Tag: A Billion Voices…

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Culture Experiences History Language Learning Science

yīnwei

yīnwei (yīn·wei because · for | {because of} · for/{on account of} | {is because} · {is for} 因为 因為) 👈🏼 Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

This week’s MEotW, “yīnwei (yīn·wei because · for | {because of} · for/{on account of} | {is because} · {is for} 因为 因為)”, was discussed in a podcast episode that I listened to recently. Here’s a clip from it, with the part in which this expression was discussed:

Here’s a transcript of this video clip:

David: You’re a good sport. Thank you for doing this. So you are a native speaker. This question is very important because if you pronounce a character with the wrong tone, you can be fined as much as 50 kuài (pieces → [mw for Renminbi] 块 塊) at CCTV if you’re an announcer. So what I want you to do is just very slowly pronounce for us the word that in Chinese would be the equivalent of “because”.

Yajun: “Yīnwéi (Yīn·wéi because · for | {because of} · for/{on account of} | {is because} · {is for} 因为 因為)”.

David: Say again?

Yajun: “Yīnwéi (Yīn·wéi because · for | {because of} · for/{on account of} | {is because} · {is for} 因为 因為)”.

David: So I hear that the “wéi (… 为 為/爲)” is second tone. Is that right?

Yajun: Yeah…

David: That’s Northern Mandarin. That’s also Běijīng (Běi·jīng North · {Country Capital} → [Beijing] 北京)‐huà (speech 话 話). [With] the actual pǔtōng‐huà ((pǔ·tōng common · {through(out) → [common]} 普通)‐(huà speech 话 話) → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin (term commonly used in China)]) citation version of that word, in 90% of the dictionaries that you will see, the second character is pronounced with fourth tone, as “yīnwèi (yīn·wèi because · for | {because of} · for/{on account of} | {is because} · {is for} 因为 因為)”.

Yajun: Sure…?

David: Yeah, well if you ask most Chinese, they’re very unsure about it, just like you.

Yajun: I was quite sure it’s “yīnwéi (yīn·wéi because · for | {because of} · for/{on account of} | {is because} · {is for} 因为 因為)”, something like that. Now I’m not so sure…and I don’t want to lose 50 kuài (pieces → [mw for Renminbi] 块 塊).

David: Don’t worry, there are many examples like that and you are not actually wrong. This is an artificial standard that has been imposed and actually, few people, or, not everyone, actually follows it.

By the way, the David Moser speaking in the above clip is indeed the same one who wrote the relatively well-known essay “Why Chinese Is So D- Hard”, which has given many people a lot to think about regarding how Chinese characters make learning Mandarin much harder than it otherwise would be. (I’m not providing a link to this essay because the full title and an example used in the text are a bit less than family-friendly. However, for anyone who’s interested, here is a link to a family-friendly version of this essay that’s been translated into Mandarin and written in Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音).)

Getting back to “yīnwei (yīn·wei because · for | {because of} · for/{on account of} | {is because} · {is for} 因为 因為)”, there’s also a relatively detailed entry on this expression in the excellent Referenced Theo. Expressions resource.

Dealing With Different Right Pronunciations

The different pronunciations of “yīnwei (yīn·wei because · for | {because of} · for/{on account of} | {is because} · {is for} 因为 因為)” are an example showing us that, while they have a lot of overlap, pǔtōng‐huà ((pǔ·tōng common · {through(out) → [common]} 普通)‐(huà speech 话 話) → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin (term commonly used in China)]), Northern Mandarin and Beijing Mandarin, and, for that matter, the Guóyǔ (Guó·yǔ National · Language → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin (term commonly used in Taiwan)] 国语 國語) spoken in Taiwan are not exactly the same. (More information on how pǔtōng‐huà ((pǔ·tōng common · {through(out) → [common]} 普通)‐(huà speech 话 話) → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin (term commonly used in China)]) has been artificially constructed from various parts and promoted to be a national standard can be found in David Moser’s book “A Billion Voices: China’s Search for a Common Language”.)

