Tag: Speech

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húzi

húzi (hú·zi beard; moustache; whiskers · [suf for nouns] → [beard; moustache; whiskers] 胡子 鬍子) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

This week’s MEotW, “húzi (hú·zi beard; moustache; whiskers · [suf for nouns] → [beard; moustache; whiskers] 胡子 鬍子)”, is used, along with the expression “húxū (hú·xū beard; moustache; whiskers · beard; moustache 胡须 鬍鬚)”, to translate “beard” in the Mandarin version of the 2023 Governing Body Update #8 video.

“_Húzi_” used in the Mandarin version of the 2023 Governing Body Update #8 video

Morphemic Breakdown

In “húzi (hú·zi beard; moustache; whiskers · [suf for nouns] → [beard; moustache; whiskers] 胡子 鬍子)”, “hú (beard; moustache; whiskers 胡 鬍)” means “beard; moustache; whiskers”. (Note that this is the meaning of the Simplified Chinese character “胡” when it corresponds to the Traditional Chinese character “鬍”. This Simplified character can also correspond to the Traditional characters “胡” and “衚”, which have different meanings.)

As for “zi ([suf for nouns] 子)”, it is used in “húzi (hú·zi beard; moustache; whiskers · [suf for nouns] → [beard; moustache; whiskers] 胡子 鬍子)” as a suffix that is attached to nouns. Other examples of this in use are:

  • cèzi (cè·zi brochure; booklet · [suf for nouns] 册子 冊子)
  • dùzi (dù·zi belly; abdomen; stomach; bowels · [suf for nouns] 肚子)
  • rìzi (rì·zi {sun → [day]} · [suf for nouns] 日子)
  • shīzi (shī·zi lion · [suf for nouns] 狮子 獅子)
  • qīzi (qī·zi wife · [suf for nouns] 妻子)
  • érzi (ér·zi son · [suf for nouns] 儿子 兒子)
  • háizi (hái·zi child · [suf for nouns] [→ [son; daughter]] 孩子)
  • sūnzi (sūn·zi grandson · [suf for nouns] [→ [son’s son]] 孙子 孫子)

In specific cases, like in “nánzǐ (nán·zǐ male · person [→ [man]] 男子)” and in “nǚzǐ (nǚ·zǐ female · person [→ [woman]] 女子)”, “子” is written in Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) with a third tone, and is used to mean “person”.

Avoiding Unnecessary Divisions

One of the things that the above-mentioned video touches on is that we should not let the matter of beards become a cause for division among God’s people. In the Mandarin field, it may be that some hesitate to use or speak of Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), out of concern about causing real or perceived division, since many Mandarin field publishers are still accustomed to the traditional primacy of Chinese characters in worldly Chinese culture. Of course, we should avoid using or speaking about Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) in situations and ways that would truly lead to unnecessary division among Jehovah’s people—every situation is different, and we must try our best to be motivated by Christian love and to use discernment and sound judgment in every situation.

Also, let me emphasize that I, on this blog or anywhere else, do not presume to be giving authoritative spiritual direction to any of God’s people—that is the privilege and responsibility of the slave class. (Matthew 24:45–47) Rather, like any publisher who gives talks, gives comments, or just discusses various subjects both technical and spiritual with fellow believers, I seek to share what I have learned from my studies and my experience, that hopefully can be helpful to fellow workers in Jehovah’s service.

Beards vs. Writing Systems

One thing I notice is that while the Bible and the organization have specifically commented on and provided direction for God’s people living in different time periods concerning beards, it seems that neither the Bible nor the organization has specifically commented on or provided direction about any particular writing system like Chinese characters or Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音). (Note, though, that the organization’s actions may have done some speaking of their own—over time, overall, the organization has gradually been making available more and more official material that contains Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音).)

As far as I know and can recall, one of the only scriptures in the Bible from which we can gain some insight about writing systems is 1 Corinthians 14:8–11:

8 For if the trumpet sounds an indistinct call, who will get ready for battle? 9 In the same way, unless you with the tongue use speech that is easily understood, how will anyone know what is being said? You will, in fact, be speaking into the air. 10 It may be that there are many kinds of speech in the world, and yet no kind is without meaning. 11 For if I do not understand the sense of the speech, I will be a foreigner to the one speaking, and the one speaking will be a foreigner to me.

