Language Log

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.

It's a card game with a strange name.  "Throwing eggs"  is a shedding-type card game in which the players (2 pairs of 2 partners) try to get rid of all their cards before their opponents.

The characters in Guandan (掼蛋) literally mean "Throwing Eggs". The second character is a homophone of the character 弹, meaning bomb, which is also suggested as an origin for the game's name. An alternative name for the game is Huai'an Running Fast (淮安跑得快), referencing the city where the game originated.

(Wikipedia)

I've overheard card players in the West refer to decisive card plays as "throwing a bomb", so the name makes sense after all, if you think of "dan" metaphorically.

From Bill Clinton's 2024 DNC speech:

I mean look,
what does their opponent do with his voice? He mostly
talks about himself
right?
So the next time you
hear him, don't count the lies.
Count the I's.
Count the I's.
His
vendettas, his vengeance,
his complaints,
his conspiracies.
He's like one of those tenors
opening up
before he walks out on stage like I did, trying to get his
lungs open by singing, "Me, me, me, me, me, me."

"China deploys censors to create socialist AI:  Large language models are being tested by officials to ensure their systems ‘embody core socialist values’", by Ryan McMorrow and Tina Hu in Beijing, Financial Times (July 17 2024)

Chinese government officials are testing artificial intelligence companies’ large language models to ensure their systems “embody core socialist values”, in the latest expansion of the country’s censorship regime.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), a powerful internet overseer, has forced large tech companies and AI start-ups including ByteDance, Alibaba, Moonshot and 01.AI to take part in a mandatory government review of their AI models, according to multiple people involved in the process.

The effort involves batch-testing an LLM’s responses to a litany of questions, according to those with knowledge of the process, with many of them related to China’s political sensitivities and its President Xi Jinping.

"China Puts Power of State Behind AI—and Risks Strangling It:  Government support helps China’s generative AI companies gain ground on U.S. competitors, but political controls threaten to weigh them down", by Lia Lin, WSJ (7/16/24)

In a country like China that is drenched in censorship, people who have opinions that differ from those of the government resort to any means possible to get their message across.

"Bookstores Become Sites of Subtle Protest Against Xi Jinping", by Alexander Boyd, China Digital Times (7/18/24)

The novel “Changing of the Guard” displayed at left, alongside “Study Outline for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”