Tag: Language Classification

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Culture Language Learning Science Technology Theocratic

cì’ěr

cì’ěr (cì’·ěr {stabs; pricks → [irritates; pierces]} · ear → [grating on the ear; jarring; ear-piercing] 刺耳) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

I have long especially liked 1 Corinthians 13. It contains counsel on what really does and doesn’t matter in life, an extensive description and definition of the most important kind of love, and a sublime discussion about the need to become complete, mature, as a person. As these apply to life in general, so too do they apply to our lives as Mandarin field language learners.

As Mandarin field language learners, it can benefit us greatly to consider what we can learn from 1 Corinthians 13, and along the way, we can also consider some of the Mandarin expressions used in that chapter in the current version of the Mandarin New World Translation Bible (nwtsty).

“Clashing”

This week’s MEotW, “cì’ěr (cì’·ěr {stabs; pricks → [irritates; pierces]} · ear → [grating on the ear; jarring; ear-piercing] 刺耳)”, occurs in verse 1 (WOL, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus) of 1 Corinthians 13:

Screenshot of “cì’ěr” in 1 Co. 13:1 (nwtsty, CHS+_Pīnyīn_ WOL)

(Dark mode for the Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY (WOL) website, as shown in the above image, can be enabled in the Safari web browser by using the Noir Safari extension.)

“Cì’ěr (Cì’·ěr {stabs; pricks → [irritates; pierces]} · ear → [grating on the ear; jarring; ear-piercing] 刺耳)” literally means “stabs ear”, and is used in the Mandarin New World Translation Bible’s rendering of 1 Corinthians 13:1 to translate the “clashing” in “clashing cymbal”. In this context, “cì’ěr (cì’·ěr {stabs; pricks → [irritates; pierces]} · ear → [grating on the ear; jarring; ear-piercing] 刺耳)” effectively means “grating on the ear; jarring; ear-piercing”.

Mandarin Field Need-Greater? Or Ear-Grater 😬?

First, let me establish that of course Jehovah and we who are in the Mandarin field deeply appreciate those who have been moved by love to come and try to learn Mandarin and help out in the Mandarin field. Given that, sometimes things do happen that can literally and figuratively grate on the ears of those who truly serve in this field out of love, and who have become acquainted with what good Mandarin sounds like.

The Tone Beast…

One time, a brother I know whose mother tongue is English gave a Mandarin talk during which so many of his tones were off that at times I was genuinely having trouble making out what words he was saying, even when I was listening closely. After that meeting, when I tried to kindly advise him that this was the case, he jokingly quipped something like ‘Well, at least I made you listen closely!’

Maybe this brother really did try his best, and maybe his reply was just an attempt to lighten the mood with some humour. He may also have felt safe using some humour because we know each other and generally get along fairly well. However, his words in this case might also be taken to show that he took his responsibility to give a good Mandarin talk a bit lightly. If so, things said with such a flippant attitude could grate on the ears of someone who views with appropriate seriousness the God-honouring and life-saving work that needs to be done in the Mandarin field.

It is true that especially for those whose mother tongue is, say, English, the tones can be one of the most difficult aspects of Mandarin for them to master, since that way of using pitch (how high or low a “note” is) is so different from how they use pitch in English. The sincere efforts of Mandarin field language learners in this regard are much appreciated!

…And How to Tame It

For those of us who are trying to learn Mandarin for the Mandarin field, it should help if we keep the following points in mind regarding Mandarin tones:

  • Tones are just as important to conveying meaning in Mandarin as vowels are to conveying meaning in English. In English, if someone says a wrong vowel, that person is not actually saying the word that person meant to say, and that person is not expressing the meaning that person meant to express. For example, there’s a world of difference between “I love you” and “I leave you”, even though it’s “only” the matter of a single vowel. Similarly, in Mandarin, if someone uses a wrong tone, that person is saying a whole different word from what that person meant to say, as shown by the classic example of “mā (ma; mom; mummy; mother 妈 媽)/má (hemp; flax; linen | (surname) | {[is] pocked; pockmarked; pitted; spotty} [→ [[is] rough; coarse]] | numbed; tingling | sesame 麻 麻/蔴)/mǎ (horse [(surname)] [→ [knight chess piece; horse piece in Chinese chess | [is] big; large]] 马 馬)/mà ({verally abuse}; curse; swear; {call names} [→ [condemn; rebuke; reprove; scold]] 骂 罵/駡)/ma ([? ptcl for “yes/no” questions] 吗 嗎)”.
  • In languages like English, we may change the pitch of what we are saying to do things like add emphasis, ask a question, etc. In Mandarin, though, as explained above, the tone of a syllable—which involves how pitch is used while saying it—is an essential part of how that syllable represents meaning. So, while in English the way we use pitch while saying a word may be negotiable based on how we want to emphasize it, etc., in Mandarin, tones are non-negotiable, like our stand on blood transfusions is non-negotiable. A first tone, for example, must always be recognizable as a first tone and must not be changed into a fourth tone or something, no matter how much we want to emphasize a Mandarin word with a first tone in it!
    • How can we add emphasis in Mandarin, then? Study 10 of the Teaching (th) brocure, entitled “Modulation”, tells us that ‘we can convey ideas clearly and stir emotion by varying our volume, pitch, and pace’. So, while the pitches of Mandarin tones are non-negotiable, we can still add emphasis in Mandarin by varying volume—by speaking softer or louder—and/or by varying pace—by speaking slower or faster.
  • Wrong tones can be really cì’ěr (cì’·ěr {stabbing → [irritating]} · ear → [grating on the ear] 刺耳) because, as mentioned above, tones are made of pitch, and when one speaks with wrong pitches, it’s a lot like singing off-key—very grating to the ears of those who know how the music of the language should sound! 🎵

