English teacher's accent (英语老师的口音)

Facebook一语言学习群有人说他在法国一所小学教英语。学校招了一名印度裔英语老师（英语是她的母语），他是这名新老师的领导。学校其他老师向他抱怨说新老师的口音对小孩是个问题，特别是发r这个音时。他认为这些老师不对，因为他认为习惯不同口音是非常好的一件事。（他说“i dont want to be angry. I want to make them understand the wonderful benefit of learning from different accents. Do you have any suggestions?”）

这个讨论目前已有近百条评论，绝大多数都赞成这位领导的观点：接受多种口音是对的，印度英语也是英语，而那些抱怨的老师有错，有些评论甚至称那些老师是种族主义者。极个别的评论指出小学生口音尚未固定，这个阶段学会英国或美国英语的口音有必要，年龄稍大一点再接触其他口音不迟。但这些极少数的评论基本没有点赞，或被其他人指责。

我对此没有评论，只是建议这名法国老师到语言学群再去问一下，那里大部分群员是语言学家或语言教育专家，可能会给出更全面和专业的回应，通常还附带相关论文题目或链接。不过，我私下还是有自己的想法：假如是为我自己的小孩，如果有选择，比如五个英语班，老师分别来自美、英、苏格兰、澳、印，其他方面相当，那我会选前两个班之一。这不是歧视澳大利亚、印度或苏格兰英语，更不是贬低那三个地区的文化和人民，而仅仅是希望孩子今后的口音能被世界上最大多数人最容易地接受，以方便交流，而与此同时，我们仍然可以培养儿童对各种族裔和文化的包容甚至喜好，而将选择学习的口音与对多种文化的包容对立起来才是片面和狭隘的。其实，假如我们做统计，或平均看，学英语后需要用到英美口音的时候一定多于用到印度口音的时候，而且印度人能完全听懂英美人，但反过来却不是，这就足够成为为自己的孩子选择英美口音的理由了。

（又见微博讨论，如有网友问“如果学中文请东北河南天津河北陕西这些地方的老师授课，真的不介意？”）

First floor vs ground floor 楼层的称谓

美国英语称底楼为first floor，往上依次是second floor、third floor等，英国英语称底楼为ground floor，往上是first floor、second floor，至今仍然如此。欧洲各国遵循英国惯例，世界很多地区也是如此。但在拉丁美洲，楼层的编号采用英、美两种惯例的都有，决定于哪个国家，似乎看不出规律，可参见维基Storey条，但维基关于墨西哥是错的，他们用美国惯例。（注：说英国或美国惯例只是方便称谓，并不表明某地区的惯例的来源是美国或英国。）

历史变迁
一位澳大利亚网友说，大约5至10年前，新建的房子开始用美国的称谓，所以他们经常搞混。瑞典网友说他们那里规则不统一，是一片混乱。而从前作为英国殖民地的新加坡先前采用英国惯例，1980年代改为美国惯例，以便与其他亚洲国家协调。

“一国两制”
越南北部采用美国惯例，南部用英国惯例，但越南人之间交流并不会混淆，原因是北越人说Tầng即“层”而南越人说Lầu即“楼”，他们从用字就可以判断说话人用的是哪种惯例。

亚洲
印尼、菲律宾采用美国惯例。印度受英国殖民影响无疑用英国惯例，香港也是。新加坡、越南见上述。其他如日本、韩国等都用美国惯例。

中国
汉语似乎从来就说：底楼、底层或一楼，往上是二楼、三楼等等，即跟美国惯例相同，这应该是汉语本身的惯例而不是受了美国的影响。古代当然没有居住或办公的高楼，但有供眺望观景的高塔（也叫做楼），或佛塔，中国古籍中指塔的某层时大概都说“层”而不说“楼”，“层”当然是从一而不是零数起了。现代汉语“层”、“楼”两字可互换通用，“楼”无疑是被当作“层”的同义词使用，那么就碰巧跟美国而不是英国惯例相同了。

