Language Log

From Tom Mazanac:

I came across this sign on the subway recently:

On the inside (N.B.) doors of a lift in Wuhan (yes that [in]famous Wuhan):

The following photo is from Guanghzhou and was taken recently by David Lobina's partner who’s there now. 

Notice in a men's room at Dunhuang, far western Gansu Province:

Photo taken outside a casino in Tainan, Taiwan:

Dunhuang (see here and here) is turning out to be a Chinglish goldmine.  Maybe that's because it's so far out in the remote, desolate, desert northwest.

Sign at Dunhuang, at the western end of the Gansu Corridor in northwestern China, where I did my doctoral research more than half a century ago (there were no signs like this in those days):

Photograph taken in Hong Kong:

[This is a guest post by Scott Mauldin]

I recently visited Marrakesh and was fascinated by the signs that I submit in the attached photographs. Ostensibly these were originally a kind of business sign that artisans and professionals could hang on their businesses or homes to advertise their profession, but they have evolved into something slightly different for touristic consumption as they now sometimes feature the faces of celebrities or even items.

They're interesting in themselves as a cultural item, but if you look closely at the photos the truly fascinating bit are the "errors" and deviations from standard French spelling. These signs are often made by artisans without a formal education in French and sometimes are phonetic renderings that encode Maghrebi French pronunciations.

And no dabbling either (see "Selected readings").

Enigmatic East Asian sign:

From Mark Swofford in Taiwan: