Tag: Writing Systems

Categories
Current Events

xǐshǒu

xǐshǒu (xǐ·shǒu wash · hands [→ [go to the washroom/lavatory/toilet/restroom]] 洗手) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Note: 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”.]

As of this writing, nearing the middle of the year 2022, the subject of the COVID-19 pandemic has been, to say the least, on people’s minds now for a while. So, it would be good to be able to refer to things related to it in Mandarin when speaking to people in the Mandarin field, or when speaking to our brothers and sisters in the truth.

electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19

An electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19
Creative Commons Attribution License logo NIAID

This week’s MEotW, “xǐshǒu (xǐ·shǒu wash · hands [→ [go to the washroom/lavatory/toilet/restroom]] 洗手)”, literally means “wash hands”, something that has taken on even more importance than before after the COVID-19-causing coronavirus got added to the list of disease-causing things that washing our hands can help protect us from.

“Xǐshǒu (Xǐ·shǒu wash · hands [→ [go to the washroom/lavatory/toilet/restroom]] 洗手)” can also effectively mean “go to the washroom/lavatory/toilet/restroom”. Indeed, “xǐshǒu jiān ((xǐ·shǒu washing · hands 洗手) (jiān {space in between} → [room] 间 間) → [washroom; lavatory; toilet; restroom])” is a commonly used Mandarin expression which literally means “washing hands space in between”, and which effectively means “washroom; lavatory; toilet; restroom”.

Verb-Object Construction

“Xǐshǒu (Xǐ·shǒu wash · hands [→ [go to the washroom/lavatory/toilet/restroom]] 洗手)”, with the verb “xǐ (wash; bathe; rinse 洗)” (“wash”) and its object “shǒu (hand | personally | [→ [mw for skill]] 手)” (“hands”), is an example of a Mandarin expression with verb-object construction.

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 having verb-object construction:

V.O. (Verb-Object Construction, Dòng-Bīn Jiégòu 动宾结构).

Many English verbs get translated into natural Chinese as a verb plus an object noun, e.g. chīfàn for ‘eat’, shuōhuà for ‘speak’, etc. It is important for two reasons to know what is merely a verb in Chinese and what is actually a verb-object construction.

First, verb-object constructions can never take a second object, i.e. chīfàn can never be followed directly by something else to be eaten.

Second, a verb and its object can be separated from one another, thus allowing

(i) aspect particles to be placed directly after the verb, e.g. chīle fàn ‘after finishing eating’;

(ii) modification of the object, e.g. chī Zhōngguófàn ‘eat Chinese food’; and (iii) quantification of the noun, e.g. chīle sān wǎn fàn ‘ate three bowls of rice’.

One Word? Not Two Words?

While “wash hands” is two words in the English writing system, the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) writing system typically renders “xǐshǒu (xǐ·shǒu wash · hands [→ [go to the washroom/lavatory/toilet/restroom]] 洗手)” as one word. The MEotW post on “Jìniàn Jùhuì ((Jì·niàn Remembering · {Thinking Of} → [Commemorating] 记/纪念 記/紀念) (Jùhuì Meeting 聚会 聚會) → [[the] Memorial])” (including a recently added comment there) went into some reasons why it can be good for the relatively “young” Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) writing system to at times emulate the relatively “experienced” English writing system, but in cases like the relatively digestible two-syllable “xǐshǒu (xǐ·shǒu wash · hands [→ [go to the washroom/lavatory/toilet/restroom]] 洗手)”, there is little practical reason relating to readability to impose English word separation conventions.

On the other hand, while “xǐshǒu jiān ((xǐ·shǒu washing · hands 洗手) (jiān {space in between} → [room] 间 間) → [washroom; lavatory; toilet; restroom])” is generally rendered in the world as one three-syllable word, this blog and other Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus resources will generally render such expressions as two separate words, to make them easier to read. This is similar to how in English, “changeroom” is a single two-syllable word, but “changing room” is separated into two words, rather than being rendered as the single three-syllable word “changingroom”.

“Melting” Away the Pounds Viruses

While researching the subject of washing hands in this age of COVID-19, I found the following interesting information:

…soap — all sorts of it: liquid, solid, honeysuckle-scented, the versions inexplicably only marketed to men or women — is…even more routinely effective than hand sanitizer. …

That’s because when you wash your hands with soap and water, you’re not just wiping viruses off your hands and sending them down the drain. You’re actually annihilating the viruses, rendering them harmless. Soap “is almost like a demolition team breaking down a building and taking all the bricks away,” says Palli Thordarson, a chemistry professor at the University of New South Wales…

…coronaviruses are…bits of genetic information — encoded by RNA — surrounded by a coat of fat and protein. Thordarson likes to call viruses “nano-sized grease balls.” And grease balls, no matter the size, are the exact type of thing soap loves to annihilate.

