is it that even Chinese characters or words come from letters? Well, contrary to the traditional Chinese cultural view that Chinese characters are the primary aspect of Chinese languages, linguists (language scientists) now recognize that speech is primary and writing is secondary. So, a Mandarin expression is not primarily something written with Chinese characters, but rather is primarily something spoken in Mandarin. Whereas a Chinese character coarsely represents an entire syllable, letters of alphabets in general represent the individual speech sounds (called phonemes by linguists) that make up the spoken expressions that are the primary part of a language, and this is especially true of a purpose-designed phonetic alphabet like Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音).

For example, whereas the Chinese character “字” represents an entire Mandarin syllable as one coarse unit, the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression “zì (character; word; letter 字)” finely spells out the initial sound, the final sound, and even the tone that actually make up that Mandarin syllable.

That speech and the individual sounds that make it up are the real foundation of any human language is such an important, unignorable linguistic principle that even schoolchildren in China (see especially the Z.T. subheading) learn basic Mandarin speech and Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) before getting immersed in Hànzì (Hàn·zì {Han (Chinese)} · Characters 汉字 漢字), Chinese characters, as tradition dictates.

Perhaps, then, it would be appropriate for Chinese culture, which values filial piety, to be more respectful towards the letters of its phonetic alphabet Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), which, both linguistically and educationally, are the “mothers” of the characters it loves so much!

Categories
History Language Learning Languages

Pīnyīn

Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

“Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音)” is the expression commonly used to refer to the phonetic alphabet introduced by China in 1958. This system is also known by longer, more official names:

  • Hànyǔ (Hàn·yǔ {Han (Chinese)} · Language → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin] 汉语 漢語) Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音)
  • Hànyǔ (Hàn·yǔ {Han (Chinese)} · Language → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin] 汉语 漢語) Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Fāng’àn (Fāng’·àn {Direction → [Method]} · {Long, Narrow Table or Desk → [Plan]} 方案)

When thinking of Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) and its predecessor Zhùyīn (Zhù·yīn Annotating · Sounds → [Zhuyin] 注音 註/注音) (last week’s MEotW), some focus on the superficial differences between them. However, it’s perhaps even more important to note what they have in common, as indicated by the fact that the names of both systems end in “yīn (sound [→ [musical note/sound; tone; pronunciation | syllable | news; tidings]] 音)”: Both systems focus on representing the sounds of Mandarin, sounds which make up Mandarin speech and thus represent meanings. In fact, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音)’s literal meaning tells us that this system helps people to “piece together sounds” to make up Mandarin speech, and thus convey the meanings that Mandarin speech represents.

In contrast, many people believe that the Hànzì (Hàn·zì {Han (Chinese)} · Characters 汉字 漢字), the Chinese characters, represent meanings more directly through their own visual design, as opposed to primarily being a system that represents Mandarin, Cantonese, etc., speech sounds which represent meaning. This view of Chinese characters, however, is actually a myth, which has been called the ideographic myth–God designed our brains and bodies to primarily represent meaning through speech, some humans in their hubris presumed that it would be better for us humans to represent meaning directly through visual symbols, and of course God was right and these humans were wrong.

There are actually many myths and misconceptions that people believe regarding Chinese characters, and sadly, that is also the case regarding Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音).

Common Myths and Misconceptions

  • “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) is just a pronunciation aid. It’s not really a writing system like the characters are.”

    • But, is Pīnyīn even really a writing system? Interestingly, the Chinese national standard Zhōngguó Mángwén (中国盲文/中國盲文, Chinese Braille) is basically a transliteration or conversion of Pīnyīn into braille letters. Braille is obviously a writing system, so Pīnyīn must also be a writing system, not just a pronunciation aid.

  • “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) is just training wheels. Characters are real wheels.”

    • Since Pīnyīn is not just a pronunciation aid, but a full writing system, it is not “training wheels”—it’s regular wheels. On the other hand, Chinese characters are like non-round wheels—more difficult than necessary.

  • “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) on its own can’t be understood because there are too many homophones (words that sound the same, but have different meanings) in Mandarin.”

    • When people are just speaking Mandarin, with no characters in sight to help them, do they have problems understanding each other because of all the homophones? Can blind Mandarin-speakers, who cannot see characters, still “see” what people mean when those people speak Mandarin? Native Mandarin-speakers have confirmed to me that no, homophones are not a significant problem in spoken Mandarin—people can use the context and understand each other okay. So, people can use the context and understand each other okay when using Pīnyīn too, since Pīnyīn directly represents the sound of spoken Mandarin.

      • The above quote is from the article “Pīnyīn Was Plan A”. Check it out for more on this subject.

  • “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) is less accurate than Zhùyīn (Zhù·yīn Annotating · Sounds → [Zhuyin] 注音 註/注音).”

    • Some people say that Zhuyin is more accurate or correct than Pinyin. Actually, both Zhuyin and Pinyin represent the same Mandarin sounds, just with different symbols. In fact, it’s not difficult to find tables that directly map the corresponding Zhuyin and Pinyin expressions to each other—a simple Google search for “pinyin zhuyin table” turns up many, many results. Pinyin and Zhuyin are just like different codes for encoding the same Mandarin message, so basically, neither is more accurate or correct than the other.

      • The above quote is from the tiandi.info post “Pinyin and Zhuyin”. (If you need login information for the parts of tiandi.info that require it, request it by email, and include information on who referred you and/or what group/cong. you are in.)
  • “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) makes your Mandarin sound like English.”
    • This is only true if you are using it wrong. For example, if you read a French word and you make it sound like English when you read it out, the problem is not that the French word is written using the Latin alphabet like English is—the problem is that you are thinking of English sounds when you see the French word, when you should be thinking of French sounds. Similarly, you shouldn’t blame Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) if you are thinking of English sounds when you see it, because it’s up to you to understand that Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) represents Mandarin sounds, not English sounds.
    • Don’t worry, it becomes second nature to properly associate Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) with Mandarin sounds after you get familiar with Mandarin sounds and used to the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) system. However, if you, say, prematurely stop using Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) and instead turn to characters in an effort to avoid the baggage of English sounds, you may actually never really get the hang of Mandarin sounds. Seriously, I’ve seen people who focus on characters remain in this speech Twilight Zone for years and years! That’s because while characters do represent Mandarin speech sounds, they’re just bad at it—it’s just not what characters focus on. In stark contrast, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) is all about the sounds of Mandarin. It literally spells out in a simple way how a Mandarin syllable sounds at the beginning, at the end, and in between. Characters, though, represent the complex sound of a Mandarin syllable as one coarse lump, in a complex and often unrelated way—you either get it or you don’t, and many don’t.
      • Yes, characters are like a conceited jerk who convinces you with grand promises to jump from a high place, doesn’t bother to catch you, and then makes you think it’s your fault that you can’t fly. Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), though, is like a modest and straightforward person who clearly explains each step for you so that you can dependably and confidently get to where you want to go.

For more information regarding Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) and how we in the Mandarin field should view it, check out these articles:

“Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own”
This article is a brief overview of why it’s important for those of us in the Mandarin field to recognize that Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) is a full writing system, not just a pronunciation aid.

“Pīnyīn Was Plan A”
This extensively researched in-depth article discusses how we in the Mandarin field should view Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音).

(Short link: tiandi.info/articles)