Language Log

But almost everybody does it.  You can barely avoid it.  Especially if you're an athlete.

"North Korea sentences 20 young athletes for ‘speaking like South Koreans’"

Skaters and skiers were caught on video using banned words while playing a game during training.

Jieun Kim, RFA (4/13/23)

The first two paragraphs of the article:

About 20 aspiring North Korean winter athletes were abruptly sentenced to three to five years of hard labor in prison camps after they were found to have used South Korean vocabulary and slang while playing a word game, sources in the country say.

It’s the latest example of authorities imposing draconian punishments to try to stamp out use of the “puppet language” and “capitalist” influences in daily life – despite the flood of illegal South Korean dramas and songs that many North Koreans secretly watch after obtaining them on thumb drives smuggled into the country.

Here at Language Log, for the last couple months, we've been having long, intense discussions about ChatGPT and other AI chatbots and LLM (Large Language Model) applications.  Now, it seems that the battle over such AI programs has reached the level of ideological warfare.

"America, China and a Crisis of Trust"

Opinion | The New York Times (4/14/23)

Indeed, a story making the rounds in Beijing is that many Chinese have begun using ChatGPT to do their ideology homework for the local Communist Party cell, so they don’t have to waste time on it.

I have some evidence that this might well be true.  Already about half-a-dozen years ago, my M.A. students from the PRC whose parents were CCP members told me that the government required daily interaction with the propaganda installed on their phones — upon pain of being demoted or dismissed.  They had to read a specified amount of Xi-speak and answer questions about the content.  This demanded a serious investment of time (hours).  It was considered to be especially onerous for those CCP members whose day jobs (doctors, bureaucrats, stock brokers, etc., etc.) already demanded a very full work schedule in the office.  So many, if not most of them, hired various human and electronic services to meet the obligations.

Source: China Media Project (12/7/2022)
THE CMP DICTIONARY: Socialite 媛
By XINYU DENG

Once signifying graceful women of a distinguished background, the term “socialite,” or yuan (媛), has in recent years become a misogynistic umbrella term used on digital platforms in China to disparage women who advertise fancy lifestyles. The term has also been used by state-run media to roundly criticize perceived materialistic excesses, reinforcing their unfair association with femininity.

The Chinese word yuàn (媛) has traditionally referred to the “virtuous and comely woman” as mentioned in the Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字), a Chinese dictionary compiled in the Han dynasty. Since 2020, however, the word has rapidly evolved — or perhaps devolved — into a catchall word used on the Chinese internet, and also in state media, to denigrate modern-day beauties as disgraceful and degenerate.

新时代祥瑞层出不穷 pic.twitter.com/bVm5Vn4XC4

— 方舟子 (@fangshimin) April 9, 2023

From the British Museum:

"Majority supports adding English requirement for applicants for Singapore citizenship: poll"

Pinyin News (4/6/23)

The opposition leader of Singapore, Pritam Singh, said in late February that he supported adding an English test to the requirements for applications for citizenship or permanent residency in Singapore. A recent poll of five hundred Singapore-born citizens found strong popular support for that position.

Proportionately, most of those opposing an English-language requirement were of Chinese descent. But even among that group, supporters of the requirement outnumbered those opposed by roughly 3:1.

Next up, English for Taiwan — unless Xi Jinping does something dramatic to halt the momentum.

Weather outlook: MOSTLY STORMY on Tuesday. 😉 pic.twitter.com/qKcqZa6svL

— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) April 3, 2023

Adam Schrader, "Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance introduces bill to make English official U.S. language", UPI 3/30/2023. A press release from Vance's office is here, and here's the text of the bill.

"Meloni's party looks to shield Italian language from foreign contamination", Reuters 3/31/2023.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's party has proposed imposing fines of up to 100,000 euros ($108,750) on public and private entities which use foreign terms, most notably English, instead of Italian in official communications. […]

If the draft becomes law, the government might have to get its own house quickly in order. When it took office last October, it added the English term "Made in Italy" to the name of the industry minister, while Meloni herself occasionally drops foreign words into her speeches.

In her inaugural address to parliament as prime minister in October, Meloni described herself as an "underdog".

The following image is from a guest post on the Tangle newsletter (3/3/23) that comes from a Chinese dissident who recently fled to the U.S.:

From the recent meeting between Putin and Wang Yi (Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party):

Liuzhou Snail Rice Noodles from China. (Facebook, Li Chong-lim photo)

The photograph is from this article:

China’s ‘propaganda noodle soup’ ordered off the market in Taiwan

Noodle packaging has ‘You are Chinese, and I am too’ emblazoned across it

By Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News (1/17/23)

In this post, I will focus on the adversative passive usage of nèijuǎn 内卷 ("involution"). 

Etymology

Calque of English involution, from its Latin roots. This sense was coined in Agricultural Involution: The Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesia (1963) by Clifford Geertz, as an antonym of evolution, where Geertz observed Javanese and Balinese rice farmers failed to transit from labor-intensive farming to capital-intensive farming, but rather developing intensive competition that does not increase productivity.

Usage

1. (economics, social sciences, of a society or nation) to stop developing or progressing despite intense inner competition
2. (neologism, slang) to be in a state of increased competition for limited resources, requiring great effort to stay ahead
3. (neologism, slang) to study harder or work longer as a result of intense competition among peers

(source)

With change of policy and official narrative also came the falling out of favor of the task force in charge of lockdowns, the Chinese people are not one to miss out such an opportunity to make some good old soviet jokes about their previous overlords#TheGreatTranslationMovement pic.twitter.com/0IQnlg3Epb

— The Great Translation Movement 大翻译运动官方推号 (@TGTM_Official) December 9, 2022