"NBA" as an entry in Chinese dictionary

In the August 28, 2012 issue of "北京晚报", it is reported that more than a hundred Chinese scholars signed a letter sent to the Chinese government claiming that the de facto official Chinese dictionary 《现代汉语词典》 is illegal to include 239 words which begin with a letter of a western language, violating certain laws that govern the correct usage of the Chinese language. "NBA" is among the words. This news was followed by intense debate on the Internet ([1], [2], [3], [4], to name the first few). The scholars worry that gradual introduction of 字母词 or letter-words will eventually cause harm to the Chinese language, calling it "the most serious damage since the Chinese character Latinization (Romanization) initiated a hundred years ago". The pro-letter-word side of the argument claims that the Chinese language has been evolving all the time for thousands of years, and that introducing "NBA", "PM2.5", and other letter-words into the most popular dictionary helps the general public easily understand these terms which are already widely used. When CCTV changed "NBA" to "美职篮" (literally "US professional basketball"), the Chinese NBA viewers simply ignore the term and continue to say "NBA" in conversation. CCTV changed back to "NBA" as soon as the Chinese dictionary was published, semi-officially approving "NBA" as an acceptable word in the Chinese language, and more than raising the eyebrows of a handful of die-hard Chinese language scholars.

To be fair, a dictionary of a spelling language (language whose writing system is alphabet-based) never lists a Chinese word as is. An English dictionary never has a non-Latin spelling entry, thus excluding not just Chinese, but any Oriental language, Hindi, Arabic, any Slavic language, and many others as well. To incorporate "饺子" into an English dictionary, the spelling "jiaozi" is used. Now, if we need to have this "symmetry", we must add to the Chinese dictionary a Chinese-character-transliterated word such as "摁逼诶" in place of "NBA". It looks funny though. Why? I guess it's because the users of the word "NBA" in China are used to it and appreciate its simplicity. (How long do your eyes stay on "摁逼诶" for your brain to process the same info as "NBA", even if your native language is Chinese?) If this had happened a century ago, "摁逼诶" would most likely have been accepted in preference to "NBA". But nowadays the Chinese audience of "NBA" are at least able to pronounce English letters. The beauty of simplicity rules. Considering the law of survival of the fittest almost equally applicable to linguistics, I don't see a bright future for "摁逼诶" or any other transliteration.

Hence the dilemma between two rules: the established rule of dictionary compilation, and the situational usage of a word in the population. Because a Chinese character is intrinsically more difficult than a Latin-based word, incorporating "jiaozi" instead of "饺子" in a dictionary of Latin-based language is natural. But on the Chinese language side, the two rules are having a tug of war. Leaving "NBA" or any letter-word out of the Chinese dictionary retains its purity but increases inconvenience of a general reader -- he has to consult another dictionary. The awkward "摁逼诶" in the dictionary would be useless because nobody and no media would likely adopt that spelling.

My take on this: The Chinese dictionary can have an appendix listing the commonly used letter-words, without not yet accepted Chinese transliterations ("麦当劳" is OK but "摁逼诶" is not). It avoids the dilemma by explicitly stating that these words are not Chinese and yet they frequently occur in Chinese text. Inclusion of them is merely for the convenience of readers.

P.S. With the ubiquity of the Internet, this debate may become irrelevant and eventually forgotten, as the Chinese readers that care about "NBA" or any letter-word have easier access to the web for the meaning of the word than the paper-based dictionary. Although this particular dictionary, with no online version, serves as a prescriptive guide in mainland China, its definition of the letter-words may not be as authoritative as the scholars wish it would be.

"第几" has no English equivalent

It's a frequently asked question in English study forums in China (recently here). How do you say "第几" in English? When A asks B, "这是你第几次来纽约?" (literally, "This is which time you come to New York?"), B may answer "第二次" ("The second time"). A more natural English question may be, "How many times have you come to New York?", "Twice", or "How many times did you come to New York before?", "Only once (before)".