So, when we get to a word like “yīnwei (yīn·wei because · for | {because of} · for/{on account of} | {is because} · {is for} 因为 因為)”, which pronunciation should we say it with? Well, considering that the basic principle regarding why language groups and congregations even exist is that Bible truth best reaches a person’s heart in that person’s mother tongue, the logical conclusion is that we should try, as much as we are reasonably able to, to use whichever pronunciation is used by whomever we are talking to. The apostle Paul said “to the Jews I became as a Jew in order to gain Jews”, so we should similarly seek to become as the Mandarin-speaking people we meet in the ministry. (1 Corinthians 9:20) And since tones are an essential part of Mandarin pronunciation, that would include trying to use whichever tone is used by whomever we are talking to.

That may be relatively straightforward—although it may not be easy—when speaking to an individual, but when speaking to a large, mixed audience, perhaps at a meeting or even a convention, we will have to use good judgement to try to speak so as to be understood without distraction by the majority of the audience. It helps, then, to know the audience.

The Accents of Network News Announcers

Speaking of the audience, the clip above mentions that CCTV announcers are required to speak in a particular standard way, and that they are actually fined when they deviate from this standard. CCTV (China Central Television) is the national television broadcaster of China (which, naturally in China, is ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist Party), and as such, has an audience that includes all of mainland China, with all its various languages, dialects, and accents. As we can see, those calling the shots at CCTV, and indeed, in China in general, have decided to approach this situation by seeking to impose and promote a standard way of speaking, from the top down.

American network news announcers face a sort-of similar challenge—while English is understood throughout the USA, people in different parts of the USA have come to speak with different regional accents.

The article “Why Do So Many News Anchors Sound Alike?”, on the Mental Floss website, says the following about how American news announcers have historically approached this situation:

No matter which channel you tune into or what local broadcast you receive, news anchors share one common trait beyond professional attire and perfect hair. They tend to sound exactly the same, from their cadence to enunciation to a completely curious lack of a regional accent. How does that happen?

Broadcasters didn’t always sound so geographically neutral. In the early part of the 20th century, many radio personalities and performers adopted what was known as a Mid-Atlantic accent, or a blend of mannered British and the East Coast dialect of the United States. This polished, proper method of speaking was popular in Hollywood movies of the 1930s and on radio because it signaled some kind of upper-class education and erudition. Thanks to America’s infatuation with England, sounding even vaguely British made people sound intelligent. Pundits like William F. Buckley Jr. carried the Mid-Atlantic torch even as it fell out of favor in entertainment.

The more contemporary practice of sounding linguistically neutral is often referred to as having a General American accent—which is a bit misleading, since there’s really not much of an accent at all. Also referred to as Standard American, Broadcast English, or Network English, General American was a term first used in the 1920s and ’30s by linguists who wanted to isolate a more widespread accent than the New England or Southern dialects.

Balancing Authenticity with Avoiding Distraction

A relatively recent Business Insider article points out, though, that what American people expect of their media personalities has evolved over time:

“There is something called a broadcast news type voice,” Brice told Insider. “And I really try to coach people to not have that voice. In fact, I coach routinely people to sound more like themselves. People try to emulate other anchors and reporters, and in my opinion, it gets them in trouble.”

…

“We’ve definitely evolved, just as the news industry has evolved, into a different mindset,” Cairns told Insider, adding that listeners now look for signs of authenticity from their media personalities. “With people being flooded with content, their expectations have changed. People don’t want the typical woman with the big head of hair and the perfect voice, looking a certain way.”

Instead of trying to eliminate regional accents like Fleming’s Boston pronunciations [heard in the post embedded above], Cairns told Insider, speakers who speak with accents should focus only on making sure their speech patterns aren’t distracting from what they’re trying to say.

“It’s just like your hairstyle—you have your own voice style.” Cairns told Insider. “Use it. It’s part of what identifies you. Just don’t let it distract from the message.”

