Language Log

Let us begin this post with a brief introduction to the 16th-century Hokkien (Minnan) drama, Tale of the Lychee Mirror:

(source)

An eloquent cri de coeur:

How Can China’s People Demand Freedom if We Can’t Even Say It?

Mengyin Lin, NYT (Feb. 10, 2023)

Notice that she speaks in the first person plural and has some very thought-provoking things to say about the recent Chinese protests in favor of freedom, such as:

The demonstrations are best remembered for the blank sheets of paper held by many protesters. It was a clever way to avoid trouble: making a statement without actually saying anything. But to me those empty sheets also visually, and literally, represented how my generation is losing its voice, perhaps even control of its own language.

The Communist Party’s monopoly on all channels of expression has helped prevent the development of any resistance language in Mandarin, especially since 1989, when the brutal military suppression of the Tiananmen Square student movement demonstrated what happens to those who speak out. If language shapes the way we think,* and most people think only in their own language, how can China’s youth conjure up an effective and lasting resistance movement with words that they don’t have?

*Please take a look at this and other links provided by the author.

Marvelous post in Pinyin News by Mark Swofford:

Pinyin, US trademark law, and myths about Chinese characters

    芝麻 vs. ZHIMA

Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2023

The entire post, and the legal ruling that it reports, are of such importance in clarifying the interrelationships among language, transcription, and translation, especially for those who have an interest in the combination of legalistic and linguistic reasoning, that I will quote the better portion of it, starting from the beginning:

The Mandarin word for “sesame” is zhīma (written “芝麻” in Chinese characters). That’s all the Mandarin anyone will need to know for this post. But if any of you non-Mandarin speakers are curious, an approximate pronunciation would be the je in jerk + ma (with the a as in father).

OK, let’s get into it now.

Article by Richard Medhurst:

"Dust into Mountains: Patience and Perseverance in Japanese Proverbs", Nippon.com (1/27/23)

Eleven items in three categories

————————-

Strive Another Day

七転び八起き — Nana korobi ya oki. To “fall seven times and get up eight” means to remain unbowed despite repeated failure, and keep striving to achieve something. The phrase is often associated with the round red-and-white figures of Daruma (Bodhidarma), the Buddhist monk whose steadfast meditation led to the withering of his arms and legs.

石の上にも三年 — Ishi no ue ni mo san nen. Sit “on a stone for three years” and finally one can warm it up, in this saying encouraging endurance.

塵も積もれば山となる — Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru. “If dust piles up, it will become a mountain.” In other words, many small actions continued over time can lead to unexpectedly large and significant results.

待てば海路の日和あり — Mateba kairo no hiyori ari. “Wait and fine weather will come on the sea routes.” If the outlook is stormy now, it is better to wait for the right conditions than take immediate action.

[This is a guest post by Bill Benzon]

That's the name of a treasured Language Log reader and contributor (see under "Selected Readings").  When I asked him how to write that in Sinoglyphs, he told me that it is this:

飢腸轆轆 / simpl. 饥肠辘辘

Wanting to get the tones, I typed "jichanglulu" into Google Translate (GT), but forgot to click the space bar to make the conversion to characters with Hanyu Pinyin transcription complete with tones.  When I pressed the speaker button to hear how that sounded, what came out was something like Mandarin with an English accent, but still perfectly intelligible:  "jichanglulu".  It resembled the Mandarin produced by the strangers on the street who read off the Pinyin texts handed to them by my wife, Li-ching Chang.  She was always delighted when she heard them pronouncing Mandarin without ever having studied it.  "Jichanglulu" — see, you can say it too!

Adding the tones, we get jīcháng lùlù.  What does this somewhat odd assortment of sounds signify?

GT says "hungry", more literally, "hungry intestines are rumbling".

Just out today, this is one of the longest book reviews I have ever written:

Jack W. Chen, Anatoly Detwyler, Xiao Liu, Christopher M. B. Nugent, and Bruce Rusk, eds., Literary Information in China:  A History (New York:  Columbia University Press, 2021).

Reviewed by Victor H. Mair

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright September, 2022)

I am calling it to your attention because the book under review, which I will refer to here as LIIC, signals a sea change in:

1. Sinology
2. Information technology
3. Academic attitudes toward the study of language and literature

For many reasons, here at Language Log we have had a longstanding interest in the Narts, their language, literature, and lore:

The Nart sagas (Abkhaz: Нарҭаа ражәабжьқәа; Nartaa raƶuabƶkua; Adyghe: Нарт тхыдэжъхэр, romanized: Nart txıdəĵxər; Ossetian: Нарты кадджытæ; Narty kaddžytæ; Nartı kadjıtæ) are a series of tales originating from the North Caucasus. They form much of the basic mythology of the ethnic groups in the area, including Abazin, Abkhaz, Circassian, Ossetian, Karachay–Balkar, and to some extent Chechen–Ingush folklore.

The term nart comes from the Ossetian Nartæ, which is plurale tantum of nar. The derivation of the root nar is of Iranian origin, from Proto-Iranian *nar for 'hero, man', descended from Proto-Indo-European *h₂nḗr. In Chechen, the word nart means 'giant'.

(source)

Over the years, I have come across the expression "red thread" in various and sundry circumstances.  The latest instance was conveyed to me by the French journalist and documentary director, Philippe Grangereau.  As we were working together on an illustrated piece of reportage about the Tarim mummies, he would remind me from time to time that everything that went into the text had to contribute and be related to what he called the "red wire" (speaking in English).  The first several times Philippe used that expression I didn't know what he was talking about.  Finally I asked him how to say it in French.  When he told me "fil rouge", I knew right away that he meant "red thread", and that fit perfectly with my understanding of the need for all the elements in the text to be related to the central narrative thread that ran through it.

From Barbara Phillips Long:

In the last week, I have read several "summer reading" columns. It occurs to me it might be interesting to know if there are books with linguists as major characters. Are there?

Martin Delson sent in this interesting puzzler:

I'm participating in an international virtual book-club where all participants are bilingual in German and English. For some reason, the book that the group chose to read is Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori.
 
Wikipedia tells me the Japanese title is "Konbini ningen (コンビニ人間)".
 
A pair of sentences, not far into the book, reads as follows in the English translation
 
"The first at the cash register was the same little old lady who had been the first through the door. I stood at the till, mentally running through the manual as she put her basket containing a choux crème, a sandwich, and several rice balls down on the counter."

Received from Nathan Hopson:

[This is a guest post by Sara de Rose, responding to requests for more information on the subject prompted by her previous post.]

This post discusses a possible connection between the Mesopotamian tonal system, documented on cuneiform tablets that span over 1000 years (from 1800 BC to 500 BC), and the musical system of ancient China. For a more detailed discussion, see the paper "A Proposed Mesopotamian Origin for the Ancient Musical and Musico-Cosmological Systems of the West and China", Sino-Platonic Papers, 320 (December, 2021) written by myself, Sara de Rose.

Since 1996, twenty-three harps (Chinese: “konghou”) that resemble the angular harp that was invented in Mesopotamia circa 2000 BC have been found in the graves of the Tarim mummies, in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, an area of modern-day, western China. These harps date from 1000 BC to 200 BC (see photo).