Tag: Character Amnesia

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Culture Language Learning Science

gòngtōng

gòngtōng (gòng·tōng shared · {through → [connecting | [in] common]} [→ [applicable to both/all; shared; common; universal]] 共通) 👈🏼 Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

As part of a series of posts about some common myths about Chinese characters, this post discusses the Universality Myth. So, this week’s MEotW is “gòngtōng (gòng·tōng shared · {through → [connecting | [in] common]} [→ [applicable to both/all; shared; common; universal]] 共通)”, an expression that seems to express well the supposed universality that is the subject of this myth.

In “gòngtōng (gòng·tōng shared · {through → [connecting | [in] common]} [→ [applicable to both/all; shared; common; universal]] 共通)”, “gòng (share | common | together | altogether 共)” means “share | common | together | altogether”. This morpheme also appears in other well-known expressions such as “gòngtóng (gòng·tóng shared · {same | together} 共同)”, “gònghé‐guó ((gòng·hé shared · harmony → [republic] 共和)‐(guó country; nation; state 国 國) → [republic])”, and “Gòngchǎn (Gòng·chǎn {Commonly Possessing} · {Produced (Things) → [Property]} → [Communist] 共产 共產)‐Dǎng (Party 党 黨/党)”.

As for “tōng ({[(going)] through[(out)]; open [to]} [→ [common; general | connecting/communicating [to/with] [→ [logical; coherent]]]] 通)”, it here literally means “through”, and effectively means “connecting” or “in common”. It also appears in well-known expressions such as “gōutōng (gōu·tōng {(through) channel} · {(going) through → [communicating]} → [communicating; communication | linking up] 沟通 溝通)”, “jiāotōng (jiāo·tōng crossing; intersecting; meeting; joining · {(going) through → [connecting; communicating]} → [traffic; communications; transportation] 交通)”, “pǔtōng (pǔ·tōng common; general; universal; widespread · {through(out) → [general; common]} → [ordinary; common; average; general] 普通)”, and “tōngguò (tōng·guò through · passing → [passing through] → [through] 通过 通過)”.

When put together, the morphemes in “gòngtōng (gòng·tōng shared · {through → [connecting | [in] common]} [→ [applicable to both/all; shared; common; universal]] 共通)” can effectively mean “shared; common; universal”, which in itself can generally be good. In fact, in our ministry, we look for “gòngtōng (gòng·tōng shared · {through → [in common]} → [common] 共通) diǎn (points 点 點)” (common ground) with those with whom we speak. How universal, though, are Chinese characters? Are they really more universal than, say, alphabets?

Basis and Beliefs

In the book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, linguist and sinologist John DeFrancis writes the following in the chapter entitled “The Universality Myth”:

The Universality Myth is the logical extension of the Ideographic Myth. It is based on the threefold belief that:

1. Chinese characters enable a speaker from Beijing and another from Canton to communicate in writing even though they cannot understand each other’s speech. …
2. Chinese characters make it possible to read today’s newspapers as well as poems written a thousand years ago and philosophical essays written long before Christ. …
3. Chinese characters can function as a universal means of communication among people speaking totally unrelated languages. …

…

Implicitly or explicitly, the statements are meant to contrast Chinese characters with the familiar alphabetic scripts of the West. Chinese characters, it is believed, can do all these things, whereas alphabetic scripts cannot.

In other words, the Universality Myth regarding Chinese characters is that these visible, supposedly ideographic (representing meaning visually, without dependence on speech sounds) symbols of worldly Chinese culture can function across barriers of space, time, and language as universal enablers of communication. That seems amazing, if true. But, is it true? And, is it any more true for Chinese characters than it is for alphabets?

Testing the Relative Universality

DeFrancis goes on to test the Universality Myth by examining what it would take for an illiterate Mandarin speaker and an illiterate Cantonese speaker to learn how to communicate with each other by writing in characters, compared to what it would take for an illiterate French speaker and an illiterate Spanish speaker to learn how to communicate with each other by writing in French (which, as is widely known, is written using the Latin alphabet):

My Chinese colleagues estimate on the basis of their own experience and direct contact with the Chinese educational system that it takes seven to eight years for a Mandarin speaker to learn how to read and write three thousand characters and another year or two for a speaker of Cantonese to reach the same level in Standard Chinese. …My colleagues in French and Spanish estimate it would take the two imagined European illiterates less than half the time to reach a comparable level of proficiency in French.