评价
如果我们咬文嚼字，英国惯例其实是不合逻辑的，底层叫ground floor（直译：“地楼层”），上一层叫first floor（“第一楼层”），既然底层用了floor这个词，就认可了它也是众多floors之一，但为什么它在floors集合中没有序数呢？如果你有三个儿子，老大可以叫大儿子，后面两个当然叫二儿子、三儿子而不可能叫第一儿子、第二儿子，无论老大多么特殊。所以，将“地楼层”与“第一楼层”分开是强词夺理的。这个惯例的起源暂不清楚，但英国殖民者来到北美后采用了我们熟悉的美国惯例无疑是更合理的。由于英国在历史上的影响，世界上采用英国惯例的国家更多，但以人口数量论，由于中国的惯例与美国相同，世界上用英国惯例的人即便包括印度人在内也可能更少。

参考：
https://facebook.com/groups/generallinguistics/permalink/10158626955249346/
https://facebook.com/groups/839957606051774/permalink/3308810692499774
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey#Numbering

"drawing" and "painting"

On Weibo or Microblog, the Chinese social network, the blogger 芝加哥艺术博物馆 (Art Museum of Chicago) made a posting about Claude Monet, and quoted him say "I never had one [studio] and personally I don’t understand why [people] would want to shut themselves up in some room. Maybe for drawing, sure, but not for painting" (my bold text), and offered a Chinese translation as "我从来没有过画室，我也不明白为什么要把自己关起来。也许是为了绘画，但不是为了绘画". Other than missing "people", the English quote is grammatically correct, and more or less faithful to the original quote in French.[note]

But the confusing part of the Chinese translation is 绘画. Its first occurrence is for "drawing", the second for "painting". What's the difference between drawing and painting (or dessiner and peindre in French)? Drawing is more about creating art with dry or somewhat dry materials, with a pencil, pen, charcoal, etc. Painting, which reminds us of painting a room or a car, is more about creating art with wet materials, including paint and acrylic. Secondly, drawing focuses on the outline while painting on colors. Lastly, drawing is traditionally black and white while painting must have various colors. These differences I list here are obviously not hard and fast rules, especially in modern art. (Note: Monet died about a century ago.) You can find other people's opinions with a Google search.

What about the Chinese words for "drawing" and "painting"? The Wikipedia page for drawing has its Chinese page titled 素描, literally "black-and-white outline", and that for painting has the Chinese page 绘画. This latter Chinese word is translated as both "drawing" and "painting" in English. Etymologically, both 绘 and 画 emphasize drawing more than painting. But as we discuss earlier, it's wrong to find the modern meaning in the original meaning of a word; we should only find its meaning as the word is used today. On the other hand, 素描 precludes the possibility of colored outline, which, needless to say, was indeed rare in Monet's times.

So, how do we translate Monet's words into Chinese, making a distinction between "drawing" and "painting"? Unfortunately, in spite of splendid Chinese culture and civilization, the vocabulary of the Chinese language is not rich enough to expose this nuance in what Monet tried to convey. A less than perfect translation of his words, judging by the context, may be "(关在画室里)打画稿可以，画一幅画不行" (literally, "(shutting oneself up in a room/studio), making a sketch is OK, making a painting is not OK"). This is a roundabout way to paraphrase Monet and it depends on my understanding of his attitude toward nature and his personal way to represent nature. Until we artificially designate one Chinese word for "drawing" and the other for "painting", the sentence cannot be literally translated. If we do go for 素描 for "drawing" and 绘画 for "painting", the Chinese reader will definitely get confused, unless a translator's note is given to that effect.

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[note] "Mon atelier ! Mais je n'ai jamais eu d'atelier, moi, je ne comprends pas qu'on s'enferme dans une chambre. Pour dessiner, oui : pour peindre, non" (source: Wikipedia. Note there is no word for "maybe" as in the English translation, which misses the word "studio", and renders "oui" as "sure" instead of "yes".