Tag: Usage Examples

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Culture Language Learning

biāozhǔn

biāozhǔn (biāo·zhǔn [(conforming to)] mark[s] · standard[s] → [[(conforming to)] standard[s]; criteria] 标准 標準) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

In Western culture, especially American culture, it seems, the way to give the best compliments involves exaggeration. For example, one might say,

“That person gave 110%!”

In contrast, for a Mandarin field language-learner, the best compliment from a Chinese person is often

“Nǐ (you 你) shuōde (shuō·de speak · getting 说得 說得) hěn ({very much} 很) biāozhǔn (biāo·zhǔn (to be conforming to) mark · standard → [(to be conforming to) standard] 标准 標準)!”

That literally means that the language-learner’s speech hit the mark, and matched up to the standard well—matched, not exceeded.

Different cultures, different calibrations—understanding that will help us to take people’s comments the right way. For example, if you manage to move a Chinese person to say that your Mandarin is very “biāozhǔn (biāo·zhǔn [(conforming to)] mark[s] · standard[s] → [[(conforming to)] standard[s]; criteria] 标准 標準)”, the meaning is not that you are doing okay, so-so, but failing to excel. Rather, the meaning is that you are doing very well indeed!

Categories
Culture Language Learning Languages Science

yǔzú

yǔzú (yǔ·zú language · {ethnic group → [group of things with common characteristics] → [group]} 语族 語族) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

While “language family” seems to be a commonly accepted linguistic term, there does not seem to be universal consensus on what terms to use for subdivisions of language families. This is suggested by the wording used in the Wikipedia article on language families, under the subheading “Structure of a family”:

Language families can be divided into smaller phylogenetic units, conventionally referred to as branches of the family because the history of a language family is often represented as a tree diagram. A family is a monophyletic unit; all its members derive from a common ancestor, and all attested descendants of that ancestor are included in the family. …

Some taxonomists restrict the term family to a certain level, but there is little consensus in how to do so. Those who affix such labels also subdivide branches into groups, and groups into complexes.

So, it seems that one common—but not universal—language classification scheme is:

  • family > branch > group > complex…

In contrast, noted American sinologist and University of Pennsylvania Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations Victor H. Mair, in his article “The Classification of Sinitic Languages: What Is ‘Chinese’?” (p. 749), sets out a slightly different language classification scheme:

  • family > group > branch > language > dialect

The Mandarin Word for “Language Group”

Regardless of whether we consider language families to be first subdivided into branches or into groups, an accepted and acceptable Mandarin translation for “language group” is this week’s MEotW, “yǔzú (yǔ·zú language · {ethnic group → [group of things with common characteristics] → [group]} 语族 語族)”, as Prof. Mair confirms in the article (p. 747) mentioned above.

If “zú (clan; race; tribe; {ethnic group}; nationality [→ [class or group of things or people with common characteristics]] 族)” seems familiar, perhaps that is because it occurs in some fairly well-known scriptures. For example, the 2019 Edition of the Mandarin New World Translation Bible translates “every nation and tribe and tongue and people” in Revelation 14:6 as “měi (every 每) ge ([mw] 个 個/箇/个) guózú (guó·zú national · {ethnic group} → [nation] 国族 國族), bùzú (bù·zú sectional · {ethnic group} → [tribe] 部族), yǔyán (yǔ·yán language · {(type of) speech} 语言 語言), hé (and 和) mínzú (mín·zú {(of) people} · {ethnic group} → [people] 民族)”.

The Mandarin Word for “Language Branch”

For reference, the Mandarin word for “language branch” is “yǔzhī (yǔ·zhī language · branch 语支 語支)”, as Prof. Mair confirms in the article (p. 747) mentioned above.

It’s interesting to note that according to Prof. Mair’s article (p. 737) mentioned above, not only are Mandarin and Cantonese separate languages (not just “dialects”), it would be more accurate to consider them to be in separate language branches, as defined by the language classisification scheme he uses:

Cantonese and Mandarin are separate languages. Cantonese is not a ‘dialect’ of Mandarin or of Hanyu, and it is grossly erroneous to refer to it as such. Since Cantonese and Mandarin are separate languages (or, perhaps more accurately, separate branches), it is wrong to refer to them as ‘dialects.’ The same holds for Hokkien, Shanghainese, and so forth.

That Mandarin and Cantonese should really be considered to be in separate language branches emphasizes to us politically neutral Mandarin field language-learners that we must not repeat or be misled by the politically motivated erroneous assertion that Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc. are just dialects of “Chinese”. That might be even more wrong than saying that English, French, Spanish, etc. are just dialects of “European”!

Categories
Culture Languages

zìmǔ

zìmǔ (zì·mǔ character; word · mothers → [letters (of an alphabet) [→ [alphabet]]] 字母) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

As previous MEotW posts (like this one) have shown, “zì (character; word; letter 字)” in Mandarin can mean “character”, such that “Hànzì (Hàn·zì {Han (Chinese)} · Characters 汉字 漢字)”, for example, means “Chinese characters”. In fact, even though “zì (character; word; letter 字)”, like its English counterpart “character”, can refer to printed or written letters or symbols in general, Hànzì (Hàn·zì {Han (Chinese)} · Characters 汉字 漢字) are such an 800-pound gorilla in Chinese culture that in Mandarin, “zì (character; word; letter 字)” by itself is often understood to specifically mean the Hànzì (Hàn·zì {Han (Chinese)} · Characters 汉字 漢字), the Chinese characters. This way of thinking has spilled over into the English-speaking world as well, which is why when English-speaking publishers in the Chinese fields speak of “the characters”, that’s generally understood to mean “the Chinese characters”, which in turn is understood to mean the 汉字 and not the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), even though Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) is also Chinese and made up of characters (printed or written letters or symbols).

So, when we want to refer to a letter of an alphabet, as opposed to a Chinese character, when speaking Mandarin, we can make that clear by using this week’s MEotW, “zìmǔ (zì·mǔ character; word · mothers → [letters (of an alphabet) [→ [alphabet]]] 字母)”. In Mandarin, a zìmǔ (zì·mǔ character; word · mothers → [letters (of an alphabet) [→ [alphabet]]] 字母) is literally a “character/word mother”, something that characters or words come from.

How is it that even Chinese characters or words come from letters? Well, contrary to the traditional Chinese cultural view that Chinese characters are the primary aspect of Chinese languages, linguists (language scientists) now recognize that speech is primary and writing is secondary. So, a Mandarin expression is not primarily something written with Chinese characters, but rather is primarily something spoken in Mandarin. Whereas a Chinese character coarsely represents an entire syllable, letters of alphabets in general represent the individual speech sounds (called phonemes by linguists) that make up the spoken expressions that are the primary part of a language, and this is especially true of a purpose-designed phonetic alphabet like Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音).

For example, whereas the Chinese character “字” represents an entire Mandarin syllable as one coarse unit, the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression “zì (character; word; letter 字)” finely spells out the initial sound, the final sound, and even the tone that actually make up that Mandarin syllable.

That speech and the individual sounds that make it up are the real foundation of any human language is such an important, unignorable linguistic principle that even schoolchildren in China (see especially the Z.T. subheading) learn basic Mandarin speech and Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) before getting immersed in Hànzì (Hàn·zì {Han (Chinese)} · Characters 汉字 漢字), Chinese characters, as tradition dictates.

Perhaps, then, it would be appropriate for Chinese culture, which values filial piety, to be more respectful towards the letters of its phonetic alphabet Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), which, both linguistically and educationally, are the “mothers” of the characters it loves so much!