…The overall picture is clear. It seems incontestable that both Europeans will find it easier to learn to read and write French than it be for either Cantonese or Mandarin speakers to learn to read and write Chinese. If we could add up the combined number of hours needed for the two members of each group to accomplish the same thing, the total would be enormously greater in the case of Chinese written in characters than in the case of French written in an alphabetic script. Even more significant, it would also be enormously greater for Chinese written in characters than for Chinese written in Pinyin. That is to say, it would be much easier for illiterates from Peking and those from Canton, even if the latter remain incapable of speaking Mandarin, to acquire the ability to communicate with each other by learning to read and write Standard Chinese written in Pinyin rather than in characters. Where, then, is the vaunted marvel of tongue-tied Chinese o’er-leaping barriers in speech by communicating with each other by means of those magical Chinese characters?

So, it’s possible for speakers of Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, English, French, Spanish, etc. to learn Chinese characters and use these as a means of communication. However, they could also do this with Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音)! Also, it would actually be much faster and easier to do this with Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) than it would be to do it with the crazy complex characters!

Going Back in Time

What about the claim that characters allow us to still be able to read Chinese writings from long ago? Concerning this, DeFrancis writes:

Apart from learning the characters in their current meanings, Chinese must also learn the frequently different meanings of characters in earlier usage and the definitely different syntactical structures of classical versus contemporary written Chinese. This ability involves considerable training in tasks notorious for their difficulty—tasks that involve mastering differences at least as great as those between current English and the language of Chaucer. Without going into great detail, it should be readily apparent that an illiterate Chinese, regardless of whether he speaks Cantonese or Mandarin, will have a much greater task in learning to read classical Chinese than will an illiterate European, regardless of whether he speaks Spanish or French, in learning to read Latin. In the case of those already literate in current Chinese or French, it is doubtful that Chinese readers would enjoy any advantage over Europeans in respect to the amount of additional effort required to read classical Chinese in contrast to Latin.

So, it would probably be harder for a Chinese person to learn characters and then learn classical Chinese, than it would be for a European person to learn the Latin alphabet, and then learn Latin!

For us Mandarin field language learners specifically, since Jehovah’s organization is continually moving forward with ever broader, deeper, and clearer understandings of various truths, we in contrast seek to use the newest, most up-to-date writings from the organization whenever possible. Even with regard to the Bible itself, first written long ago, we seek, as a rule, to use the most up-to-date translations available. For specific examples in this regard, Appendix A2 (English, Mandarin) of the New World Translation Bible lists ways in which the current version of this Bible has been carefully revised to be more beneficial for modern readers.

It’s worth noting that the Chinese versions of the organization’s publications used to be written only in Chinese characters, but the most recent versions of the organization’s important writings generally have Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) available for them as well now.

Sunk Costs and Future Investments

Of course, those who have already spent years of hard work learning characters wouldn’t have to start that particular long and difficult process from zero (although, tíbǐ (tí·bǐ {carry (hanging down from the hand) → [raise; lift]} · pen; pencil; {writing brush} [→ [start writing; write]] 提笔 提筆)‐wàng (forget 忘)‐zì (character 字) (character amnesia) is real thing that takes constant ongoing effort to ward off). And, if they happen to meet others, even others who don’t speak the same language, who have also already spent years of hard work learning characters, then, yes, they might be able to use characters to imperfectly communicate with these others, to a limited extent—that is indeed one imperfect benefit arising from the massive sunk costs they have incurred in the process of learning characters.

However, those who have not already poured enormous amounts of time and effort into learning characters still have the opportunity to objectively weigh how much time and effort it is reasonable and worthwhile to sink into the characters going forward. As they consider this, they can keep in mind the inescapable reality that, due to the inherent extraordinary complexity of the characters, and due to the way that Jehovah actually designed us humans to use language, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) and other sound-prioritizing writing systems (like Hangul, for those learning Korean) offer much greater ROI (return on investment) than characters do for those considering investing time and effort into learning how to actually communicate with others. Dedicated servants of Jehovah should also keep in mind that the time and energy they have are not theirs alone to spend or waste—their time, energy, etc. actually belong to Jehovah, and should thus be used and invested accordingly.

Anyway, to summarize, the Universality Myth regarding Chinese characters is…BUSTED!

Categories
Culture History Language Learning Names Technology

fántǐ‐zì

fántǐ (fán·tǐ complicated; complex; difficult · {body → [style] → [typeface; font]} → [traditional Chinese] 繁体 繁體)‐zì (characters 字) 👈🏼 Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[This is a reposting of a post that was originally posted on November 30, 2020. I took the opportunity to flesh out the original post and this repost with additional material.]

For a long, long, long time, Chinese characters were just Chinese characters. Then, in 1956, the Communist government of mainland China issued what came to be known as the First Chinese Character Simplification Scheme (a second round of Chinese character simplification was later attempted and ultimately rescinded), and official simplified Chinese characters came into the world. (Some characters had been unofficially simplified and used for various purposes, both everyday and artistic, before that.)

Name?

To distinguish these newfangled official simplified Chinese characters from the Chinese characters that had existed before, and that continue to be used by many people in many parts of the world, retronyms were coined to refer to these pre-existing Chinese characters, just as the term “acoustic guitar” was coined to refer to a regular non-electric guitar after electric guitars came along.

In the English-speaking world, the pre-official simplification characters have come to be called “traditional Chinese characters”, as opposed to the “simplified Chinese characters”. In the Chinese-speaking world, as is true of many things regarding Chinese characters, the situation is…complicated. Wikipedia summarizes the situation thusly:

Traditional Chinese characters (the standard characters) are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world. The government of Taiwan officially calls traditional Chinese characters standard characters or orthodox characters (traditional Chinese: 正體字; simplified Chinese: 正体字; pinyin: zhèngtǐzì; Zhuyin Fuhao: ㄓㄥˋ ㄊㄧˇ ㄗˋ).[source] However, the same term is used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard, simplified and traditional characters from variant and idiomatic characters.[source]

In contrast, users of traditional characters outside Taiwan, such as those in Hong Kong, Macau and overseas Chinese communities, and also users of simplified Chinese characters, call them complex characters (traditional Chinese: 繁體字; simplified Chinese: 繁体字; pinyin: fántǐzì; Zhuyin Fuhao: ㄈㄢˊ ㄊㄧˇ ㄗˋ). Users of simplified characters sometimes informally refer to them as “old characters” (Chinese: 老字; pinyin: lǎozì; Zhuyin Fuhao: ㄌㄠˇ ㄗˋ).

Users of traditional characters also sometimes call them “full Chinese characters” (traditional Chinese: 全體字; simplified Chinese: 全体字; pinyin: quántǐ zì; Zhuyin Fuhao: ㄑㄩㄢˊ ㄊㄧˇ ㄗˋ) to distinguish them from simplified Chinese characters.

In my experience in the Chinese fields in Canada, I have always heard traditional Chinese characters referred to using this week’s MEotW, “fántǐ (fán·tǐ complicated; complex; difficult · {body → [style] → [typeface; font]} → [traditional Chinese] 繁体 繁體)‐zì (characters 字)”. For reference, this is also the term used on jw.org when referring to Mandarin written using traditional Chinese characters:

jw.org referring to Mandarin written using traditional Chinese characters

jw.org refers to traditional Chinese characters as “fántǐ (fán·tǐ complicated; complex; difficult · {body → [style] → [typeface; font]} → [traditional Chinese] 繁体 繁體)” characters.

Beloved by Traditionalists and Purists, But Complicated

Many feel that traditional characters are the best characters of all, since, in their estimation, the official simplified characters have lost some of the heart and soul of characters. As a symbolic example, some point to how the simplified character for “love”, “爱”, omits the “heart” radical (“心”), which is appropriately in the traditional character for “love”, “愛”.