The awkward "which time" is a literal equivalent of "第几次" as in "Which time is it you come to New York?" The English "time" is one word for both the time you use a clock to keep track of and the ordinal count of repetition of you doing something, which is a measure word. Other languages may use two words for these meanings (时间, Zeit, tiempo, temps, tempo vs. 次, Mal, vez, fois, volta, respectively). The reason "which time" sounds unnatural may be related to this particular polysemy (one word having multiple meanings) of English "time".

Here are more challenging ones, "第几个", "第几件", and "第几本", as in "老师要我们读John Smith的ABC系列的所有三本书，你在读第几本?" ("The teacher wants us to read John Smith's all three books in the ABC series. Which book are you reading now?") But "Which book are you reading?" is not a good translation because the answer may well be "I'm reading his Book Title". The question in Chinese actually demands the answer "I'm reading his first|second|third book". English "which" properly matches "哪一(本)". It does not specifically ask the ordinal number as the Chinese "第几(本)". The fact that these Chinese question words are more challenging is probably because "个" and "本" have no measure word equivalents in English, and although "件" may be "piece", "Which piece ...?" does not specifically demand an answer of the ordinal number in the series.

A little follow-up. A Chinese reader says "So English is deficient?" My answer is that every language may have stronger expressive power than another in one case, but less in another. In this case, Chinese wins. In the case of subjunctive mood, Chinese loses (you have to guess whether "如果我有1000块钱" is the counter-factual "if I had 1000 dollars", although "如果我是你" is definitely "if I were you"). In the textbook case of ambiguous English sentence "He hit the man with a stick", Chinese wins because you can't make up an ambiguous sentence in Chinese. And the list goes on.

(This posting has a follow-up.)

eCollegeFinder's ESL article

eCollegeFinder has a new article on English as a Second Language, How to Educate ESL Students. It discusses two methods of education, "bilingual" (students only use their native language when they study subjects such as math and science) and "immersion" (English all the time; further divided into two methods depending on whether the students study English exclusively for a period at the beginning), then the pros and cons of each method are properly and clearly evaluated.

Here are my thoughts. Firstly, the bilingual method should be preferred if English is taught in a non-English-speaking country; it would be counter-productive if immersion were enforced, unless of course the students are outnumbered by English speaking natives in a small enclosed environment such as an American or British international school. My friend, president of a language school in China, reported that her students used to demand native English speakers who speak no Chinese as teachers many years ago, and slowly changed to bilingual teachers, as they found the latter to be more efficient for their learning. On the other hand, if the students are in an English-speaking country and surrounded by English all the time, the immersion method will definitely win. It's interesting that Texas, where I am now, is among the few that practice this "least popular" method. Some bilingual parents complain about the segregation in school and regret that they report in the school registration form before their kids go to elementary school that they speak xyz (a language other than English) at home. Unlike adults, young school children learn a foreign language better in immersion and should not be artificially isolated.

Secondly, the education science or pedagogy should learn from medical science. Strict control study should be a standard. Whether bilingual or immersion is better, and better under what condition, can be argued verbally based on personal experience and common sense, as I'm doing here. But nothing beats a well controlled study, perhaps followed for four to ten years, with statistical analysis. It may be impractical to implement a single- or double-blind study. Nevertheless, statistical numbers are more scientific than experiential observation.

Off-topic: ESL blog award

I was entered into eCollegeFinder ESL (English for Second Language) Blogs Award, and apparently got to the 39th place in the finals. Not bad, considering late entry into the nomination phase and no promotion by me or anybody. Actually, I'm not sure if my blog is for ESL. It probably was a long time ago. But now it "degenerates" into a general, English and Chinese and sometimes any language, blog.

Linguistic authority

A recent update on "Ni Hao Ma" (你好吗） is not a native Chinese greeting prompted me to blog about what I have thought of for some time, let me call it, linguistic authority. It is the established convention for a language by its native speakers in a certain geographic region where a significant proportion of the population speaks that language. For example, there's a linguistic authority for the Chinese language in China but no such one in the US in spite of a Chinese diaspora. The effect of this authority is such that the Chinese speakers in China have the right to invent new Chinese words which will be accepted, although not necessarily used, by whoever learns Chinese. Similarly, Americans can invent new English words which will be accepted by people learning English. If an English word were invented by Chinese, it would be laughed at and rejected (at least initially; some of these words may be proved to be good ones later, such as shero I suppose); such words are called Chinese Pidgin English (洋泾浜英语).

