Language Log

Or a sketch of the history, anyhow, since there's far too much of it to cover in a mere blog post.

The idea of immigrants as "garbage" is in the news because of Donald Trump's assertion in a speech and an interview last week that "we're like a garbage can for the rest of the world", followed by Tony Hinchcliffe's offensive jokes at Trump's MSG rally about Puerto Ricans (who are American citizens, of course, but are often lumped in with Spanish speakers from Central and South America). And then there was Joe Biden's comment, and Trump's trash truck stunt in Wisconsin.

Let's go back 102 years, to a quotation from William Joseph Simmons, the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, in an address delivered on April 30, 1922, and published in the Klan's journal The Searchlight:

Right here within our own borders, the great and mighty city of Boston, which tries to lay claim that it is the cradle of America (tries is all it can do), and holds itself up as the paragon of American principles, has, if my information is correct, seventeen schools in which the English language is never spoken, and not an English thought or an American ideal. These schools are for the children of French-Canadians who have come across the border and each of these schools are under the domination of a foreign potentate who is in nowise sympathetic with American ideals and institutions. Right here in our own land twenty-one towns in the state of Connecticut are under the domination and control of the Italian-Dago influence. Then you hear folks talk about "we Americans” and of America as the melting-pot where the stamp and impress of all nations can come in and shape our destinies. It is no such thing. It is a garbage can! Not a melting-pot. . . . My friends, your government can be changed between the rising and the setting of one sun. This great nation, with all it provides, can be snatched away from you in the space of one day, and that day no more than ten hours. When the hordes of aliens walk to the ballot box and their votes outnumber yours, then that alien horde has got you by the throat. . . . Americans will awake from their slumber and rush out for battle and there will be such stir as the world has never seen the like. The soil of America will run with the blood of its people.

In the first part of this post, we came across the notion of "bèi zìshā 被自殺" ("be suicided").  Since, for many people, this idea (of somebody being "suicided") is hard to comprehend, I asked several graduate students from the PRC if they could explain how it and the related expressions "bèi tiàolóu 被跳楼" ("was jumped off a building"), "bèi shīzōng 被失蹤" ("be disappeared"), and so forth work.  One of them responded thus:

For details, see "Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, Pima County Recorder, unveils new ‘I Voted’ sticker".

Ian Prasad Philbrick and Ashley Wu, "The 9 Elements of a Trump Rally", NYT 10/8/2024:

The energy for Mr. Trump’s third White House campaign comes from his rallies. Since President Biden dropped out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris took the helm, Mr. Trump has held nearly 20 of them, speaking for about 90 minutes at each.

Like most politicians, he repeats things at every speech. Unlike most politicians, he offers a grim view of the country, makes up nicknames for his opponents and pledges to use the power of the government to punish his rivals.

To help readers experience what a Trump rally is like, we used video to break down the nine themes he consistently returns to.

"Turkey’s döner kebab spat with Germany is turning nasty", by Daniel Thorpe, The Spectator (10/5/24)

Last April, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier decided to bring along a 60-kilogram döner kebab on his state visit to Turkey. It did not go down well. Turks found the stunt condescending; Germans were mortified. Ankara lodged an official request with the European Commission to make the dish a ‘traditional speciality’, thereby regulating what can be sold under the name ‘döner’ in Europe.

I'll be right up front by saying that I always spell the name as "Uyghur" because doing so helps me pronounce the name more like the way the Uyghurs themselves say their ethnonym.  If I spell the name as "Uygur", it has more of a tendency to come out sounding like a slur on an American ethnic group.

"EXPLAINED: What’s the controversy over ‘Uygur’ vs ‘Uyghur’?  Beijing’s use of the former ignores Uyghurs’ preference and aims to sow division: experts" By Kurban Niyaz for RFA Uyghur (2024.09.10)

Recently, a China-based New Zealander who’s a columnist for the Shanghai Daily generated a stir when he declared on X that “Uyghur” — referring to the 12 million-strong ethnic group living in northwestern China — should be spelled in English without an “h.”