Considering the above and coming back to the Mandarin field, we can see that when speaking to Mandarin-speaking people in the field, there are at least three ways of speaking that we need to mentally juggle:

  • The way we ouselves normally speak Mandarin
  • Modern Standard Mandarin/pǔtōng‐huà ((pǔ·tōng common · {through(out) → [common]} 普通)‐(huà speech 话 話) → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin (term commonly used in China)])/Taiwanese Guóyǔ (Guó·yǔ National · Language → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin (term commonly used in Taiwan)] 国语 國語)
  • The kind of Mandarin best understood by whomever we are speaking to

In the Mandarin field, we want to speak authentically, sincerely, in a way that other people can tell is coming from our hearts, while avoiding speaking in a way that is so different from what others expect that it distracts from our God-honouring and life-saving message—it’s a balancing act, that may involve juggling! The standard forms of Mandarin that have been promoted by governments, widely broadcast in the media, etc. may heavily influence people’s expectations of the kind of Mandarin we speak, but different situations may require different approaches. So, we should do our best to adapt accordingly, so as to speak in the way that best helps others and glorifies, not any human entity, but rather, our great God Jehovah.

Note: Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus material is aimed at and made available to the worldwide Mandarin field, and so as far as possible, it is based on how most people seem to actually speak pǔtōng‐huà ((pǔ·tōng common · {through(out) → [common]} 普通)‐(huà speech 话 話) → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin (term commonly used in China)]), the artificial standard mentioned in the clip at the beginning of this post, that is the standard language promoted in mainland China, where about 95% of the world’s Chinese people are. (As Mr. Moser pointed out in the clip, people don’t always follow the pronunciations found in many dictionaries. E.g., many seem to use more neutral tones than many dictionaries indicate.) Since Taiwan is also a relatively big presence in the Mandarin-speaking world, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus material also contains notes indicating when Taiwan Mandarin has different pronunciations. (Offhand, the only Mandarin dictionary mentions that I can recall that refer to Northern or Beijing pronunciations involve the “r” ({child | youth | son} → [(diminutive) non-syllabic retroflex suffix; pronunciation feature in Beijing dialect] 儿 兒) that Beijingers add to the ends of many words. Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus material includes notes about this.)

Categories
Culture History Language Learning Languages Science

fāngyán

fāngyán (fāng·yán {direction → [place]} · speech → [topolect; dialect (common but misleading translation)] 方言) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[This reposting of a post that was originally posted on November 16, 2020 seems to be a fitting companion to the recent repostings of the posts on “yǔxì (yǔ·xì language · {tied (things) → [system; family]} 语系 語系)” and “yǔzú (yǔ·zú language · {ethnic group → [group of things with common characteristics] → [group]} 语族 語族)”. It discusses the important basic issue of whether Mandarin is just a dialect of “Chinese”, a subject about which much political and cultural propaganda has unfortunately been spread.]

The term “fāngyán (fāng·yán {direction → [place]} · speech → [topolect; dialect (common but misleading translation)] 方言)” has been used in the Chinese-speaking world in various ways, but the literal meanings of the words that make it up indicate that it refers to the speech pattern of a place, even a place as small as a village. For reference, the “fāng (direction [→ [side; party | place; region | method; way [→ [prescription; recipe]] | power (math.)]] | {[is] square} [→ [[is] upright; honest]] | [mw for square things] 方)” in “fāngyán (fāng·yán {direction → [place]} · speech → [topolect; dialect (common but misleading translation)] 方言)” is the “fāng (direction [→ [side; party | place; region | method; way [→ [prescription; recipe]] | power (math.)]] | {[is] square} [→ [[is] upright; honest]] | [mw for square things] 方)” in “dìfang (dì·fang {(section of) earth → [place]} · {direction → [place]} → [place] 地方)”, and the “yán (speech; word; talk; language | say; talk; speak | character; syllable; word 言)” in “fāngyán (fāng·yán {direction → [place]} · speech → [topolect; dialect (common but misleading translation)] 方言)” is the “yán (speech; word; talk; language | say; talk; speak | character; syllable; word 言)” in “yǔyán (yǔ·yán language · {(type of) speech} 语言 語言)”.

“Fāngyán (Fāng·yán {direction → [place]} · speech → [topolect; dialect (common but misleading translation)] 方言)” has customarily been translated into English as “dialect”, but this practice can be misleading and confusing, because while “fāngyán (fāng·yán {direction → [place]} · speech → [topolect; dialect (common but misleading translation)] 方言)” and “dialect” can sometimes both be applied to a particular speech pattern, the two terms don’t mean exactly the same thing.

What is a Chinese “Dialect”?