A linguistic authority exists where the majority of the regional population speaks that language. Therefore, mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and to some extent Hong Kong, each have their own linguistic authority. The word "共识" (consensus) was initially used in Taiwan and readily accepted by the mainland China. Just because Chinese mainlanders don't say "镭射" (laser) and Taiwanese don't say "激光" doesn't mean they can call the other side wrong. But the improper use of "chocolate" as a verb in an advertisement I saw a few years ago at the Shanghai subway stations, "I chocolate you!", is unpleasantly Chinglish, because the inventor of this phrase, probably a Chinese, does not own the authority in creative usage of the English language. But imagine someday English native speakers start to use "chocolate" as a verb. This usage in non-English-language areas of the world will be accepted, like it or not. (Whether its usage among the native speakers will survive is a different matter.)

Interjection (叹词)

Interjections (叹词) are another type of "虚词" or empty words. At least one interjection seems to be common to many if not all languages, i.e., Ah （啊). Some are only slightly different in pronunciation among different languages, e.g. Chinese "哦" pronounced [o:] (IPA symbol) compared to "Oh" in English (or Spanish or French). Some are pronounced about the same but carry different meanings, such as Chinese "欸" which suggests slight surprise and confusion ("欸,他怎么又走了?", "Huh, how come he left again?"), where "Huh" (or "Huh?" or "What?") is an acceptable translation. But English "Eh" indicates hesitation in speech ("His name is, eh, John Smith, I think").

Some interjections are completely inscrutable without translation. The Chinese "哎呀", pronounced [aija] in IPA or "aiya" in pinyin which can take different tones, is uttered for a big surprise. Conversely, English "Uh-huh" ("yes") or "Uh-uh" ("no") is completely unintelligible to a Chinese with no knowledge of English.[note] This fact may not be immediately appreciated by the speaker, causing confusion in a conversation. There's no problem if I say "uh-huh" to a Chinese having lived in the US for some time, in an all-Chinese conversation. I may be lightly laughed at but well understood if I say it to a Chinese that has learned English for some time. But if I say it to my parents who know no English at all, they assume I didn't catch the part of the conversation right before this point.

Thus, we see that interjections, unlike words of other classes, are special in that the speaker unconsciously uses one unique to a specific language in the environment this language is spoken, even when he converses in another language, often his mother tongue. It is not conspicuous to his mind that interjections may be just as language-specific as are other types of words.

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[note] These yes-no words may not be considered by some as interjections.

虚词"虽然":empty word "although"

The Chinese empty word (虚词) "虽然" or "尽管" corresponds to "although", "though", or one sense of "while" in English. "In spite of" or "despite of" can also use "虽然" as its Chinese equivalent, but "虽然" must be followed by a sentence or at least a verb followed by an object or an adverbial modifier as in "虽然下雨" ("in spite of the rain") or "虽然做完了" ("although [the work] has been completed"), where "下" or "做" is a verb and cannot be omitted.

A basic grammatical difference between Chinese "虽然" and English "although" is that "虽然" strongly calls for "但是" to start the main sentence as in "虽然下雨,但他还是去了" ("Although it rained [In spite of the rain], he went"), while "although" must not have "but"; if you have the urge for it, a "yet" is acceptable.

"但是" here may be considered as a conjunction, but not in the sense that it connects two full independent sentences. In English, two full sentences (with only one period at the very end) must be connected with a conjunction, or a semicolon if the second sentence serves as a further explanation. The Chinese (as well as French) does not have this requirement; the two sentences may be separated by just a comma. Probably due to lack of the requirement for a conjunction between two full sentences in Chinese, the conjunction "但是" in the "虽然...但是..." construct may be omitted, e.g. "虽然下雨,他还是去了".