…

The soap takes care of the virus much like it takes care of the oil in the water. “It’s almost like a crowbar; it starts to pull all the things apart,” Thordarson says.

One side of the soap molecule (the one that’s attracted to fat and repelled by water) buries its way into the virus’s fat and protein shell. Fortunately, the chemical bonds holding the virus together aren’t very strong, so this intrusion is enough to break the virus’s coat. “You pull the virus apart, you make it soluble in water, and it disintegrates,” he says.

Then the harmless shards of virus get flushed down the drain. And even if it the soap doesn’t destroy every virus, you’ll still rid them from your hands with soap and water, as well as any grease or dirt they may be clinging to.

So, while technically soap and water disintegrates and dissolves coronaviruses, if a coronavirus subjected to soap and water could talk, it might say, “I’m melting!”

Categories
Culture Current Events

Liánhé Guó

Liánhé Guó ((Lián·hé United · {Closed → [Joined]} 联合 聯合) (Guó Nations 国 國) → [United Nations]) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

On February 24, 2022, Russia sent significant military forces into Ukraine, resulting in the largest scale open warfare in Europe since World War II. The jw.org article “Russia Invades Ukraine”, which discusses this subject, includes a quote from the secretary-general of the United Nations, and we may on occasion want to talk about the United Nations in the Mandarin field. So, this week’s MEotW is “Liánhé Guó ((Lián·hé United · {Closed → [Joined]} 联合 聯合) (Guó Nations 国 國) → [United Nations])”, the Mandarin expression corresponding to “United Nations”.

It can be noted from the Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus information for “Liánhé Guó ((Lián·hé United · {Closed → [Joined]} 联合 聯合) (Guó Nations 国 國) → [United Nations])” (tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression in this blog to show/hide its Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus information) that the morpheme “hé ({close; shut [with]} [→ [join; combine [with] | accord [with]; conform [to]; suit; agree [with] | be fitting | be equal [to] | be proper; be appropriate | be matching [with]]] 合)” that’s in it in this case literally means “closed”, and effectively means “joined”—when two or more things are closed together, they are joined together, and thus united.

Avoiding Mental Indigestion

Another thing that may be noted about the rendering “Liánhé Guó ((Lián·hé United · {Closed → [Joined]} 联合 聯合) (Guó Nations 国 國) → [United Nations])” is that it has a space between “Liánhé (Lián·hé United · {Closed → [Joined]} 联合 聯合)” and “Guó (Nations 国 國)”, whereas this expression is often rendered as the single word “Liánhéguó (Lián·hé·guó United · {Closed → [Joined]} · Nations → [United Nations] 联合国 聯合國)”. In this blog and in other resources that contain Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus material, such added spaces are included in certain expressions so that they are easier to parse (mentally digest and separate into meaningful parts) and read.

Regarding differing Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) renderings, the MEotW post for “diǎnliàng (diǎn·liàng {dot → [light (v); ignite]} · {to be bright} [→ [illuminate; shine light on]] 点亮 點亮)” said:

Regarding standards and conventions, even officially recommended ones, for things like language and writing, views and practices vary in different places, and at different times.

When it comes to Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), another factor to keep in mind is that due primarily to cultural prejudice, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) has simply not been used much overall, relatively speaking, especially as a full writing system on its own. So, it has not really gone through much of the process of receiving the widely agreed upon tweaks and refinements that a system typically receives as it gets tried out and put to extensive use by many people.

As a relatively “young” alphabetical writing system, Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) can often benefit from following the example of a more “experienced” alphabetical writing system like the English writing system. It seems reasonable to conclude that this is the case with “Liánhé Guó ((Lián·hé United · {Closed → [Joined]} 联合 聯合) (Guó Nations 国 國) → [United Nations])” following the word separation example of “United Nations”. In contrast, “Liánhéguó (Lián·hé·guó United · {Closed → [Joined]} · Nations → [United Nations] 联合国 聯合國)” is kind of like “Unitednations”—significantly harder to decipher and read.

