Language Log

In our discussion of part III of Elle Cordova's Grammarian Saga, "Grammarian vs Errorist showdown at the secret L'error", there was some back-and-forth about whether or not error could stand it for the nucleus of lair.

AntC wrote "I can't smudge 'error; into a single syllable", and I responded that "Elle Cordova does it by brute force — I don't think 'air' is her normal pronunciation of 'error'".

But looking into pronunciations of error on the internet, I've found that her "l'error" ~ "lair" pun is, in fact, pretty plausible.

I, for one, don't think it's the least bit funny.

Uyghur pronounciation

The way Uyghurs speak Mandarin is now a joke
For many it’s not funny, given the political heat around language choices

Economist (Nov 13th 2025)

The article begins with a viral joke, which Economist doesn't bother to explain (I will, though, at the end of the first paragraph):

Scroll through posts about Xinjiang on Chinese social media and an odd phrase soon appears: “Apple U”. It is a pun that mimics how some Uyghurs, the largest ethnic minority in Xinjiang, a region in China’s far north-west, pronounce “Hey, friend” in Mandarin. This meme is part of a growing trend online for using nang yan wen, or “naan Mandarin”—a way of writing and talking that wags have named after Xinjiang’s staple flatbread. Videos tagged with the term have amassed more than 1.7bn [VHM: !!!] views on Douyin, TikTok’s sister app in China, since the start of the year.

Since Victor recently spent 1100 words on various people's "best approximations of how they think they are saying 'Canton'", "expressed in common spelling (not a phonetic alphabet)", and has resisted requests to provide audio, I thought I'd provide some examples of how a Canton resident pronounces the city's name. As I've explained many times, I don't think that IPA transcriptions are an effective way of representing how people actually talk, and this case will continue to support that view. Instead, a good place to start is a sample of audio clips along with graphical representations of waveforms, spectrograms and other kinds of acoustic analysis — and there are several possible directions to go from there.

All places in China have topolect terms, some more than others, and some are more influential outside of their own region than others.  One regional variety whose speakers create numerous memorable expressions they are proud of is Dōngběihuà 東北話 ("Northeastern topolect").  I was inspired to make this post after reading a collection of twenty Northeasternisms.

I showed the collection to Diana Shuheng Zhang, who is an authentic Northeasterner.  Diana not only translated and explained the entire collection, she added twenty more, for a total of forty, commenting, "Can't stop laughing. Hope everybody enjoys our native expressions. :)" 

Please note that I (VHM) have added all the pinyin romanizations and a few literal translations).  Because some of the characters are unusual and I'm not a Northeastern speaker, I cannot guarantee the accuracy, especially down to the tones (and their sandhi), of all the transcriptions I have supplied.  Pay attention to Diana's valuable phonological notes.

This is a follow-up to "How to pronounce the name of the ruler of the PRC" (10/26/25).  Surprised by the amount of dissension over how to pronounce his name and how to represent the pronunciation in romanization, I decided to try another approach.  I asked all of the students (undergrads and grads) in my Fiction and Drama and in my Language, Script, and Society in China classes to write down the best way that could think of to transcribe Xi Jinping's in roman or Cyrillic letters — other than the official Hanyu Pinyin version, Xi Jinping.

Only two of the students were linguistics majors, about a dozen were East Asian Languages and Civilizations majors.  The remainder were drawn from a wide variety of disciplines and fields (humanities, sciences, and social sciences) across the university.  About 90% had a Chinese background (ranging in ability from minimal acquaintance to full fluency).  There were a couple of students from Taiwan, a few from Cantonese and other topolect areas, one had a Korean background, and two or three had no prior exposure to any East Asian languages.

Xi Jinping.

There are countless online suggestions for how to pronounce the name of the Great Helmsman.  Most of them are well intended, but I fear that so far they have failed.  People who are well informed about Chinese affairs still murder the Paramount Leader's name.  So as not to muddy the waters, I will give a completely non-technical transcription.  No phonology, no semantics, no frills.

What I'm going to suggest on the next page is intended for the English-speaking layperson who has no specialized knowledge of Chinese language.  It will not be exactly the same as Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM) spoken by a native, but it will get you close — sans tones, which would take a long time to explain and practice

Remember, there are countless Sinitic topolects, dialects, and idiolects, and endless variations even among MSM speakers.  Be confident.  If you pronounce the Paramount Leader's name the way I advise on the next page, any well-disposed/intended speaker of MSM will understand whom you're referring to.

Oh, by the way, if you haven't formally studied Mandarin and try to pronounce the "X" in some linguistically sophisticated way, you will most likely miserably fail.

Don't try to make it fancy or exotic.

Pronounce the words the way you would in English.

Here goes:

In an interview yesterday, Ty Cobb (the lawyer, not the baseball player) answered a question from Geoff Bennett:

GEOFF BENNETT: How do you assess the way President Trump in his second term has asserted control over the Justice Department and many of the prosecutors who work for it, as compared to the first term?

TY COBB: Well, he appointed people who were clearly slavishly devoted to him and willing to break any ethical barriers or legal barriers to do his bidding.

Today's For Better or For Worse:

April's "comftrable" is not dictionary-sanctioned — but maybe it should be?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Caitanya Tan | Actress • Host • Storyteller (@caitofalltraits)

A skit by Singaporean voice actress Caitanya Tan.

A learned friend recently sent me a draft composition on medieval Chinese history in which he referred to "*" as an "asterix".  This reminded me that ten years ago I wrote a post, "The many pronunciations of '*'" (12/17/15), on this subject and we had a lengthy, vigorous discussion about it.

Given that lately we've been talking a lot about Celts, Galatians, and so on, I think it is appropriate to write another post on Asterix the Gaul, that famous French comic book character, and how he got his name.  Also inspired / prompted by Chris Button's latest comment.

I often hear "*" pronounced "asterix" or "asterick", and so on (e.g., "astrisk" [two syllables], esp. in rapid speech).  It's hard even for me to pronounce "*" or type the symbol those ways, so ingrained is the pronunciation "as-ter-isk".

So far as I know, most Americans pronounce the name of the capital city of the Republic of Korea as "soul".

(Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /səʊl/
(General American) enPR: sōl, IPA(key): /soʊl/ 
 
Rhymes: -əʊl
Homophones: sole, soul, sowl

From Korean 서울 (Seoul, literally “capital city”), originally from Claude-Charles Dallet's French-based romanization of Korean, reinforced by the 1959 South Korean Ministry of Education romanization of Korean, which transcribed the Korean vowel ㅓ (/⁠ʌ⁠/) with the digraph "eo" and which was official until 1984.

Note that English Seoul predates the Revised Romanization romanization of Seoul. The two romanization systems simply produce identical forms.

(Wiktionary)