With the above points in mind, do the following:

  • Practise recognizing the different tones and telling them apart when listening to Mandarin speech. This is especially important if you have just recently started to learn Mandarin, and are not used to what Mandarin tones sound like yet. Such practice is needed to gradually train your hearing. As it is with determining if a musical instrument is in tune or not, eventually, with focus and practice, recognizing Mandarin tones will become easier, even second nature.
    • As you get better at being able to recognize good Mandarin tones when you hear them, that will in turn help you to make sure you speak with good Mandarin tones. Speaking of which…
  • Practise speaking with correct Mandarin tones. This is also especially important if you have just recently started to learn Mandarin, and are not used to speaking with Mandarin tones yet. Such practice is needed to gradually train your body’s system for producing speech. Beware: If you let yourself get into bad habits early on involving the tones, then you’ll have to walk a long, hard road to get rid of these bad habits later. As it is with playing a musical instrument well, eventually, with focus, study, and practice, speaking with correct Mandarin tones will become easier, even second nature. 🎸

The Cantonese Twist

As discussed in the MEotW post on “fāngyán (fāng·yán {direction → [place]} · speech → [topolect; dialect (common but misleading translation)] 方言)”, to those who know Mandarin well, Cantonese that is twisted to try to make it sound like Mandarin sounds awful:

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.

Any Cantonese-speakers who help out in the Mandarin field are very much appreciated, but it would be good for everyone involved if they realized that, contrary to worldly political propaganda, Mandarin and Cantonese are not just different dialects of the same Chinese language. Rather, as linguists recognize, Mandarin and Cantonese, being mutually unintelligible, are really different languages, like French and English are different languages. So, we should all understand and expect that as different languages, Mandarin and Cantonese have different phonologies. That is, they basically sound different, not just like slightly twisted versions of each other. Some, in fact, have compared how different Mandarin and Cantonese sound to how different chickens and ducks sound.

Avoiding Being “a Clashing Cymbal”

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love, I have become a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal.
—1 Corinthians 13:1.

Chinese people are known for being very appreciative of Westerners who try to speak Mandarin or one of the other Chinese languages, and for often praising the spoken results of such efforts as being much better than they actually are. Beginning Chinese language learners especially are often given lots of leeway when it comes to how they sound.

After a few years or even decades, though, does our Mandarin speech, for example, still sound not much better than it did when we started learning Mandarin? Some have observed that those who focus on Chinese characters and pay relatively little attention to Mandarin speech often—unsurprisingly—don’t speak Mandarin very well. Some may say that their focusing on Chinese characters shows their love for Chinese culture, but is it not more important for Christians especially to show love for Chinese people by learning to actually understand what they say and learning to speak to them understandably? And as Witnesses of Jehovah, is it not more important to show love for Jehovah by being able to speak clearly, understandably, and movingly in Mandarin about him and the good news of his Kingdom?

While a lot of leeway is rightly given to beginning Mandarin language leaners, one not progressing after learning Mandarin for a long time might in some cases give at least the impression of a lack of caring, a lack of love on the part of that one. (Hebrews 5:12) As humans, we can often tell if something has not been made, done, or said lovingly, with care, for example, if not much attention to “details” like tones is evident. On the other hand, even if some music is performed or something is said in a way that may show only a modest amount of skill or talent, but that does show a lot of love, people often appreciate that more than if one is displaying great skill or talent, but is only doing so to show off or something. Such a one would indeed seem like “a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal”, or, as the Mandarin NWT Bible says, a “chǎonào ({(disturbing by) making noise} 吵闹 吵鬧) de (’s 的) luó (gong 锣 鑼), cì’ěr (cì’·ěr {stabbing → [irritating]} · ear → [grating on the ear] 刺耳) de (’s 的) bó (cymbal 钹 鈸)”.—1 Corinthians 13:1 (English, Mandarin).

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.

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.

Chart: Languages by First-Language Speakers—2019

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.