This scripture speaks about the primary importance of understandable speech when it comes to how Christian ministers should use language, while not bothering to even mention writing systems. This reflects well the reality that linguists are familiar with, that because of the way that Jehovah created us humans to use language, speech is primary, and writing is secondary, if anything. Indeed, many, many languages don’t even have a writing system! And yet, as Revelation 14:6 shows us, this does not stop the preaching of the good news in any of these tongues, that is, spoken languages:

And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, and he had everlasting good news to declare to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people.

(Interestingly, while it mentions “every…tongue”, or spoken language, this scripture doesn’t bother to mention writing systems either.)

So, while the prevailing worldly Chinese culture may tell us that Chinese characters are awesome and that we should all primarily focus on learning them, the Bible and the organization consider beards more worthy of mention than writing systems like Chinese characters. One thing that the above-mentioned video points out as something to avoid is “contradicting the guidance from the organization”, and it’s not difficult to avoid this with regard to, say, Chinese writing systems when there is no guidance from the organization about this subject (unless one has a tendency to, say, carry on as if there has been guidance from the organization to focus on Chinese characters when, actually, as far as I am aware, there has not been any such guidance, and what writing system to use remains a personal decision).

At the same time, though, if we focus on the inhumanly and unnecessarily numerous and complex Chinese characters so much that our abilities to understand spoken Mandarin and to speak Mandarin understandably remain seriously underdeveloped, then we would obviously not be following the counsel at 1 Corinthians 14:8–11 about the need to prioritize and use understandable speech in our ministry.

Traditions and Divisions

It is evident, then, that if any publisher were to make a fuss in support of the Chinese characters writing system or opposing or ridiculing the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) writing system, that publisher would be doing so because of some mixture of personal opinion/ignorance, human tradition, and cultural pride, not because of any scriptural basis or direction from the organization. And, as we should know, the Bible and the organization DO have a lot to say about the importance of NOT doing things because of things like personal opinion/ignorance, human tradition, and cultural pride. Such things can certainly cause unnecessary division among God’s people, since our unity as God’s people comes, not from together following human traditions and ways of doing things, but from together following direction from the Bible and from God’s organization. Let us, then, follow the actual direction from the Bible and from God’s organization so that we can build each other up spiritually, and so that we can really do the best we can to help praise and glorify Jehovah—not any human culture—and accomplish well the great work that he has given us to do in these last days.

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Hāmǐjíduōdùn

Hāmǐjíduōdùn (Armageddon 哈米吉多顿 哈米吉多頓) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Notes: Tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to reveal its “flashcard”; tap/click on a “flashcard” or its Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · 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.]

At the time of this writing, jw.org was featuring an article with the following title:

English:

Will Armageddon Begin in Israel?—What Does the Bible Say?

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Hāmǐjíduōdùn (Armageddon 哈米吉多顿 哈米吉多頓) Dàzhàn (Dà·zhàn {Big → [Great]} · War 大战 大戰) Huì (Will 会 會) zài (in 在) Yǐsèliè (Israel 以色列) Bàofā (Bào·fā Explode · {Issue Forth} → [Erupt] 爆发 爆發) ma ([? ptcl for “yes/no” questions] 吗 嗎)? Shèngjīng (Shèng·jīng (the) Holy · Scriptures → [the Bible] 圣经 聖經) de (’s 的) Guāndiǎn (Guān·diǎn {Looking At → [View]} · Point → [Viewpoint] 观点 觀點) Shì (Is 是) Shénme (Shén·me What · [suf] 什么 什/甚麼)?

This week’s MEotW is “Hāmǐjíduōdùn (Armageddon 哈米吉多顿 哈米吉多頓)”, the Mandarin syllables of which were obviously chosen first because of how much they sound like the English word “Armageddon” (and perhaps the original Hebrew word from which that came), not because of the meanings of the supposedly ideographic Chinese characters used to write them out (“Exhale Rice Lucky Much Pausing”??? 🤷🏻).

This emphasizes to us that when it comes to human language, SPEECH is primary—SOUNDS are the primary medium for transmitting meaning, and a writing system that transmits meaning purely with its visual symbols, without any dependency on speech sounds, is not a thing. However, this erroneous concept is so prevalent that there’s a name for it: The Ideographic Myth.

Several past MEotW posts have mentioned in passing the Ideographic Myth concerning Chinese characters, so it’s about time this blog took a deeper dive into this subject. Below are some selected excerpts from the chapter “The Ideographic Myth”, of the book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, by John DeFrancis, along with some commentary.

the concept of written symbols conveying their message directly to our minds, thus bypassing the restrictive intermediary of speech

This is a definition of the concept of “ideographic” writing.

