Language Log

"Japan announces new name for days over 40C after hottest summer ever", by Ruth Wright, Euronews (4/20/26)

They have words for it.  The one that's taking the online media by storm is kokushobi  酷暑日.  That literally means "harsh / cruel + hot days".  I can attest to this characterization of scorching  days in Japan.  I remember one summer in Kyoto, which I wouldn't think of as a particularly hot city, when I stood on the sidewalk and was getting ready to cross the street, the pavement of which seemed to be melting under the shimmering heat waves.

The cited article gives other currently popular words for dog days (7/3/25-9/11/26 in America this summer) in Japan.

Sylvain Farrel is a student nurse from Indonesia.  He came to America four years ago and speaks perfect English.  I asked him how that is possible, how did he learn English so quickly?

Sylvain said that he studied English during his elementary and middle school education.  His national language is Bahasa (Indonesia), i.e., Indonesian.

By ethnic heritage, Sylvain is Chinese, Hokkien / Fujian on one side, and I think Hakka on the other side, but I'm not sure.

That's the name of a very fine health care facility nestled in the wooded hills of Philadelphia's northwestern suburbs — Malvern, Tradyffrin, Bryn Mawr ("large hill"), Bala Cynwyd (named for towns in Wales), Haverford, Narberth, Radnor, Berwyn, Merion, and Gwynedd.

My inclination is to abbreviate the name somehow — BMRH, Bryn Mawr RH, etc. — but the people who work at Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital tend not to do that.  They want to keep the word "rehab" in their habitual reference.

On the other hand, I think "rehab" is too casual and informal for an institution of such complexity and excellence.  By nature, "rehabilitation" is hexasyllabically cumbersome and "hospital" is trisyllabically unglamorous.

Never mind what Bryn Mawr Rehabilitation Hospital is called on a day-to-day basis, it's a thoroughly admirable place.

My graduate seminar on Middle Vernacular Sinitic has six M.A. students from the PRC in it.  They are all advanced in Literary Sinitic / Classical Chinese  (LS/CC) .  In this seminar, which I have been offering for more than a decade, each time I focus on a different medieval text.  Because the texts I assign to the students are largely or wholly unannotated, the students are mostly sailing through uncharted waters.  For them to be able to read and understand these texts, their Sinitic philological skills have to be high, higher than for most students in Advanced LS/CC courses.

One does not usually associate horses with premodern Africa, yet we have words for "horse" in many African languages:

@kattoksthai

Replying to @Mamba Did you know that Bangkok has the longest city name in the world? I dare you to say it too! #bangkok #thailand #thai

♬ original sound – Kat Talks Thai

From Barbars Phillips Long:

A Reddit thread beginning with a complaint from a student taking Spanish at a U.S. high school hinges on whether the teacher should call the student by his preferred name in English or translate it into Spanish. I never really thought about the practice of using or assigning Spanish names in Spanish class, or French names in French class, even though I did not have a French name in French class (possibly because my junior high French teacher was Puerto Rican and my high school teacher was a Hungarian refugee who had studied at the Sorbonne). But since I was in high school in the 1960s, sensitivity about names, naming, pronunciation of names, "dead names," and other assorted naming issues are a much more prominent part of advice/grievance columns and forums.

As editor of Journal of Chinese History, Sarah Schneewind asked me if I would do a review of this book:  Documents géographiques de Dunhuang.  Having done over three hundred reviews during my career, I try to decline them as much as possible at this stage.  However, I succumbed to her offer because it was about Dunhuang and was by a French author, for both of which I have soft spots in my heart..

Jokingly, I wrote back:  "In honor of your surname in these arctic times, Sarah, I will do the review."

She replied, "Vielen Dank, Victor!  Ganz schön, dass meine Name etwas gilt!"  ("Thank you very much, Victor! It's really nice that my name means something!")

"Snail Alley" is only a semi-official name, but lots of inhabitants there have taken up the theme with some snail decorations.

Mark Swofford at the entrance to the alley:

From Weibo:

From M. Paul Shore (of partial Swiss German ancestry; former Linguistics major) to PBS News staff: 

Since it indicates the official language and main ethnicity of China, this character is of utmost linguistic and political importance for readers of Language Log.

Prompted by Philip Taylor (commenting on this post [first item in the list of "Selected readings" below]), this ample response from ChatGPT would seem to cover all the bases for what 漢 means.

One important meaning of 漢 omitted in the above generous overview is pejorative, "a bad guy", as shown by this entry in Wiktionary.  Although, in this term, èhàn 惡漢 ("villain; scoundrel; bad guy"), 漢 is explicitly modified by the negative adjective 惡, 漢 by itself can have derogatory implications, somewhat like "hombre" ("man") in "mock Spanish" when used disrespectfully. 

Christian Horn writes:

Oreo cookies are famous and widely known.

I never attached the name "Oreo" to single piecesof the cookie, but once you start this is possible: