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Current Events

gāowēn

gāowēn (gāo·wēn high · {being warm → [temperature]} 高温 高溫) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Notes: Tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to reveal its “flashcard”; tap/click on a “flashcard” or its Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to hide the “flashcard”. 📖 📄 📘 icons mean 📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced, and 📘 Reveal None re all the “flashcards” in the heading, paragraph, etc. that they are placed at the beginning of.]

Currently, many around the world are being affected by high temperatures, which scientists say is part of a pattern of global warming caused by human activity. As of this writing, jw.org is featuring the article “Record-Breaking Temperatures Worldwide—What Does the Bible Say?”. The Mandarin version of this article uses the expression “ (breaking 破) jìlù (records 记/纪录 記/紀錄) de ( 的) gāowēn (gāo·wēn high · {(incidents of) being warm → [temperatures]} 高温 高溫)” to translate the English expression “record-breaking temperatures”. (When talking to people, mentioning that the temperatures being reported worldwide are “ (breaking 破) jìlù (records 记/纪录 記/紀錄)” (record-breaking) will emphasize that these are noteworthy, atypical (unusual) temperatures.)

The morphemewēn ({[is] warm} [→ [temperature]] | {warm [up]} [→ [review; revise | recall; recollect; relive]])”, as used in “gāowēn (gāo·wēn high · {being warm → [temperature]} 高温 高溫)”, can be thought of as being short for “wēndù (wēn·dù {(of) being warm} · {degree of intensity} → [temperature] 温度 溫度)”, which is often used to translate “temperature”.

Stative Verbs

We can also note that in “gāowēn (gāo·wēn high · {being warm → [temperature]} 高温 高溫)”, “wēn ({[is] warm} [→ [temperature]] | {warm [up]} [→ [review; revise | recall; recollect; relive]])” has a literal meaning of “being warm”. Thus, it is here being a stative verb.

Wēn ({[is] warm} [→ [temperature]] | {warm [up]} [→ [review; revise | recall; recollect; relive]])” is also a stative verb in past MEotW “wēnhé (wēn·hé {[is] warm} · {[is] gentle}; {[is] mild}; {[is] moderate} [→ [mildness]] 温和 溫和)”. The MEotW post for “wēnhé (wēn·hé {[is] warm} · {[is] gentle}; {[is] mild}; {[is] moderate} [→ [mildness]] 温和 溫和)” said the following about stative verbs:

The ABC Chinese-English Dictionary, edited by John DeFrancis and Victor H. Mair, among others, tells us the following about the entries in it that are marked as stative verbs:

S.V. (Stative Verb, Xíngróngcí 形容词).

These entries are frequently translated into English as adjectives, even though they actually behave in Chinese as verbs. That is, the sense of ‘to be’ is already incorporated into these verbs, e.g. Zhèige hěn hǎo ‘This is quite good.’ In fact, it is simply ungrammatical to place the verb shì, ‘to be’, directly in front of a stative verb.

Because stative verbs are actually verbs, they are directly negated by , e.g. bù hǎo ‘not good’, and can be further modified by adverbs of degree such as hěn ‘quite’, fēicháng ‘extremely’ and shífēn ‘very; utterly’. One common function of stative verbs is that they may serve as adverbs to other actions, e.g. mànmàn in mànmàn chī ‘Take your time (eating)’ and rènzhēn in rènzhēn de xiě ‘write carefully’.

Usage Examples

Here are a couple of examples of “gāowēn (gāo·wēn high · {being warm → [temperature]} 高温 高溫)” in use, taken from the above-mentioned jw.org article:

English:

[Recently,] record-breaking temperatures [have been] reported worldwide.

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Zuìjìn (Zuì·jìn most · {being near → [being recent]} → [recently] 最近), shìjiè (shì·jiè {generation → [world]} · extent → [world] 世界) gèdì (gè·dì various · lands 各地) dōu (even 都) chūxiàn (chū·xiàn {have put out} · {appearings of} 出现 出現) (breaking 破) jìlù (records 记/纪录 記/紀錄) de ( 的) gāowēn (gāo·wēn high · {(incidents of) being warm → [temperatures]} 高温 高溫).

English:

Rising global temperatures have led many to fear that mankind will ruin the earth.

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Zài (in 在) shìjiè (shì·jiè {generation → [world]} · extent → [world] 世界) gèdì (gè·dì various · lands 各地) fāshēng (fā·shēng {issuing forth} · {coming to life} → [happening] 发生 發生) de (’s 的) gāowēn (gāo·wēn high · {(incidents of) being warm → [temperatures]} 高温 高溫) ràng ({have made}) hěn (very 很) duō (many 多) rén (people 人) gǎndào (gǎn·dào feel · {arriving at} 感到) hàipà (hài·pà feeling · fearing → [fearing] 害怕), dānxīn (dān·xīn {carry on shoulder poles → [take on (heavy)]} · hearts → [worry] 担/耽心 擔/耽心) dìqiú (dì·qiú earth · globe 地球) huì (will) yīncǐ (yīn·cǐ {because of} · this 因此) bèi ([passive signifier] → [by] 被) rénlèi (rén·lèi man·kind 人类 人類) huǐmiè (huǐ·miè {be destroyed} · {be extinguished} 毁灭 毀滅).

Categories
Culture Current Events History Technology

rèlàng

rèlàng (rè·làng heat · wave 热浪 熱浪) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

Currently, many around the world are being affected by heat waves, which scientists say is part of a pattern of global warming caused by human activity. As of this writing, jw.org is featuring the article “Climate Change and Our Future—What the Bible Says”. The Mandarin version of this article uses the expression “rèlàng (rè·làng heat · wave 热浪 熱浪)”, this week’s MEotW, to translate the English expression “heat wave”.

It seems that “rèlàng (rè·làng heat · wave 热浪 熱浪)” is just a simple, straightforward exact translation of “heat wave”. While sometimes, like with “zhǐnán zhēn ((zhǐ·nán {(points with) finger → [points]} · south 指南) (zhēn needle) [compass])” (a previous MEotW), the Mandarin expression for “compass”, East and West approached the same thing from opposite directions, other times, like with “rèlàng (rè·làng heat · wave 热浪 熱浪)” and “heat wave”, the reality referred to is so simple and the applicable metaphors are so obvious that East and West settled on the same linguistic solution.

While “rèlàng (rè·làng heat · wave 热浪 熱浪)” is definitely not a loanword (like previous MEotWkǎlā’OK (karaoke 卡拉OK)” is), which is a word that’s adopted from one language into another language without translation, it seems possible that it’s a calque, or loan translation, which is “a word or phrase in a language formed by word-for-word or morpheme-by-morpheme translation of a word in another language”, according to one of the definitions of “calque” listed by Wordnik.

Wordnik—Chinese Field Connections

By the way, while this blog is mainly about Mandarin expressions, it’s written in English, mainly for English-speakers, and often it will compare Mandarin expressions to English expressions. Of course, it will use English words—like “loanword” and “calque”—to discuss Mandarin expressions. So, it’s good for it to have a resource to refer to like Wordnik, which claims to be “the world’s biggest online English dictionary, by number of words”. Being online, it is not constrained by the limitations imposed by the millennia-old medium of paper, as delightfully explained in this TED talk given by Erin McKean, the founder of Wordnik:

Here are a few quotes from the above video:

Why are you blaming the ham for being too big for the pan? You can’t get a smaller ham—the English language is as big as it is. So if you have a ham butt problem and you’re thinking about the ham butt problem, the conclusion that it leads you to is inexorable and counter-intuitive—paper is the enemy of words.

They’re like, “Oh my, people are going to take away my beautiful paper dictionaries?” No, there will still be paper dictionaries. When we had cars, when cars became the dominant mode of transportation, we didn’t round up all the horses and shoot them. You know, there’re still going to be paper dictionaries but it’s not going to be the dominant dictionary. The book-shaped dictionary is not going to be the only shape dictionaries come in, and it’s not going to be the prototype for the shapes dictionaries come in.

[I still use the illustration about cars and horses when talking to people who worry about what would happen to Chinese characters if Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) were ever to get widely adopted.]

Lexicography [the practice of compiling dictionaries] is not rocket science, but even if it were, rocket science is being done by dedicated amateurs these days. You know, it can’t be that hard to find some words.

This is a little-known technological fact about the Internet, but the Internet is actually made up of words and enthusiasm, and words and enthusiasm actually happen to be the recipe for lexicography. Isn’t that great?

If we get a bigger pan, then we can put all the words in. We can put in all the meanings. Doesn’t everyone want more meaning in their lives?

The web page for this TED talk says it was part of the TED2007 conference. I remember that after I saw it, it influenced my thinking as I subsequently contributed to some of the projects for Chinese-field unofficial language-learning resources. (E.g., “We can do this, whether or not it’s rocket science!” “We can transcend paper now!” “Including the meanings is good! Doesn’t everyone want more meaning in their lives?”) Many such resources, like the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus Expressions (Web) resource, the Referenced Theocratic Expressions (RTE) resource, and even, in a way, the 3-line, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus, etc. material resources can be thought of as specialized dictionaries. (In 3-line, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus, etc. material resources, you can look up Mandarin words in the order in which they appear in certain official Mandarin publications!)

Making Good Use of Bigger Pans

Years ago, there was one project that was discussed, for creating an unofficial pocket-sized paper dictionary for Chinese theocratic terms that was to be…about the size of what we now call a smartphone, except, of course, thicker. Looking back, it’s not surprising that that project never came to fruition, partly because of the limitations of paper. Those limitations would have necessitated selecting for inclusion in the proposed pocket-sized dictionary a subset of the full dictionary also being worked on (which we now have in the form of the RTE), and they also would have led to difficulties regarding formatting and printing out for such a small form factor—it was just too small a pan.

Also, note that 2007, the year that the above-mentioned TED talk was given, was also the year that the iPhone came out. The iPad followed not long after in 2010, and pretty soon, smartphones and tablets proliferated among those in the Chinese fields, along with resources like apps, websites, digital publications, etc. that were designed for such mobile devices. When entire libraries can be contained in one’s smartphone or tablet, one is probably not usually inclined to seek out paper equivalents. Indeed, to many who grew up with touchscreen mobile devices, paper publications that don’t allow things like resizing of text or looking up information on words seem broken.