Aren’t Chinese characters a sophisticated system of symbols that similarly convey meaning without regard to sound? Aren’t they an ideographic system of writing?

The answer to these questions is no. Chinese characters are a phonetic, not an ideographic, system of writing…There never has been, and never can be, such a thing as an ideographic system of writing.

Indeed, Chinese characters are always used to represent some language’s speech, are they not? They can be used to represent the speech of multiple languages, but they are not used in any way in which they do not represent the speech of any language, are they? There are no Chinese characters that have no spoken pronunciation in any language, are there? So, while some may find the idea of Chinese characters being an ideographic writing system fascinating, in real-life, actual use, Chinese characters are a phonetic writing system representing a language’s speech sounds (which do the actual representing of meanings)—Chinese characters are not an ideographic writing system directly representing meanings.

Origin of the Myth

The concept of Chinese writings as a means of conveying ideas without regard to speech took hold as part of the chinoiserie fad among Western intellectuals that was stimulated by the generally highly laudatory writings of Catholic missionaries from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

…

It was not acquaintance with Chinese but decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing following Napoleon’s conquests in North Africa that led to the coining of several expressions related to the ideographic idea.

…

Decipherment of this script had long been impeded by the notion that it was symbolic of ideas, particularly mystical or spiritual ones. It was not just the discovery of the famous Rosetta Stone, with its bilingual text in three scripts (Hieroglyphic Egyptian, Demotic Egyptian, and Greek) that made this possible. As Gordon (1968:24) stresses: “The decipherment of Hieroglyphic Egyptian required the replacement of the deep-seated notion of symbolism by the correct view that the main (though not the only) feature of the script is phonetic.”

Champollion’s success in deciphering the Egyptian script was due to his recognition of its phonetic aspect.

…

The rebus idea seems obvious to us since we use it in children’s games, but it actually constitutes a stupendous invention, an act of intellectual creation of the highest order—a quantum leap forward beyond the stage of vague and imprecise pictures to a higher stage that leads into the ability to represent all the subtleties and precision expressible in spoken language. Writing is now directly, clearly, firmly related to language: to speech. If there was ever any question whether a symbol had a sound attached to it, this now receives a positive answer. In the earliest form known to us, the character for “wheat” was borrowed to represent the word “come” precisely because both were pronounced in the same way.

…

What is crucial is to recognize that the diverse forms perform the same function in representing sound. To see that writing has the form of pictures and to conclude that it is pictographic is correct in only one sense—that of the form, but not the function, of the symbols. We can put it this way:

QUESTION: When is a pictograph not a pictograph?

ANSWER: When it represents a sound.

The use of the pictograph for “wheat” to represent the homophonous word ləg (“come”) transformed the function of the symbol from pictographic depiction of an object to syllabic representation of a sound. This change in function has been the essential development marking the emergence of all true systems of writing, including Chinese.

Sinological Contribution to the Myth

The fact that some Chinese pictographs have not undergone a change in form parallel to the change in function has tended to obscure the significance of the change that did take place. As a result, the phonetic aspect of Chinese writing is minimized by many people, even specialists in the field.

…

The error of exaggerating the pictographic and hence semantic aspect of Chinese characters and minimizing if not totally neglecting the phonetic aspect tends to fix itself very early in the minds of many people, both students of Chinese and the public at large, because their first impression of the characters is likely to be gained by being introduced to the Chinese writing system via some of the simplest and most interesting pictographs…. Unless a determined effort is made to correct this initial impression, it is likely to remain as an article of faith not easily shaken by subsequent exposure to different kinds of graphs.

…

Myth vs. Reality

A limited number of pictographic or semantic characters…cannot be considered indicative of full systems of nonphonetic writing that can function like ordinary orthographies to express nearly everything we can express in spoken language. The fact is that such a full system of nonphonetic writing has never existed. The system of Chinese characters, the Sumerian, Accadian, and Hittite cuneiform systems, and the Egyptian hieroglyphic system were none of them complete systems of semantic writing.

