Tag: Writing Systems

Categories
Culture Current Events Technology Theocratic

bàogào

bàogào (bào·gào reporting · telling → [reporting; making known | report; speech; lecture; talk] 报告 報告) ← 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 a news item with the following headline:

English:

Adjustments to Field Service Reporting

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Guānyú (Guān·yú {Closing → [Relating]} · to 关于 關於) Tiánxiě (Tián·xiě {Filling Out} · Writing 填写 填寫) Chuándào (chuán·dào Spreading · Way → [Preaching] 传道 傳道) Bàogào (Bào·gào Reporting · Telling → [Report] 报告 報告) de (’s 的) Gǎibiàn (Changings 改变 改變)

This week’s MEotW, “bàogào (bào·gào reporting · telling → [reporting; making known | report; speech; lecture; talk] 报告 報告)”, is used above to mean “report”.

Telling Reports

The “bào (reporting; announcing; declaring [→ [newspaper; periodical; bulletin; report]] | reply; respond; reciprocate | recompensing; repaying; requiting [→ [revenge; retribution | reward]] 报 報)” in “bàogào (bào·gào reporting · telling → [reporting; making known | report; speech; lecture; talk] 报告 報告)” basically means “reporting”. Unsurprisingly, it also makes an appearance in “bàozhǐ (bào·zhǐ reporting · paper → [newspaper] 报纸 報紙)”, the Mandarin word for “newspaper”, and it can even be used as an abbreviation for that word and mean “newspaper” all by itself.

The “gào (tell; inform; notify; explain | accuse; sue; {take sb. to court} | {ask for}; request 告)” in “bàogào (bào·gào reporting · telling → [reporting; making known | report; speech; lecture; talk] 报告 報告)” means “telling” in this context, and it’s also the “gào (tell; inform; notify; explain | accuse; sue; {take sb. to court} | {ask for}; request 告)” in the well-known expression “gàosu (tell 告诉 告訴)”.

While “bàogào (bào·gào reporting · telling → [reporting; making known | report; speech; lecture; talk] 报告 報告)” can be used as a verb, and while both of its morphemes are basically verbs, “bàogào (bào·gào reporting · telling → [reporting; making known | report; speech; lecture; talk] 报告 報告)” can also be used as a noun, as it is in the above-quoted headline. In such cases, it’s a verbal noun, or a gerundial noun.

Changing Technologies

Technologies? What technologies? Weren’t we just talking about field service reports? Well, what’s a technology, actually? Does it necessarily involve digital electronics? The article “Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Was Plan A” touches on this basic question of what a technology is:

The word “technology” comes from the Greek words tekhnē (skill) and logiā (from logos, meaning word, speech), so at its root a technology is a set of words or speech (and thus the thoughts they represent) about a certain kind of skill—“skill speech”.

And what is a skill? A skill can be defined as a “capacity to do something well; technique, ability”. So, at root, a technology—a set of “skill speech”—involves a set of thoughts about a technique or an ability to do something, and hopefully, do it well.

How does that relate to field service reports? Well, field service reports are designed to have the ability to do something, are they not? In the case of field service reports, they are designed to enable the passing on of the information that the organization considers to be worth having about the field service activity of individual publishers. Since they are constructs designed to have the ability to do something, it can be said that field service reports are a technology, and if life in the modern era has taught us anything, it’s that technologies change as people keep searching for better and better ways of doing things. So, it shouldn’t be surprising that field service reports occasionally change, just like other technologies do.

Advancing Cultural Technologies

As Mandarin field language learners, it may benefit us to consider what the above-quoted article goes on to say about technologies:

Thus, it would be appropriate to think of writing systems, and even languages themselves, as cultural technologies. (Interestingly, they are technologies, or sets of “skill speech”, involving speech itself, and thus they are of basic, foundational importance to any and all other technologies, or sets of “skill speech”.) As cultural technologies, languages like Mandarin and writing systems like the Hànzì and Pīnyīn should be allowed and encouraged to progress, like other technologies are allowed and encouraged—expected, in fact—to progress for the benefit of all and not remain stagnant.

Yes, like the newspapers mentioned above have had to adapt to remain relevant as cultural technologies, it would be good for cultural technologies like languages and writing systems to continue to adapt and progress as well, so that those of us who use them can continue to benefit from them as much as we should be able to.

So, when it comes to field service reports, Chinese characters, or anything else related to our service to Jehovah, rather than indulging in nostalgia and clinging to the past, we should cultivate this attitude that the Bible advocates at Philippians 3:13, 14:

…Forgetting the things behind and stretching forward to the things ahead, I am pressing on toward the goal for the prize…

Categories
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.