Categories
Current Events

bàolì

bàolì (bào·lì violent · force → [violence | violent] 暴力) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Notes: This blog uses “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus” technology. Tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to reveal its “flashcard”, tap/click on a “flashcard” or its Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to hide the “flashcard”. 📖 📄 📘 icons mean 📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced, and 📘 Reveal None re all the “flashcards” in the paragraph, etc. that they are placed at the beginning of.]

Unfortunately, gun violence has been in the news a lot lately. As of this writing, jw.org is featuring the article “Shocking Gun Violence Worldwide—What Does the Bible Say?”. Also, the article “School Shootings—What Does the Bible Say?” was recently featured. The Mandarin versions of both these articles both use the expression “bàolì (bào·lì violent · force → [violence | violent] 暴力)”, which means “violence” or “violent”.

Usage Examples

Here are some examples of how “bàolì (bào·lì violent · force → [violence | violent] 暴力)” is used in the above-mentioned articles:

English:

Why is the world becoming more violent?

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Wèishénme (Wèi·shén·me for · what · [suf] → [why] 为什么 為什/甚麼) rén (people 人) yuè‐lái‐yuè ((yuè {jumping over} 越) (lái coming) (yuè {jumping over} 越)) [more and more]) bàolì (bào·lì violent · force → [are violent] 暴力)?

English:

Is there any hope that the violence will end?

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Zhèyàng (Zhè·yàng this · kind 这样 這樣) de (’s 的) bàolì (bào·lì violent · force → [violent] 暴力) shìjiàn (shì·jiàn incidents · [mw] 事件) huì (will) yǒu (have 有) zhōngzhǐ (zhōng·zhǐ ending · stopping 终止 終止) de (’s 的) (one 一) tiān (sky → [day] 天) ma ([? ptcl for “yes/no” questions])?

English:

The Bible promises a time when violence will end.

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Shèngjīng (Shèng·jīng (the) Holy · Scriptures → [the Bible] 圣经 聖經)shuō (says說/説), bàolì (bào·lì violent · force → [violence] 暴力) huì (will) yǒu (have 有) zhōngzhǐ (zhōng·zhǐ ending · stopping 终止 終止) de (’s 的) (one 一) tiān (sky → [day] 天).

English:

God will eliminate the root causes of violent acts by teaching people to live in peace.

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Shàngdì (Shàng·dì Above’s · {Emperor → [God]} → [God] 上帝) huì (will) jiàodǎo (jiào·dǎo teach · instruct 教导 教導) rén (people 人) zěnyàng (zěn·yàng what · {form → [way]} → [how] 怎样 怎樣) hémù ({to be harmonious} 和睦)xiāngchǔ (xiāng·chǔ {with each other} · {to get along} 相处 相處), cóng (from) gēnběn (gēn·běn {root (of a plant)} · {root or stem of a plant} → [root] 根本) shang (upon 上) xiāochú (xiāo·chú eliminate · {get rid of} 消除) dǎozhì (dǎo·zhì lead · {to extend to} 导致 導致) bàolì (bào·lì violent · force → [violence] 暴力) de (’s 的) yuányīn (yuán·yīn origins · causes 原因).

Some Related Mandarin Expressions

Here are some other Mandarin expressions that also include the morphemebào ({[sudden] [and] [violent]} [→ [cruel; savage; fierce]] | {stick/stand out}; bulge 暴)”:

  • bàofā (bào·fā exploding; bursting · {sending out}; issuing → [erupting; bursting/breaking out | explosion; eruption] 爆发 爆發) (a past MEotW)
  • bàofāhù (bào·fā·hù exploded; burst · {sent out}; issued · {door → [household; family | person of a certain status]} → [upstart | nouveau riche; newly rich] 爆发户 爆發戶)
  • bàofēng (bào·fēng violent · wind → [storm wind; gale; windstorm; storm] 暴风 暴風)
  • bàoliè (bào·liè violent · intense; fierce 暴烈)
  • bàolóng (bào·lóng {violent → [savage]} · dragon → [Tyrannosaurus species (esp. Tyrannosaurus rex)] 暴龙 暴龍)
  • bàoxíng (bào·xíng {violent [→ [savage]]} · {walking → [doing; deed; act]} → [savage act; outrage; atrocity] 暴行)
  • cánbào (cán·bào {injuring; damaging → [cruel; savage; ferocious]} · violent; brutal 残暴 殘暴)
  • fēngbào (fēng·bào wind · {being violent} → [windstorm; tempest; storm] 风暴 風暴)
  • wǎngbào (wǎng·bào {net → [network] → [Internet]} · {being violent} → [cyberbullying (abbr. for wǎngluò bàolì)] 网暴 網暴)
  • xiōngbào (xiōng·bào {[is] fierce}; {[is] ferocious} · {[is] sudden and violent → [[is] cruel; savage; brutal]} 凶暴 凶/兇暴)