Language Log

Never mind that the Manchus ruled China for 268 years (1644-1912), the last dynasty in the whole of Chinese history.  Now another ethnic group, the Han, are complaining that the Manchus were not Chinese after all.

What’s Driving Anti-Qing Sentiment in Contemporary China?

A patriotic film backfired because a growing number of Han Chinese don’t see the Manchu-origin Qing dynasty as a part of their history.
By Zhenlin Cui, The Diplomat (May 27, 2026)

‘It’s broken English’: MP’s attempt to speak Jamaican in parliament sparks language row
Parliamentary rule that only English is allowed has reignited debate about language, legitimacy and postcolonial identity
Natricia Duncan and Anthony Lugg in Kingston, The Guardian (5/21/26)

In this explosive exchange, you can hear the dramatic shift from "Patwa" (patois) to standard English in a 1:17 video included in The Guardian article.

Last August and September, President Donald Trump asserted that his actions would reduce drug prices by as much as 1500%, and more recently claimed actual reductions by as much as 600%. On April 22, Elizabeth Warren questioned RFK Jr. about this. She registered a doubt about the mathematics of a reduction in price by greater than 100%, although she mainly focused on the fact that Costco's prices for some cited drugs are substantially less than those at Trump Rx.

The president pitched his Trump Rx website as the answer for Americans who are worried about healthcare costs. He claims that Trump Rx has reduced prices by as much as 600%, 600%, which I think means companies should be paying you to take their drugs.

A couple of days ago in the Oval Office, RFK Jr. left Costco out of it, and offered an odd defense of the president's percentage calculations.

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.

John Burn-Murdoch, "Social media is populist and polarising; AI may be the opposite", Financial Times 3/28/2026:

Every media revolution has transformed who distributes information, what messages are distributed and what form they take. As such, some media are fundamentally democratising and polarising, widening the pool of publishers and views beyond a narrow elite and amplifying radical and anti-establishment voices. TikTok and the printing press arrived almost 600 years apart but share these characteristics. Others push the opposite way: radio and television had high barriers to entry, creating a monopoly for the voices and views of elites and experts.

As the use of AI chatbots takes off, it’s worth pausing to ask which of these categories they fall into. There is good reason to believe it is the latter.

China to Enshrine Xi-Era Ethnic Policy in New Law
by Chenghao Wei, NPC Observer (3/5/26)

The following is the introductory paragraph to the prospectus for the NPC's proceedings next week:

Next week, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) is expected to adopt a Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress (Law) [民族团结进步促进法]—designed to codify General Secretary Xi Jinping’s new orthodoxy for governing China’s ethnic minorities. That doctrine, known as the “Important Thinking on Improving and Strengthening Ethnic Work,” reflects the “Second-Generation Ethnic Policies” promoted by several prominent scholars. In a nutshell, this new “assimilationist” approach aims “not just to strengthen citizens’ sense of belonging to a larger, unified Chinese nation under the Party but also to mute expression of other—in the Party’s view, competing—identities.”

China to Enshrine Xi-Era Ethnic Policy in New Law

by Chenghao Wei, NPC Observer (3/5/26)

The following is the introductory paragraph to the prospectus for the NPC's proceedings this week (starting on the 5th and lasting for eight days):

Next week, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) is expected to adopt a Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress (Law) [民族团结进步促进法]—designed to codify General Secretary Xi Jinping’s new orthodoxy for governing China’s ethnic minorities. That doctrine, known as the “Important Thinking on Improving and Strengthening Ethnic Work,” reflects the “Second-Generation Ethnic Policies” promoted by several prominent scholars. In a nutshell, this new “assimilationist” approach aims “not just to strengthen citizens’ sense of belonging to a larger, unified Chinese nation under the Party but also to mute expression of other—in the Party’s view, competing—identities.”

Androcentric China will have to live with this potentially formidable woman, just as they're having to deal with Prime Minister Takaichi.

"Is North Korea's 'princess' walking a path toward succession?", Nikkei staff writers, NikkeiAsia (11/25/25)

This is a most impressive article, based on AI analytics of more than 14,000 hours of footage that highlights the elevation of Kim Jong Un's daughter.

Jesse Ventura has had a successful career as a pro wrestler, actor, and politician — all largely built on the foundations of his mastery of pro wrestling rhetoric.  And recent events have brought him back into the public eye. His Jan. 8 interview on the Minneapolis Fox News channel got 2.7 million likes and more than 47 thousand comments on TikTok, lots of play on other news-ish outlets, 295k views and more than 7400 comments on YouTube,  and 3.7 million views and more than 1400 comments on X.

See "The art of the promo" (10/31/2020) for some background on this rhetorical style, including its role in Donald Trump's career. And if you haven't listened to Ventura's interview, you should do so as background for this post.

Trump's Wednesday evening speech got a lot of media coverage, as expected — but along with descriptions of (and responses to) the content, there were also many references to the tone, and specifically to the pace.

At State Dept., a Typeface Falls Victim in the War Against Woke
Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Biden-era move to the sans serif typeface “wasteful,” casting the return to Times New Roman as part of a push to stamp out diversity efforts.
By Michael Crowley and Hamed Aleaziz (Dec. 9, 2025)

The "what we do" page for the  CANTWINVICTORYFUND starts by explaining that they "Run Cant-idates to lose spectacularly in gerrymandered districts".