Andy Boreham, who has a history of using his social media platforms to propagate Beijing’s political messages, says the word should be spelled “Uygur,” per a Chinese government directive back in 2012.

I downloaded rev.com's transcript of last night's vice-presidential debate, and did a bit of analysis — the most interesting stuff will come later, but to start with I did a couple of my standard simple-minded analyses, starting with the type-token plots:

A couple of months ago ("A new Trump speaking style?", 8/10/2024), I gave an example to support my subjective impression that Donald Trump's speech is becoming less fluent. The clip included some cases of word-finding difficulties, as in this characterization of vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz:

She picked a
radical left
uh
man
that is uh
he's got things done that he's-
he has positions that are just not-
it's not even possible to believe
that they exist.

In a more recent 9/28/2024 rally speech, after another spate of re-starts and pauses, Trump produces a phrase that seems to be the opposite of what he means:

Daysia Tolentino, "Trump shares fake photo of Harris with Diddy in now-deleted Truth Social post", NBC News 9/20/2024:

Amid the recent news of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ arrest, former President Donald Trump reposted a doctored image falsely showing Vice President Kamala Harris with Combs with text questioning if she was involved in his alleged “freak offs.”

The image, which Trump reposted to his Truth Social profile, is an edited version of a 2001 photo of Harris with former talk show host Montel Williams, whom she briefly dated, and his daughter Ashley. The edit replaced Montel Williams’ face with a photo of Combs.

This is not the first time the Republican presidential nominee has posted a fake image in an effort to bolster his campaign. Trump has posted several AI-generated images, including some falsely depicting Taylor Swift and her fans endorsing him, and one of Harris speaking to a crowd of communists in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention.

Abbie VanSickle and Philip Kaleta, "Conservative German Princess Says She Hosted Justice Alito at Her Castle", NYT 9/9/2024:

An eccentric German princess who evolved from a 1980s punk style icon to a conservative Catholic known for hobnobbing with far-right figures said on Monday that she hosted Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and his wife at her castle during a July 2023 music festival.

Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis also told The New York Times that she viewed the justice as “a hero.”

I’m still trying to figure out, in XJP rhetoric, when 中华 is used and when it’s 中国. How long has Zhongguo been used directly as an adjective this way, as opposed to 中国似的or 中国性？Is a 中国味different from a 中华味？Which smells better? pic.twitter.com/9CARnICZSu

— James Millward 米華健 (@JimMillward) September 4, 2024

"UCSB Library Acquires Rare Chinese Language Audio Cylinder Recordings", UCSB Library Newsletter (September, 2024)

The UC Santa Barbara Library is excited to announce the recent acquisition of the Paul Georg von Möllendorff Chinese Cylinders, a collection of wax cylinders widely considered to be the first audio recordings from China. The cylinders, recorded in the late 1800s by linguist Möllendorff, contain sixteen recitations of a popular, celebrated poem "Returning Home"' by Tao Yuanming. Möllendorff recorded the poem in various Chinese dialects to document the differences in regional languages at the time. Today, the cylinders provide a rare glimpse into the history of Chinese language and include dialects that are considered critically endangered or extinct.

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-fifty-sixth issue:  “The Tang as a Tuoba Dynasty” (pdf) by Sanping Chen.

ABSTRACT

By examining the record of a local anti-Tibetan rebellion in document scroll S.1438 from the Dunhuang “library cave,” this discussion demonstrates that the nomadic Tuoba origin of the Tang royal house was known not only to the ancient Turkic people, as shown by their name for the Tang, Tabγač, but also to the Tang subjects themselves. In addition to substantiating Paul Pelliot’s old assertion that the Old Turkic name Tabγač came from the name Tuoba, this work argues that the Tang dynasty was in many aspects indeed the continuation of its Tuoba predecessors.