Sino-English graphic tour de force

December 20, 2018 @ 10:11 pm · Filed by under Alphabets, Diglossia and digraphia, Typography, Writing, Writing systems

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Jeff DeMarco saw this on Facebook:

The writing on the package, from top left to bottom right, says:

qíjiān xiàndìng 期間限定 ("time limit")

wéitā nǎi 維他奶 ("vita milk")

vitasoy

jiāng wèi dòunǎi 薑味豆奶 ("ginger flavored [soy] bean milk")

Very clever!  The Chinese writing looks like the English writing, and vice versa.

Selected readings

December 20, 2018 @ 10:11 pm · Filed by under Alphabets, Diglossia and digraphia, Typography, Writing, Writing systems


5 Comments

  1. Jenny Chu said,

    December 20, 2018 @ 11:56 pm

    I remember when this was launched – it was actually a big shot / famous graphic designer. It's been around for over a decade

  2. Philip Taylor said,

    December 21, 2018 @ 3:18 am

    [OT]. I notice that the announcement of this post (i.e., the e-mail that I received announcing that the post had been made) now includes advertisements which are preceded by the words "This post is ad-supported". The same was true of the immediately-preceding announcement by Mark Liberman, but is not true of any earlier posts as far as I can tell. May I ask if this is a deliberate change of policy by Language Log, or is it forced on LL by a change of policy at WordPress ?
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  3. John from Cincinnati said,

    December 21, 2018 @ 6:25 am

    @Philip Taylor: You probably don't want to hear this, but it's not WordPress or Language Log so it's probably your setup. My RSS feed email notifications (including 'Sino-English graphic tour de force' as well as 'We need wall') arrive in my in box ad-free. Beyond that I can't assist, sorry.

  4. Philip Taylor said,

    December 21, 2018 @ 7:49 am

    John — thank you for that suggestion. Just to clarify, my university e-mail is handled by Microsoft at Outlook.Office365.Com, which I access using IMAP; I have received a number of messages sent to my university mailbox since Mark's, but only those from WordPress contain these advertisements. However, I see that you are using an RSS feed, and I am not; I am simply subscribed to the mailing list. It will be interesting to see if other LL-ML subscribers are now similarly receiving advertisements embedded in their LL e-mails.

  5. Bloix said,

    December 21, 2018 @ 11:21 am

    Reminds me of the logo of the Israeli toilet paper brand "Lily" which can be read (if you already know what it says) in Hebrew and in English, http://www.superbrands.co.il/pdf/2012/lily_en.pdf

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