Language Log

According to Andrew Higgins ("Kazakhstan Cheers New Alphabet, Except for All Those Apostrophes", NYT 1/15/2018), the pending turn to a Latin alphabet for Kazakh has run into a pothole: the 77-year-old dictator Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, who apparently has not yet been informed about Unicode, or the possibility of varied computer keyboard layouts.

Mr. Higgins also seems to be in the dark about such arcana — he refers to characters (or maybe diacritics) as "markers", for some reason, and apparently thinks that the Latin alphabet is nothing but good old US ASCII, with none of those furrin umlauts and accents and cedillas and such:

Because Kazakh features many sounds that are not easily rendered into either the Cyrillic or Latin alphabets without additional markers, a decision needed to be made whether to follow Turkish, which uses the Latin script but includes cedillas, tildes, breves, dots and other markers to clarify pronunciation, or invent alternative phonetic pointers.

Louise Radnofsky, "White House Disputes Trump Quote in Journal Interview: The Wall Street Journal stands by what it reported and releases audio of disputed portion of interview", WSJ 1/14/2018:

The White House disputed that President Donald Trump told The Wall Street Journal in an interview Thursday that “I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un of North Korea,” saying that Mr. Trump had instead said “I’d probably have a very good relationship” with the North Korean leader.

The Journal stands by what it reported. The Journal and White House agreed before the interview that audiotape taken by White House officials and reporters would be used for transcription purposes only. After the White House challenged the Journal’s transcription and accuracy of the quote in a story, The Journal decided to release the relevant portion of the audio. The White House then released its audio version of the contested segment.

French President Emmanuel Macron presented a horse to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Vesuvius, an 8-yr old gelding from the 'Garde Republicaine'.

Now, Macron's name in Chinese is transcribed as "Mǎkèlóng 马克龙" (lit., "horse subdues / overcomes / conquers / surmounts dragon").

Make of it what you will.

In China and in the Sinophone diaspora, although Hakka may be relatively few in number, they are disproportionately influential in practically every realm of society, politics, and culture:  government, the military, literature, film, cuisine, business, academia, and so on and so forth.

"Hakka made an official language" (Taipei Times, 12/30/17)

Hakka is to be made the primary language in townships where half the people are Hakka, while some civil servants will be required to take a Hakka language test.

Hakka thus joins Taiwanese / Hokkien / Hoklo and Mandarin as an official language of Taiwan.  There are, of course, many other Sinitic and non-Sinitic languages spoken in Taiwan, including the aboriginal languages (mostly Autronesian, but some Malayo-Polynesian).  All school children in Taiwan (as in China) learn English from a young age, and Japanese is also influential, both from its having been the language of government and education during the colonial period and from its powerful contemporary cultural and commercial attraction.

A couple of weeks ago, a strange language misunderstanding occurred during the Regular Press Conference of the PRC foreign ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, on December 19, 2017.

During the press conference, a Japanese journalist raised a question in English. He asked:  "Giant panda Xiang Xiang who has traveled to Japan made its formal debut in a Tokyo zoo today. What is your comment  on this?  What influence will this have on China-Japan relations?"

Maybe it was because of his strong Japanese accent or the noise at the time, Hua Chunying was not able to follow him, especially at the beginning of the question.  She misunderstood to whom he was referring and thought it was "Shan Shan" (杉山 — pronouncing that name à la chinoise), a Japanese official. Therefore, she answered with standard diplomatic language. Not until a Chinese journalist pointed out her misinterpretation did Hua manage to move on and make it right.

A week ago, I wrote a post on "CCP approved image macros" (12/17/17).  Being the authoritarian, totalitarian government that it is, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has the power to coin, sanction, and promote whatever forms of language use it desires.  This week, at the conclusion of 2017, we have this dazzling collection of CCP-approved expressions that encapsulate US-China ties during this year:

"Yearender: 2017 in review: 8 terms that matter in China-U.S. relations" (xinhuanews [12/23/17])

By highlighting these eight terms, the Chinese government clearly wishes us to recall 2017 according to these rubrics and hopes that they will become catchwords.  While I don't think that they will catch on, so to speak, and stick in popular discourse, they do help us understand the mind of the CCP.

A lot of the most effective political keywords derive their force from a maneuver akin to what H. W. Fowler called "legerdemain with two senses," which enables you to slip from one idea to another without ever letting on that you’ve changed the subject. Values oscillates between mores (which vary from one group to another) and morals (of which some people have more than others do). The polemical uses of elite blend power (as in the industrial elite) and pretension (as in the names of bakeries and florists). Bias suggests both a disposition and an activity (as in housing bias), and ownership society conveys both material possession and having a stake in something.

And then there's entitlement, one of the seven words and phrases that the administration has instructed policy analysts at the Center for Disease Control to avoid in budget documents, presumably in an effort, as Mark put it in an earlier post, to create "a safe space where [congresspersons'] delicate sensibilities will not be affronted by such politically incorrect words and phrases." Though it's unlikely that the ideocrats who came up with the list thought it through carefully, I can see why this would lead them to discourage the use of items like diversity. But the inclusion of entitlement on the list is curious, since the right has been at pains over the years to bend that word to their own purposes.

Two powerful agencies of the PRC central government, Zhōnggòng zhōngyāng jìlǜ jiǎnchá wěiyuánhuì 中共中央纪律检查委员会 ("Central Commission for Discipline Inspection") and Zhōnghuá rénmín gònghéguó jiānchá bù 中华人民共和国监察部 ("People's Republic of China Ministry of Supervision"), have issued "bā xiàng guīdìng biǎoqíng bāo 八项规定表情包" ("emoticons for the eight provisions / stipulations / rules"); see also here.  The biǎoqíng bāo 表情包 (lit., "expression packages") were announced on December 4, 2017, five years to the day after the rules themselves were promulgated.

English translations of the so-called "Eight-point austerity rules" or "Eight-point regulations" may be found here and here.  The rules were designed to instill greater discipline among Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, to bring the Party "closer to the masses", and to reduce bureaucracy, extravagance, and undesirable work habits among Party members.

With over 980 million monthly active users, WeChat is an extremely popular messaging app in China.  However, in the Orwellian climate of the PRC, you had better watch your language carefully, lest you get whisked off to jail without trial.  Here are some words that can result in your incarceration:

Lena H. Sun and Juliet Eilperin, "CDC gets list of forbidden words: fetus, transgender, diversity", Washington Post 12/15/2017:

The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

Roy Moore's 12/13/2017 non-concession speech  started out this way:

We are indeed in a struggle to preserve our republic, our civilization, and our religion.

And he goes on in the same vein, with another rhetorical tricolon:

This particular race was watched not only by the people of this state, but by the entire nation, and many around the world.
Why? Because I believe the heart and soul of our country is at stake.

In recent months, one after another, instances of Chinese interference in Australian politics have come to light.  After a series of outstanding investigative reports in the media, finally Australia is starting to push back against Chinese encroachment:

"Laws on foreign influence just the beginning in fight against Chinese coercion", Peter Mattis, Sydney Morning Herald (12/7/17).

Most conspicuously, earlier today, the Prime Minister has spoken out, and in Mandarin, no less:

"Malcolm Turnbull declares he will 'stand up' for Australia in response to China's criticism", Caitlyn Gribbin, ABC (12/9/17).

There's been a lot of media attention paid to some slurring of speech in Donald Trump's recent announcement about moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, especially this passage:

Most of the focus has been on his pronunciation of "the United States" in the peroration (though there were some issues with sibilants elsewhere in the speech):