How limited is the number of pictographic or semantic characters, like “人”, “口”, “山”, etc., as opposed to the number of characters with some phonetic component related to pronunciation? This table from p. 129 of the book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy says that only about 3% of all Chinese characters are purely pictographic or semantic:

Table 7 Semantic Versus Phonetic Aspects of Chinese Characters, p. 129, _The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy_

This myth, it is apparent, exists in two aspects. Both must be rejected. The first is that the Chinese characters constitute an existing system of ideographic writing. This has been shown to be factually untrue. The second aspect is the validity of the ideographic concept itself. I believe it to be completely untenable because there is no evidence that people have the capacity to master the enormous number of symbols that would be needed in a written system that attempts to convey thought without regard to sound, which means divorced from spoken language. …But while it is possible for a writing system to have many individual “ideographs” or “ideograms”, it is not possible to have a whole writing system based on the ideographic principle. Alphabetic writing requires mastery of several dozen symbols that are needed for phonemic representation. Syllabic writing requires mastery of what may be several hundred or several thousand symbols that are needed for syllabic representation. Ideographic writing, however, requires mastery of the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of symbols that would be needed for ideographic representation of words or concepts without regard to sound. A bit of common sense should suggest that unless we supplement our brains with computer implants, ordinary mortals are incapable of such memory feats.

Indeed, how many concepts or ideas exist, or could potentially come into existence as they get invented? That’s how many symbols an actual ideographic writing system would need to have. Obviously, even if such a system could be made to exist, it would be unusable by actual imperfect humans. Even Chinese characters, which “only” number somewhere over 100,000, are not numerous enough to be an actual ideographic writing system, and Chinese characters are already inhumanly complex and numerous.

Objections to the Term “Ideographic”

We need to go further and throw out the term itself.

…

Chinese characters represent words (or better, morphemes), not ideas, and they represent them phonetically, for the most part, as do all real writing systems despite their diverse techniques and differing effectiveness in accomplishing the task.

…

Both terms [“logographic” and “ideographic”] are inadequate and misleading because they fail to indicate that the process of getting from graph to word/morpheme involves the phonetic aspect of the latter and because this failure leaves the way open to the idea that we get from graph to word/morpheme by means of some nonphonetic, in a word, “ideographic”, approach. Only the adoption of some such term as “morphosyllabic”, which calls attention to the phonetic aspect, can contribute to dispelling the widespread misunderstanding of the nature of Chinese writing.

Chinese characters being a “morphosyllabic” writing system means that “each character is pronounced as a single syllable and represents a single morpheme”* (smallest unit of language SOUND with meaning)—a Chinese character does NOT bypass language sounds to directly represent an idea.

So, every time you hear in Mandarin a name like “Hāmǐjíduōdùn (Armageddon 哈米吉多顿 哈米吉多頓)” that came from another language, and is made up in Mandarin of syllables that make no sense except that they sound like the name in the original language, remember that the Ideographic Myth is just that—a myth!

As worshippers of the one true God Jehovah, we carefully avoid spiritual idolatry, realizing that no visible idol or image can be allowed to replace the invisible, almighty Spirit Jehovah as the object of our worship. Similarly, us Chinese field language learners must also carefully avoid the linguistic idolatry of considering visible Chinese characters to be direct representations of meaning in Chinese languages, when the truth is that in human languages, including Chinese languages, meaning is primarily transmitted via invisible speech.

 

* John DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984), p. 125. ^

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Culture Language Learning Technology Theocratic

áizhèng

áizhèng (ái·zhèng cancer · disease → [cancer] 癌症 癌症/癥) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Notes: Tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to reveal its “flashcard”; tap/click on a “flashcard” or its Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · 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.]

The new format of the Enjoy Life Forever! book incorporates the post-paper technology of video, which enables real-life experiences to be related in an especially vivid way. For example, the video for Lesson 09, point 6 of the Enjoy Life Forever! book, entitled Prayer Helps Us to Cope, enables us to see and hear Br. Matteo Dalla-Longa and his mother relate their experiences of how prayer helped them to cope with his cancer. (A Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus transcript for the Mandarin version of this video is available here.)

The Mandarin version of this video begins with Br. Dalla-Longa saying this:

📖 📄 📘 Wǒ (I 我) zài (at 在) bā (eight 八) suì ({years (of age)} 岁 歲/嵗) de (’s 的) shíhou (shí·hou {(particular) time} · season 时候 時候) déle (dé·le got · [indicates a change] 得了) yì (one 一) zhǒng ({type of} 种 種/种) hǎnjiàn (hǎn·jiàn rarely · seen 罕见 罕見) de (’s 的) áizhèng (ái·zhèng cancer · disease → [cancer] 癌症 癌症/癥).