Yes, as the above post mentions, the obvious, glaring issue with traditional characters is—aggravated by the fact that there are tens of thousands of them—their extreme, extraordinary complexity, the result of their problematically complex basic nature, along with thousands of years of accumulated occasionally arbitrary design decisions and developmental cruft. For example, note the below excerpt from p. 82 of the book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, by John DeFrancis:

In the case of the rendition for the huáng meaning “sturgeon” we have two variants, one written with the “yellow” phonetic and the other with the “emperor” phonetic, both combined with the semantic element for “fish”:

魚 “fish”
鱑 “fish” + huáng “yellow” = huáng “sturgeon”
鰉 “fish” + huáng “emperor” = huáng “sturgeon”

While etymological research might succeed in clarifying the basis for some of the variation, in many cases, as one specialist in Chinese paleography concludes, “it is simply a matter of the whim of the writer” (Barnard 1978:203).

Scribal whim goes far to explain a diversity bordering on chaos in the forms of the Chinese characters as they evolved in the Shang dynasty and during the long years of political and administrative disunity in the Zhou dynasty (ca. 1028–221 B.C.). The situation was aggravated by the fact that characters were created by writers living in different historical periods, which inevitably meant changes in sounds over the years, and speaking different dialects, which inevitably affected their choice of phonetic elements in the creation of new characters.

Their inherent extraordinary complexity, exacerbated by an accumulated millennia-long history of design decisions made on a whim, out-of-date phonetic elements, etc., causes especially the traditional characters, and even the (moderately) simplified characters, to be extremely difficult for us imperfect humans to learn and to remember. This has lead to character amnesia and the Great Wall of unfamiliar characters being real things, even among those who have been studying characters for decades. How complex can traditional characters get? Theoretically, there is no upper limit!

The extreme, extraordinary complexity of traditional characters undoubtedly contributed greatly to illiteracy having been widespread in China for much of its history. Even for those who are privileged to be able to devote the extraordinary amount of time and effort needed to learn traditional characters, it’s a long, hard slog, compared to learning a comparatively simple and compact alphabetical writing system. It’s little wonder, then, that there have been serious, concerted efforts to simplify and even replace traditional Chinese characters.

Categories
Culture Language Learning Science Technology Theocratic

róngyào

róngyào (róng·yào glory; honour · {being bright; dazzling; brilliant; shining → [honour; glory]} → [glory; honour] | glorify · {to be bright; dazzling; brilliant; shining → [to be glorious]} → [glorify] | honourable; glorious · {bright; dazzling; brilliant; shining → [glorious]} → [honourable; glorious] 荣耀 榮耀) 👈🏼 Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

Rather than dismissively thinking to ourselves that the songs produced by the organization are “just songs”, we should remember that the slave class takes seriously its responsibility to provide spiritual food to God’s people, and so it is going to make sure that the lyrics in its songs are spiritually correct, while also being emotionally moving.—Ezekiel 33:32; Matthew 24:45.

“Give Jehovah Glory”

“Róngyào” _Pīnyīn_ Plus info, Song 159 (music+_Pīnyīn_), on iPhone 13 mini (landscape orientation)

This week’s MEotW in the unofficial Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus resource “Sing Out Joyfully” Bk. (Pīnyīn+Music, Pīnyīn Plus, Web)

This week’s MEotW, “róngyào (róng·yào glory; honour · {being bright; dazzling; brilliant; shining → [honour; glory]} → [glory; honour] | glorify · {to be bright; dazzling; brilliant; shining → [to be glorious]} → [glorify] | honourable; glorious · {bright; dazzling; brilliant; shining → [glorious]} → [honourable; glorious] 荣耀 榮耀)”, comes from the relatively new song 159, which is entitled “Give Jehovah Glory” in English and “Róngyào (Róng·yào Glory · {Being Shining → [Glory]} → [Glory] 荣耀 榮耀) Guīgěi (Guī·gěi {Give Back} · {to Be Given to} 归给 歸給) Yēhéhuá (Jehovah 耶和华 耶和華)” in Mandarin (WOL, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus).

“Róngyào (Róng·yào glory; honour · {being bright; dazzling; brilliant; shining → [honour; glory]} → [glory; honour] | glorify · {to be bright; dazzling; brilliant; shining → [to be glorious]} → [glorify] | honourable; glorious · {bright; dazzling; brilliant; shining → [glorious]} → [honourable; glorious] 荣耀 榮耀)” is flexible regarding what part of speech it can be—it can mean “glory; honour”, “glorify”, or “honourable; glorious”. In the Mandarin field, what kinds of glory should we be mindful of? Whom should we seek to glorify? What kind of glory is truly glorious?