The above-mentioned MEotW post concludes:

In the end, what matters most re how anything is written is not just what is officially recommended or what happens to be popular among changing, imperfect humans. Rather, what matters most is what really works best to accomplish the goal of writing: To communicate to readers. This is especially true when God-honouring and life-saving Bible truths need to be communicated. So, this blog and the other Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Plus resources will continue to seek to render Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) in ways that maximize how clearly, easily, effectively, and appropriately it communicates with readers.

Related Mandarin Expressions

Here are some related Mandarin expressions that may also be useful to know regarding this situation with Ukraine:

  • Běi Dàxī Yáng Gōngyuē Zǔzhī ((Běi North 北) (Dà·xī {Big → [Great]} · Western → [Atlantic] 大西) (Yáng Ocean 洋) (Gōng·yuē International · Treaty → [Treaty] 公约 公約) (Zǔ·zhī Organized · Woven (System) → [Organization] 组织 組織) → [North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)])
    • Běiyuē (Běi·yuē North · Treaty → [NATO (abbr. for Běi Dàxī Yáng Gōngyuē Zǔzhī)] 北约 北約)
  • Ōuzhōu Liánméng ((Ōu·zhōu {European (abbr. for Ōuluóbā)} · Continent → [European (abbr. for Ōuluóbā Zhōu)] 欧洲 歐洲) (Lián·méng United · Union → [Union] 联盟 聯盟) → [European Union (EU)])
    • Ōuméng (Ōu·méng {European (abbr. for Ōuluóbā Zhōu, Ōuzhōu)} · {Union (abbr. for Liánméng)} → [EU (abbr. for Ōuzhōu Liánméng)] 欧盟 歐盟)
Categories
Culture History

kǎlā’OK

kǎlā’OK (karaoke 卡拉OK) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

The selection of this week’s MEotW, “kǎlā’OK (karaoke 卡拉OK)”, was inspired by a Twitter thread of epic linguistic and etymological nerdery that I recently came across, which begins with this tweet:

Here are some of the tweets in this thread, which summarize how “kǎlā’OK (karaoke 卡拉OK)” became a word in Mandarin:

Borrowed Culture

In addition to “kǎlā’OK (karaoke 卡拉OK)”, another Mandarin word which borrowed from Japanese culture, which borrowed from Western culture, is “wénhuà (wén·huà {(with) writing} · transformed (system) → [culture] | {(with) writing} · transformed → [cultural] 文化)”, the Mandarin word for culture itself. As the MEotW post about that word says:

To translate the Western concept of culture, the Japanese coined the word bunka, which is written 文化 (see Liu, Zhengtan et al. 1984, s.v. wenhua). The Chinese imported this character combination from Japan and pronounced it according to the rules of their own language: wénhuà.
—“Two Steps Toward Digraphia in China”, by Xieyan Hincha

So, people going on about “pure” Chinese culture are ignorant or in denial about the reality of how other cultures have influenced Chinese culture, and about what a great, enriching thing that can be. Anyone who has been in a group or congregation with people predominantly from a single cultural background, and who has also had the pleasure of being in a group or congregation with people from a variety of cultural backgrounds, has had the opportunity to see how the atmosphere of the latter situation can be a breath of fresh air compared to the relatively narrow—and potentially narrow-minded—cultural worldview that is sometimes allowed to be present in the former situation. Some parts of the world too are starting to realize the advantages of considering various cultural inputs, compared to trying to be productive or creative in a monocultural bubble.

Indeed, the proud “not invented here” logic of Chinese cultural purists who would, for example, reject Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) because it uses letters from the Latin alphabet would also require us to reject things like European-style punctuation, Arabic numerals, and kǎlā’OK (karaoke 卡拉OK) because of their foreign-to-China origins. But, Chinese culture without kǎlā’OK (karaoke 卡拉OK)? How dreary! Next, they’ll be wanting us to do long division using Chinese characters—十一, 九十九, 一千八百三十六, …—instead of Arabic numbers, and they’ll be wanting us to read and decipher Chinese writings the old-fashioned way, without the “crutch” of those decadent European punctuation marks! 😱

(Of course, with kǎlā’OK (karaoke 卡拉OK), as with anything that may involve worldly culture and music—which can possibly include some bad things along with the good things—Christians must be selective, exercising good spiritual judgement and following their Bible-trained consciences.)

As members of the international brotherhood of Jehovah’s people, and as ones “taught by Jehovah” himself, we need not be content with, let alone proud of, a particular way of doing things prescribed by human, worldly Chinese cultural tradition.—1 Peter 5:9; Isaiah 54:13; 1 Corinthians 1:31; 1 John 2:17; Mark 7:1–13.