Because English prohibits "but" at the beginning of the main sentence that has a clause of "although", people bilingual between Chinese and English subconsciously omit "但是" in the "虽然...但是..." construct; to these bilingual speakers, there's no such strong calling for it, or rather, there's a strong calling for not having it.

虚词"当然":empty word "of course"

The Chinese empty word (虚词) "当然" is generally translated as "of course" or "certainly". It makes perfect sense in this example, "你会游泳?", "[我]当然[会] ("You can swim?", "Of course [I can]"). But "当然" is also commonly used in a different context, as in "明天每个人都必须到办公室，当然你事先请假了可以不来"("Everybody must come to office tomorrow. But of course you don't have to come if you asked for leave earlier"). In this case, "当然" is said in a much weaker tone and more resembles "but", "nevertheless", "however" in meaning than the more common "of course". The German "natürlich" ("naturally") or "allerdings" ("though") may be closer to this sense. English does have this meaning, as Wiktionary says "Acknowledges the validity of the associated phrase", e.g. "Of course, there will be a few problems along the way". But this sense is used more often in Chinese.

虚词"很":empty word "very"

The Chinese empty word (虚词) "很" means "very". This translation is straightforward and universally accepted. But there's one little subtlety in its actual usage: "很" is used more often in Chinese than "very" in English. This causes some descriptions using an adjective in Chinese not really "very" much so (if everything is very good, nothing is really that good). For instance, "He's good", "He's good at playing cards" may be translated as "他很好", "他很会打牌"， although they can also be "他不错", "他牌打得[很]好". The sentence "他很好" is not likely to be changed to "他好", which sounds odd, and "他很会打牌" may be misunderstood if shortened to "他会打牌" ("He knows how to play cards"). The apparently superfluous "很" serves no purpose other than making the sentence sound more native. But translators may not realize this and tend to literally translate "很" to "very". This practice seems to be particularly widespread among the translators living in China. I believe the correct way to deal with "很" is to review the context and ignore it if it does not really carry the meaning of "very".

Chinese "empty word" 虚词

The term "empty word", or "虚词", in Chinese, refers to "a word or morpheme that has no lexical meaning and that functions as a grammatical link or marker, rather than as a contentive" according to Dictionary.com. Specifically, they include prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary words or "Chinese particles", onomatopoeias, interjections, and adverbs[note1]. But in spite of its long history (back to 1890 to 1895, perhaps invented by a missionary or sinologist), the translation "empty word" has the connotation that the words, whoever utters, are not to be trusted, while "虚词" in Chinese is a purely technical, grammatical, term. This makes "empty word" a poor translation for "虚词", although no better one has been proposed. Incidentally, "hollow word", if it were used as a translation, may be closer literally ("hollow" for "虚"), but also has unwanted connotations.

Wikipedia considers the word "expletive" as the equivalent of "虚词". We need to think beyond the more common meaning of "expletive" here (words of profanity), and only consider syntactic expletive and expletive attributive. Because of its common usage of the word, neither is perfect in my opinion. In addition, be aware that an expletive in English is not quite equivalent to a "虚词" in Chinese. The latter is purely based on word class, while grammatical expletives in English are more context-sensitive. That is, all adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, "Chinese particles", onomatopoeias, and interjections in Chinese are "虚词", with no exception, but there's no such simple rule in English.

Probably because of Wikipedia's English rendering of "虚词" as "expletive", pages of other languages use incorrect or not quite correct words, such as explétif in French, Kraftausdruck in German (words to express strong feelings, swears, expletives), where Formwörter^[note2] or mot-particule^[note3] may be a better term. But the Japanese page uses the Kanji 虚辞.

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[note1] This footnote is needed to avoid simplistic equivalence: English adverbs include almost all words of the construct adjective-ly, but Chinese adverbs are more or less limited to "very", "little", "all", "also", "probably", etc.
[note2] This word may have been coined by German sinologists about a century ago, as in Vergleich der wichtigsten formwörter der chinesischen umgangssprache und der schriftsprache
[note3]> as in Le mot-particule 之 tchē