Topolect: a Four-Body Problem
« previous post | next post »
From Jeff DeMarco:
The fanfic fourth book in the sāntǐ 三体 ("three-body [problem]") series, translated by Ken Liu has the following sentence:
Women dressed in flowing silk dresses oared elegant barges over the placid waterways, singing folk ditties in the gentle, refined accents of the Wu topolect …
fāngyán 方言 (lit., "place speech", i.e., "topolect; dialect")
Wú fāngyán 吳方言 ("Wu topolect")
Wu (traditional Chinese: 吳語; simplified Chinese: 吴语; Wu romanization and IPA:ngu ngei [ŋu²³³.ŋə̰i²¹⁴], wu6 gniu6 [ɦu˩˩˧.n̠ʲy˩˩˧] (Shanghainese), ghou2 gniu6 [ɦou˨˨˦.n̠ʲy˨˧˩] (Suzhounese), Mandarin Wúyǔ [u³⁵ y²¹⁴]) is a major group of Sinitic languages spoken primarily in Shanghai, Zhejiang Province, and the part of Jiangsu Province south of the Yangtze River, which makes up the cultural region of Wu. Speakers of various Wu languages sometimes labelled their mother tongue as Shanghainese when introduced to foreigners. The Suzhou dialect was the prestige dialect of Wu as of the 19th century, but had been replaced in status by Shanghainese by the turn of the 20th century. The languages of Northern Wu are mutually intelligible with each other, while those of Southern Wu are not.
Selected readings
- "'The Three Body Problem' as rendered by Netflix: vinegar and dumplings'" (3/23/24)
- "Ken Liu reinvents Chinese characters" (12/5/16) — translator of The Three Body Problem
- "Ted Chiang uninvents Chinese characters" (5/13/16)
- "Bringing back the Cultural Revolution — in English" (5/28/21)
- "Thought panzers" (2/24/2) — on "River Elegy"
- "The Three-Body Problem: The 'unfilmable' Chinese sci-fi novel set to be Netflix's new hit 3 Body Problem", BBC (3/19/24), by James Balmont
- "'Topolect' is in China!" (4/14/18)
- "'Topolect' is spreading in China" (6/20/19)
- "Tianjin topolect: linguistic diversity in China (and India)" (4/29/24)
- "Crosstalk about topolects" (12/16/19)
- "Concentric circles of language in Beijing, part 2" (6/13/20)
- "Dialectometry" (4/26/24)
- "Topolect writing" (11/23/14)
- "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition" (11/14/12) — q.v. "topolect"
- "Mutual intelligibility" (5/28/14) — see the long list of posts linked at the bottom)
- "What Is a Chinese “Dialect/Topolect”? Reflections on Some Key Sino-English Linguistic Terms," Sino-Platonic Papers, 29 (1991).
John Rohsenow said,
July 18, 2024 @ 3:03 pm
Congratulations.
(and)
At least they weren't topolectless! ;-)
Barbara Phillips Long said,
July 18, 2024 @ 3:27 pm
Before I progressed far enough to blink at the word topolect, I stopped dead at “oared.” I associate rowing with two oars, paddling with the double-bladed oar of kayaking or the single-bladed oar of canoes. Using a single oar to push the boat along, usually done standing, would be poling.
Is this another case of significant cultural differences — this time in boat construction — that makes translation difficult in the ways discussed recently in regard to food?
Philip Anderson said,
July 18, 2024 @ 4:43 pm
@Barbara Phillips Long
For me, the key distinction between rowing and paddling is that you sit facing the stern for the former. You may have two oars, or an even number of people might have one, as in an “eight” or a galley. Using a pole would usually be punting, but a single oar over the stern is sculling.
John Rohsenow said,
July 18, 2024 @ 5:16 pm
Accepting its strangeness, I took "oared" to be a poetic, and more elegant sounding,
choice than "rowed"; I don't normally use "to oar" as a verb. -(I don;t think that getting into the two meanings of 'scull(ing)" is relevant here).
AntC said,
July 18, 2024 @ 5:55 pm
(I don;t think that getting into the two meanings of 'scull(ing)" is relevant here).
Oh, I think it's right on point. (Like @BPL, I stopped short at 'oared'.)
"Sculling Boats On A River In Suzhou Water Town" (Video). Wikipedia on 'sampan' has more images.