American sinologist and University of Pennsylvania Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations Victor H. Mair wrote an extensive article on this subject, “What Is a Chinese ‘Dialect/Topolect’? Reflections on Some Key Sino-English Linguistic Terms”, which can be found here (PDF) and here (web page) on his website Sino-Platonic Papers.

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”.

If many of the varieties of speech in China are really different languages, as linguists would refer to them, why have so many people come to think that they are just dialects of a single Chinese language? China’s central government is highly motivated to convince people that China is one unified political and cultural entity which should thus be governed by one central government—them—so they have promoted this idea. In other words, it’s basically political propaganda!

Being Clear on What’s What

Why is it especially important for language-learners in a language field like the Mandarin field to recognize, in spite of the commonly accepted political propaganda, that Chinese varieties of speech like Mandarin and Cantonese really function like different languages, and not different dialects of the same language? Well, as someone who along with many others has come to the Mandarin field from the Cantonese field, I have had the dubious pleasure of observing how some have tried to speak Mandarin by just taking the Cantonese they knew and twisting it a little, since they were relying on the conventional wisdom that Mandarin and Cantonese are just different dialects of the same language. As well-meaning as they may have been, the results were often just as bad as when someone sings badly off-key, or as Star Trek fans may say, they often sounded like the language equivalent of a transporter accident 🙀. Even after decades in the Mandarin field, some publishers who had come over from the Cantonese field still say some Mandarin words with Cantonese-y pronunciations.

In contrast, when one recognizes, for example, that Cantonese is Cantonese and Mandarin is Mandarin, and that neither one is just a slightly mutated version of the other, then that paves the way for language-learning progress that is free of being distorted by untruthful and misleading beliefs. Yes, by recognizing and accepting a variety of speech for what it really is, we can go on to freely learn to speak it well and properly, so that we can be as effective as possible at helping people whose mother tongue is that variety of speech.

As with everything else in life, in language-learning too, the truth matters. As Jehovah’s people, we especially want to “worship the Father with spirit and truth”, and when we seek to do so as we learn a language to use it in Jehovah’s service, we will find that ‘the truth will set us free’ from the distortions and burdens of untruthful and misleading beliefs.—John 4:23; 8:32.

Some Official Recognition

The organization has recently demonstrated that it recognizes the truth about how different many of the Chinese varieties of speech are from one another. For example, whereas before there was one Chinese edition of each publication (using Mandarin wording), now, some publications are available in different Chinese editions for different Chinese languages (including Cantonese), each with different wording.

List of different Chinese languages in which publications are available on jw.org as of 2025-06-02
jw.org now has publications in different Chinese languages.

To help reduce the confusion around the inappropriate use of the English word “dialect” to translate “fāngyán (fāng·yán {direction → [place]} · speech → [topolect; dialect (common but misleading translation)] 方言)”, Professor Mair proposed that the word “topolect” (topo- (“place”) + -lect (“[language] variety”)) be used instead as an exact, neutral English translation of “fāngyán (fāng·yán {direction → [place]} · speech → [topolect; dialect (common but misleading translation)] 方言)”. While not as well-known as “dialect”, the word “topolect” has gained a certain amount of recognition, and it can now be found in several dictionaries, e.g., The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Wordnik, and Wiktionary.

Categories
Culture History

chá

chá (tea 茶) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

Long before drinking tea became a big part of English culture, it had been a big part of Chinese culture. As Wikipedia summarizes:

An early credible record of tea drinking dates to the third century AD, in a medical text written by Chinese physician Hua Tuo.[source] It was popularised as a recreational drink during the Chinese Tang dynasty [(618–907 CE)], and tea drinking subsequently spread to other East Asian countries. Portuguese priests and merchants introduced it to Europe during the 16th century.[source] During the 17th century, drinking tea became fashionable among the English, who started to plant tea on a large scale in British India.

Similarly, the English word “tea” and its doublet “chai” originally came from the words for “tea” in different Chinese languages. This week’s MEotW, “chá (tea 茶)”, is the word for “tea” in Mandarin.

“Tea” and its Doublet

Hold on, you may say, what’s a doublet? Here is a definition:

doublet

One of two (or more) words in a language that have the same etymological root but have come to the modern language through different routes.