Categories
Culture History Language Learning Science

tóngbèi yālì

tóngbèi (tóng·bèi (from people of the) same · generation → [peer] 同辈 同輩)
yālì (yā·lì pressing · force → [pressure] 压力 壓力) ← 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 a video with the following title, which includes this week’s MEotW, “tóngbèi (tóng·bèi (from people of the) same · generation → [peer] 同辈 同輩) yālì (yā·lì pressing · force → [pressure] 压力 壓力)”, in the Mandarin text:

English:

Stand Up to Peer Pressure!

Mandarin:

📖 📄 📘 Xiàng (To 向 向/曏/嚮) Tóngbèi (Tóng·bèi (from People of the) Same · Generation → [Peer] 同辈 同輩) Yālì (Yā·lì Pressing · Force → [Pressure] 压力 壓力) Shuō (Say 说 說/説) Bù (No 不)!

Morphemic Breakdown

In “tóngbèi (tóng·bèi (from people of the) same · generation → [peer] 同辈 同輩) yālì (yā·lì pressing · force → [pressure] 压力 壓力)”, “tóng (same; similar | {together [with]}; {in common} 同 同/仝)” means “same”, and “bèi (generation | lifetime | {people of a certain kind}; class 辈 輩)” means “generation”. Additionally, in this context, we can consider it to be implied that the “tóngbèi (tóng·bèi (from people of the) same · generation → [peer] 同辈 同輩)” effectively means “(from people of the) same generation”, or “peer”, used as an adjective.

As for the “yālì (yā·lì pressing · force → [pressure] 压力 壓力)”, in this expression, “yā (press; {push/hold down} [→ [control; quell]] 压 壓)” means “pressing”, and “lì (power; strength; force [→ [ability]] | forcefully 力)” means “force”. So, “yālì (yā·lì pressing · force → [pressure] 压力 壓力)” here effectively means “pressure”, and thus “tóngbèi (tóng·bèi (from people of the) same · generation → [peer] 同辈 同輩) yālì (yā·lì pressing · force → [pressure] 压力 壓力)” effectively means “peer pressure”.

As mentioned in the MEotW post on “shǔlíng (shǔ·líng {(in the) category (of)} · spirit → [spiritual (nwtsty-CHS Appx. A2 notes change from “shǔlíng” to “xīnlíng”, etc.)] 属灵 屬靈) zhànzhēng (zhàn·zhēng war · contending → [war; warfare] 战争 戰爭)”, Satan and his underlings undoubtedly continue to view peer pressure as a highly effective spiritual weapon of mass destruction for them.

Should We Fear the Dead?

What do dead people have to do with peer pressure? As ones educated in Bible truth, we know that the dead are not conscious, so they can no longer affect those of us who are living, right? (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10) Well, they can if we let them, as illuminated by this English saying:

Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people.

Yes, while many may assume that peer pressure is mainly just a problem that affects young people who have not yet come into their own as individuals with their own minds and hearts, the truth is that people of all ages who follow traditions handed down from those who came before us are going along with peer pressure from these dead people—they all did x so we also do x. Sometimes, such following of tradition can be good, just as some peer pressure can be positive. However, just as peer pressure to smoke, to take drugs, to engage in nationalistic, immoral, or false religious practices, etc. is bad, some traditions can be bad too.

Peer Pressure and Chinese Characters

Since Chinese characters are the oldest continuously used writing system, lots and lots of tradition has accumulated around them, that is, lots and lots of peer pressure from lots and lots of dead people. However, even with this exceptional weight of tradition, is there any more reason to go along with the traditions associated with characters than there is to go along with any other traditions or peer pressure from imperfect humans in Satan’s world? No! For example, the exceptional weight of tradition involving Christmas, so beloved and celebrated by so many for so long, does not make it any less problematic for God’s true people.

汉字 / 漢字? Pīnyīn?

Regarding characters and Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音), after decades of learning Mandarin for the Mandarin field and several years of research into how first principles of linguistics apply to such learning, the advice I now give is: Use the simple, elegant Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together of} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) system when you can, and just use the unnecessarily extraordinarily complex characters when you have to.

That advice may be contrary to the traditional consensus of thousands of years’ worth of dead people, as well as that of most living people, but as Jesus taught us, the wide road can lead to a bad place, and the narrow road can be the one that leads to a good place. To walk such a narrow road when most are on the corresponding wide road, we need to overcome peer pressure, whether it comes from the living or it comes from the dead in the form of tradition.—Matthew 7:13, 14.