It's essentially the same technique as for gondolas. [q.v., again wikip uses "sculling"]
Anonymous said,
July 18, 2024 @ 6:36 pm
Ken Liu also used “topolect” in his 2016 collection of translated science fiction, Invisible Planets. On page 20 introducing Chen Qiufan:
And a number of times in the story Tongtong’s Summer by Xia Jia included therein and also online here: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/xia_12_14_reprint/
Jonathan Smith said,
July 18, 2024 @ 6:49 pm
If the internets are to be believed *cough*, the Chinese goes "穿着丝绸裙子的姑娘们袅袅婷婷，泛舟湖上，用吴侬软语唱着柔美的歌谣." FWIW I found this by guessing that "gentle, refined accents of the Wu topolect" was translating "吴侬软语" (lit. 'soft/gentle language of the Wu folk'), the corny stock phrase one calls upon to characterize the languages of this region (but centrally Suzhou I guess.)
The boating part isn't specific re: mode of locomotion, so moot point (泛舟湖上: "drifted/floated [in] boats on the lake(s)"). And "the Wu topolect" is just inapt in English since there are hundreds of Wu topolects. The translator should have just said "some/a Wu tongue/language/topolect" or sth.
BUT anyway IMO this "literature" is all utter crap; art is dead in the P.R.C. for those out of the loop.
A G said,
July 18, 2024 @ 7:00 pm
To Jonathan Smith, thank you for providing the original Chinese (if you and the internets are to believed!). Provides much context to the English translation simply being weird and inadequate.
Robert Ramsey said,
July 18, 2024 @ 7:46 pm
Well, well. "Topolect," eh? Congratulations, Victor! It would seem you're beginning to win out in your battle against the term "dialect" in the Chinese context.
ron egan said,
July 18, 2024 @ 9:32 pm
"Sculling" sounds right to me. Even in a small sailboat, when there is no wind (as often happens when approaching a dock inside a harbor) and there are no oars handy, to yank the tiller back and forth, which causes the rudder (underwater) to swing back and forth, propelling the boat a few feet forward, is also known as sculling.
Jason said,
July 18, 2024 @ 11:35 pm
Just as well it's science fiction, otherwise that would be jarringly out if place methinks.
Victor Mair said,
July 19, 2024 @ 4:47 am
What's the antecedent of "that"?
gds555 said,
July 19, 2024 @ 9:36 am
Personally I would’ve preferred an Irish scene to the above passage, with a green-clad linguistics professor doffing his hat and greeting passers-by with “Top o’ the lect to ye!”.
Ryan said,
July 19, 2024 @ 12:50 pm
An oar is affixed to the side of a boat with an oarlock, while a paddle is supported entirely by the paddler's hands (well, except when lazy paddlers drag their paddles along the gunwales and annoy their fathers.) That a rower sits facing the back of the boat is mere consequence of the physics of using a fixed oar to move a boat.
You can scull with a paddle – to the side of a kayak or canoe to keep it steady when a force is trying to tip it (a sculling brace), or to move the boat sideways (a sculling draw). The sculling push is difficult at first.
"To oar" sounds awfully clumsy to anyone who is around boats often enough to talk about paddles or oars regularly.
Ryan said,
July 19, 2024 @ 12:52 pm
It's worth mentioning if one of the ladies doing the rowing or sculling were to "catch a crab", this would have nothing to do with arthropods or STDs.
Philip Taylor said,
July 19, 2024 @ 1:20 pm
"An oar is affixed to the side of a boat with an oarlock" — in Britain, with a rowlock.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
July 19, 2024 @ 2:05 pm
Philip,
I thought's that what they called male witches?
AntC said,
July 20, 2024 @ 5:40 am
The rowlock from Porlock?
Pronounced more like 'rollocks' is a minced oath. Rollocking
Jerry Packard said,
July 20, 2024 @ 11:16 am
“…this "literature" is all utter crap…”
Having read the first two volumes of the ‘san ti’ trilogy in both English and Chinese, I can assure readers that it is decidedly not ‘crap’ – Cixin Liu is a marvelous writer who has incredible insight into our world and beyond.
Philip Taylor said,
July 21, 2024 @ 3:36 pm
oar, v. (from the OED, 2nd edn) —
If it was good enough for Shakespeare (also Pope, Shelley, Tennyson, …), it must surely be OK for Ken Liu.
KevinM said,
July 22, 2024 @ 8:38 am
So it's not an either/oar proposition.
Vampyricon said,
July 22, 2024 @ 1:24 pm
@Jonathan Smith
Agreed here at least, I found both books a slog, and entirely unrealistic on precisely what is claimed to be Liu's best insight. I find it entirely implausible that that many people are misanthropes. The books were a slog to go through and pale in comparison to, e.g. the Locked Tomb series, which I devoured.
Jerry Packard said,
July 23, 2024 @ 3:58 pm
I leave it to the reader to discern.