The expression that he concludes with above, “áizhèng (ái·zhèng cancer · disease → [cancer] 癌症 癌症/癥)”, means “cancer”, and it is this week’s MEotW.

The New, Improved Mandarin Word for “Cancer”

Interestingly, the Mandarin word for “cancer” wasn’t always “áizhèng (ái·zhèng cancer · disease → [cancer] 癌症 癌症/癥)”. Before, unfortunately, the Mandarin word for “cancer” sounded exactly like the Mandarin word for “inflammation”. One can just imagine the potentially fatal misunderstandings that could arise from this situation! This is an especially potentially harmful example of what some call Mandarin’s Homophone Problem, the unfortunate reality that modern Mandarin has many homophones, or different words that sound the same.

Many people have gotten into the cultural habit of dealing with this problem by referring to how the same-sounding words are written with different Chinese characters. However, the way that this problem involving the old Mandarin word for “cancer” was actually solved shows up the common approach of relying on characters to disambiguate (clarify) Mandarin homophones to be the crutch and band-aid solution that it really is. As explained in the article “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Was Plan A”:

Perhaps Chinese became so full of homophones because people came to rely more and more on the characters to distinguish homophones from each other, rather than finding other ways to alleviate the problem. Those other ways could include:

  • …
  • Reducing the number of homophones by
    • …
    • Changing the pronunciations of existing syllables within homophones
      • Some examples are cited here by Zhōu Yǒuguāng (周有光, Zhou Youguang), who led the team that created Pīnyīn:
        • Changing the pronunciations while keeping the same expressions
          • “For example, ‘cancer’ (癌症) and ‘inflammation’ (炎症) were both pronounced as ‘yánzhèng’ in the past. Now in hospitals, ‘cancer’ is pronounced as ‘áizhèng’ and has the same meaning as when it was pronounced ‘yánzhèng’ in the past, but it has acquired a different pronunciation and is, thus, differentiated from ‘inflammation’ (yánzhèng).”

Better than Chinese Character Band-Aids

Yes, as the above-mentioned article goes on to explain:

So, rather than just being seen as a solution to the problem of homophones in Mandarin, perhaps (over?)reliance on characters should also be seen as part of the cause of that problem in the first place, and as a big factor in perpetuating that problem when people should really be developing other, more appropriate solutions! As Einstein said, “Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”

In this respect of seeming to offer a way to solve a problem that they helped to cause in the first place, Hànzì remind me of mobsters who demand compensation for their “protection”, which people wouldn’t need in the first place if the mobsters weren’t around!

Regarding the real root of the homophone problem, Zhōu Yǒuguāng with great insight pointed out,

Homophones are a problem of language, not “script.” The root of this problem lies in the pronunciation of the language (yǔyīn), not in the different ways of spelling the words (cíxíng).

Yes, relying on characters to differentiate Chinese homophones is at best a band-aid solution that actually makes the problem worse rather than getting at the real root of it: the pronunciations of the affected words. Yes, the best way to deal with homophones is to eliminate them by changing their pronunciations so that they are no longer homophones, just like you can eliminate your enemies by turning them into your friends, rather than continuing to pay “protection money” to certain characters who are actually helping your enemies to keep on being your enemies. While it may seem radical to thus get at the root of the problem by changing the language itself in ways such as those mentioned above, the truth is that languages are naturally changing in such ways all the time, as shown by the actual examples mentioned above. We who use a language can and should change it as necessary by using it differently. People are doing it all the time with English, and they are doing it with Chinese too.

Meanwhile, the ultimate clarifier in modern Mandarin, even with all its existing homophones, is context, not characters. Characters themselves can have multiple possible meanings and multiple possible pronunciations, so one often has to, yes, check the context of something written in characters before the meaning and/or pronunciation of certain words in it can be determined with certainty. For example, should “恶(惡)” be pronounced as “ě”, “è”, “wū”, or “wù”, with their different associated meanings? It ultimately depends on the context—the character on its own is still ambiguous, not enough to clarify things.

So, that there are so many different words in modern Mandarin that sound the same is not a good reason not to use Pīnyīn, any more than it is a good reason not to speak Mandarin. Ironically, it is actually a good long-term reason not to use characters!

For convenience:

The direct link for the current generation Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus resource for the Enjoy Life Forever! book is:

The short link for Chinese field language-learning links for the Enjoy Life Forever! book is:

More Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) and Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus web material based on the Mandarin Enjoy Life Forever! book will be made available in the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus web resource as time allows.