“Glory from Men” Who Glorify Worldly Human Chinese Culture

Some in the Mandarin field may focus on gaining knowledge of Chinese characters so as to obtain glory from certain humans. Ones who do this are taking a different approach from that of Jesus, who said at John 5:41–44:

I do not accept glory from men, but I well know that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in the name of my Father, but you do not receive me. If someone else came in his own name, you would receive that one. How can you believe, when you are accepting glory from one another and you are not seeking the glory that is from the only God?

Why do some humans heap praise and glory on those who have acquired extensive knowledge of Chinese characters? For one thing, Chinese characters are famously extraordinarily hard to learn and remember (unnecessarily so, actually), and so there is the natural glory given to those who have been able to accomplish a hard thing. Also, though, Chinese characters are glamourized by many as distinctive symbols of worldly human Chinese culture, and many are proud of them, and proud of worldly human Chinese culture. This is a big reason why traditional Mandarin language instruction and traditional Mandarin language teachers in general focus on Chinese characters so much and encourage Mandarin learners to prioritize them.

It is only natural for a student of Mandarin to want to receive glory from his teacher and others like him. Unfortunately, though, experience has shown that going along with a traditional Mandarin language teacher’s focus on characters may lead to a Mandarin learner actually being diverted into a deep rabbit hole and hindered from actually learning how speak Mandarin well. While such ones may, after many years of intense effort, come to be able to recognize many Chinese characters, they may not be able to, say, glorify Jehovah while speaking powerfully and persuasively to Mandarin-speaking people, the way Jesus spoke to people. (Mark 1:22) That’s because this traditional focus on characters has all along been mainly meant, not to help Mandarin learners actually learn to speak Mandarin, but to perpetuate and glorify worldly human Chinese culture.

Glory for Worldly Chinese Political Systems

In this world, certain aspects of Chinese culture can unfortunately get politicized. For example, Simplified characters and Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) were created in mainland China, so some may promote these systems so as to glorify the political system of mainland China. On the other hand, Traditional characters and Zhùyīn (Zhù·yīn {Annotating of} · Sounds → [Zhuyin] 注音 註/注音) continued to be used in Taiwan after the mainland pivoted away from them, so some may promote these systems so as to glorify the political system of Taiwan. Even the Mandarin expression that people use to refer to the Mandarin language (Guóyǔ (Guó·yǔ National · Language → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin (term commonly used in Taiwan)] 国语 國語)/pǔtōnghuà (pǔ·tōng·huà common; universal · {through(out) → [common]} · speech → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin (term commonly used in China)] 普通话 普通話)/Huáyǔ (Huá·yǔ {Magnificent; Splendid; Flowery; Florescent → [Chinese]} · Language → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin (term commonly used in Singapore)] 华语 華語)/etc.) can be made to take on political connotations. Of course, as Jehovah’s politically neutral servants, we must avoid doing things just to glorify one human political system over another.

Another thing that we Mandarin field language learners must beware of is the erroneous idea that Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc. are just “dialects” of “Chinese”. This misconception has been widely spread as political propaganda, to bolster the idea that China should be united under one political system. So, if we parrot that erroneous view regarding so-called Chinese “dialects” that in reality function like distinct languages, then we are actually parroting political propaganda that is designed to glorify China’s central government regardless of any confusion or other negative effects that may result from such spreading of falsehood.

Glory for Jehovah

Rather than allowing ourselves to be used to glorify humans or things in this worldly human system, we can show that we seek to glorify Jehovah, the God of truth. (John 17:17; 4:23, 24) One way we can do so in the Chinese language fields is by rejecting the many untruths that have been spread about the Chinese languages. Also, we can do so by seeking to choose and use systems and methods based on what really works best to help us to praise and glorify Jehovah, not based on what serves to glorify ourselves or worldly humans, and not based on what serves to perpetuate and glorify worldly human cultures, traditions, and political systems.

As Jesus’ words above showed, Jehovah gives “the glory that is from the only God” to those who seek to give glory to him, rather than to mere humans. So, let us follow song 159’s simple but profound admonition, and give glory to Jehovah!