So, how did “tea” and its doublet “chai” both end up in the English language after having come from the same root through different routes?

Linguists Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne discussed this on their podcast Lingthusiasm:

Lauren: One of the things I always find interesting about these loanwords that come to us in batches from particular domains is how it highlights global history, and usually global histories of trade and different power dynamics that have operated over that history. One of my absolute favourite stories is the story of tea. We’ve already talked about “chai” and “chia” in Nepali, “tea” in English. The words for “tea” in many of the world’s languages appear to be related. They’ll either have some kind of /te/ or /ti/ pronunciation or some kind of /t͡ʃ/ – “chia,” “chai” pronunciation. That’s because there were two main places in China from which tea travelled to all the different markets in the world.

Gretchen: In Mandarin, which is historically more spoken towards the centre of China, the word for tea is “cha,” but in Min Nan, which is also a variety of Chinese as spoken in the coastal province of Fujian, it’s pronounced /te/. They use the same character, but they’re pronounced differently, which is very common for how Chinese gets written. The key thing here is “coastal” because people who encountered the plant and the drink tea via the sea, via Fujianese traders, learned to pronounce it /te/ or variants on /te/. In French and German, it’s /te/. In English, it used to be /te/ until the vowel shifted. Whereas people who encountered tea through Central China, through land routes like the silk road – so through Sinitic “cha” – you get Mandarin “cha,” Korean “cha,” Japanese “ocha,” but also Hindi “chai,” Persian “chai,” Arabic “shai,” Turkish “chai,” Russian “chai,” and you’re down to Swahili “chai,” all goes through that land route, and sometimes via Persia, to get from “cha” to “chai.” The great maps that people have produced where you can tell if people encountered tea through the land route where they get “cha,” which becomes “chai,” or through the sea route, which becomes “te” and variants on “te” like “tea.”

The Development of Modern Mandarin

The mention above of historical Mandarin reminds me of a book that I read a while ago, A Billion Voices: China’s Search for a Common Language, by David Moser. Here is an excerpt:

After the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, an urgent priority for the new Chinese government was the task of establishing a common language for a linguistically fractured China. When Mao took power in 1949, language unification continued to be of vital importance to the nation building agenda. Faced with the challenge of unifying a vast country populated with hundreds of ethnicities, languages, and dialects, these political leaders were confronted with some of the same linguistic problems and conundrums raised above: Is there such a thing as ‘the Chinese language’? Should the Chinese people share a common tongue? How should it be defined? How should pronunciation, vocabulary, and correct usage be determined? Should one standard language replace the numerous other regional variations, or should all other forms of Chinese continue to flourish? Should written Chinese continue to use the centuries-old character system, or should it be replaced with an alphabet, or some other phonetic system? And who, after all, is the final arbiter for such decisions?

In the PRC, the twentieth century quest for a solution to these problems has resulted in a version of Chinese called Putonghua. How did China arrive at this common language?

In what follows, I will present a brief historical overview of that process, and trace the trajectory of Putonghua as it moved into the twenty-first century.

The Cantonese Connection

Getting back to how historical words for “tea” in different Chinese languages ended up leading to the words “tea” and “chai” in English, here is some other information, that I found on the World Atlas of Language Structures website:

Most words for ‘tea’ found in the world’s languages are ultimately of Chinese origin, but they differ significantly in their form due to their coming via different routes. The differences begin already on Chinese soil. Most Sinitic languages have a form similar to Mandarin chá, but Min Nan Chinese, spoken e.g. in Fujian and Taiwan, has instead forms like te55 (Chaozhou). The Dutch traders, who were the main importers of tea into Europe, happened to have their main contacts in Amoy (Xiamen) in Fujian. This is why they adopted the word for ‘tea’ as thee, and in this form it then spread to large parts of Europe. The influence from Amoy is also visible in many languages spoken in the former Dutch colonies, as in Malay/Indonesian and Javanese teh. However, the first European tea importers were not the Dutch but the Portuguese, in the 16th century; their trade route went via Macao rather than via Amoy, and consequently Portuguese uses chá, derived from Cantonese cha.

Thus, as in other aspects, it seems that the first contact between the West and China when it comes to tea involved the Cantonese.