Language Log

This is a truly impressive form of calligraphy, the likes of which I've never seen before:

What won't they think of next as means for writing sinographs?

[Guest post by Frank Chance in response to my latest post.  Gives me hebi-jebies.]

Reading  your recent Language Log post on turtles (mostly about Kucha) on New Year’s Day made me wonder whether there should be a Language Log post on snakes.  There are two very different characters used for snake in Japanese – 巳 mi, used almost exclusively for the zodiac sign and in counting (it is a homonym for three ), and　蛇  hebi., also read as ja, particularly in such compounds as 大蛇 daja, also read as Orochi.  That name is known to giant monster fans from 八岐大蛇  Yamata no Orochi, the eight-forked (and hence eight-headed) great snake mentioned in Nihonshoki, the oldest Japanese history text.  Tea aficionados and dance fans know it from a type of umbrella with a red dot where the spines meet, called a 蛇の目傘 janome-gasa or snake-eyed parasol. Janome was in turn a corporate name for a maker of sewing machines.

From Haun Saussy:

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-sixtieth issue:

“Kanji and the Computer: A Brief History of Japanese Character Set Standards,” by James Breen.

https://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp360_kanji_computers_japanese_character_set.pdf

ABSTRACT
This paper describes the development of the character coding systems and standards that enable Japanese text to be recorded and used in computer systems. The Japanese coding systems, which were first developed in the late 1970s, pioneered the approaches to handling the large numbers of kanji characters and established a pathway that was adopted in other standards for Asian languages. The paper covers the development of the major Japanese standards and their evolution into the Unicode character standard, which is now the basis for all language coding.

This was inevitable:

Kaohsiung university faces backlash over simplified Chinese exam:
Education ministry says faculty member's business card listing ‘Taiwan Province, China’ is ‘inappropriate’ by Charlotte Lee, Taiwan News (1/3/25)

(article in Mandarin)

The language is the same; it's only the script that is different — but that really matters:  Think Hindi-Urdu, Serbo-Croatian, Hangul-Hanja, Maltese-Arabic.

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology is facing controversy after a final exam in its Department of Aquaculture was in simplified Chinese, while a faculty member's business card listed “Taiwan Province, China.”

From Philip Taylor:

Just received this in an e-mail message — sender: American male, born (maybe) early to mid sixties, attended Dartmouth 1984 (or thereabouts) onwards.

Thanks Hilmar. I'll review/install soonly. -k

Seeking clarification, I asked Philip:

The man's name is Hilmar?

What's he going to review/install?

Philip replied:

Hilmar is the name of the addressee (Hilmar Preuße)— the sender was "k", a.k.a. Karl Berry.  "k" is going to review "another set of patches for manual pages".

The implications of this case are enormous, so I will quote extensively from the following account, while noting there are many paragraphs with important content that I have merely mentioned or summarized.  Those who are seriously interested in whether this decision constitutes compelling precedent for future jurisprudence should read the whole account.  Those who are themselves responsible for making such decisions in the courts may wish to take a look at the original Case Citation: Achter Land & Cattle Ltd. v South West Terminal Ltd., 2024 SKCA 115.

"Thumbs-Up Emoji Formed Binding Sales Contract in Canada–Achter v. South West Terminal", by Eric Goldman, Technology & Marketing Law Blog (December 20, 2024)

Recent events have underlined general unhappiness with aspects of the current American health care system, expressed in this recent song by Jesse Welles:

And everyone is aware of current controversies, in America and elsewhere, about immigration.

I've only been using Artificial Intelligence Overview (AIO) for about half a year.  Actually, I don't really "use" it.  I ask Google a question, often quite complicated but succinctly stated, and AIO jumps in and takes over my search, boiling things down to a manageable framework.  As I've explained in earlier posts, AIO rapidly improved, its answers becoming increasingly relevant, organized, and, yes, I dare say, literate.  It's also becoming quicker and more confident.  Now it doesn't have to remind me so often that it is only "experimental".

Voting is now open for the New Zealand Bug of the Year competition, which is an activity of the Entomological Society of New Zealand. As far as I can tell, this is the world's only BotY event, and you don't need to be in or from New Zealand to vote.

The linguistic relevance, aside from the WotY resonance, is their choice of the word "bug" rather than "insect" in the event's name. The first of their FAQs explains it this way:

Most entomologists will correct you if you try to substitute the term “bug” when describing an insect or spider. In fact, a “bug” is technically only one type of insect (insects in the Order Hemiptera have the common name of “true bugs”. They include plant bugs, stink bugs, aphids, cicadas… a few of these are nominated for 2023 NZ Bug of the Year!).

So why did we call this “Bug” of the Year instead of “Insect” of the Year? We had two reasons. (1) We wanted to use an inclusive term so that spiders, worms, and other invertebrates could be nominated for this honorable distinction. (2) “Bug of the Year” just rolls off the tongue in a way that “Insect of the Year” or “Invertebrate of the Year” never could. We assure you – those of us on the 2023 Bug Of The Year committee spent hours discussing and arguing about this, but at the end of the day, “Insect of The Year” would have satisfied the Entomologists and excluded the Arachnologists, while “Bug of the Year” just *bugs* (pun intended) the Entomologists, satisfies the Arachnologists, and the non-invertebrate specialists just learned that “bug” is a technical term that causes debate among scientists.

You may or may not have heard of Kucha.  For those who are interested in Tocharian or Uyghur, you almost certainly would be well aware of this oasis city on the northern rim of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin of Eastern Central Asia. 

Coordinates: 41°42′56″N 82°55′56″E

Kucha is the historical seat of so-called Tocharian B, i.e., Kuśiññe Kantwo, the home of the renowned Buddhist translator, Kumārajīva (344-413), and an important center of Uyghur history and culture from the 7th to 13th centuries.