![\"\"](\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/~bgzimmer\/berlin.jpg\" "\\"Click")
<\/a><\/p>\nWe have often encountered multiscript writing in East Asia, e.g.,:\u00a0\"Multiscript Taiwan advertisement<\/a> \" (12\/28\/13).\u00a0In such instances, the multiple scripts are seamlessly integrated in advertisements, announcements, notes, articles, and so forth for the purpose of conveying a more or less coherent message, i.e., they are reflections of digraphia, trigraphia, and so on — whether emerging or functioning.<\/p>\n This Berlin example is of a different sort.\u00a0 I would put it in the category of practice writing.\u00a0 The author is clearly a novice at Chinese writing, but, at the same time, he \/ she is intent upon trying to get the strokes and shapes of the characters right.<\/p>\n The most obvious characters that leap off the wall are xi\u00e1ng hu\u00e1 l\u00f3ng \u7fd4\u6ed1\u9f8d, which can actually be read as \"soaring, slippery dragon\", or, going in the other direction, l\u00f3ng hu\u00e1 xi\u00e1ng \u9f8d\u6ed1\u7fd4 (\"the dragon is slippery and soaring\").\u00a0 In part or in whole, these three characters are repeated on the wall, so they seem to form the centerpiece of his \/ her scribal activity in this iteration.\u00a0 My surmise is that the author is trying to work the phrase up into a signature, and it may also be a tattoo that he \/ she sports.\u00a0 It is interesting that the artist tries out both the traditional \u9f8d and the simplified \u9f99 forms of <\/span><\/span>l\u00f3ng (\"dragon\").<\/p>\n Other identifiable characters on the wall are:<\/p>\n m\u00f9 \u6728 (\"wood\")<\/p>\n shu\u01d0 \u6c34 (\"water\")<\/p>\n t\u01d4 \u571f (\"earth\")<\/p>\n qu\u00e1n \u5168 (\"complete\")<\/p>\n y\u012bn \u9634 (\"shade; femininity\")<\/p>\n y\u00e1ng \u6698 (\"rising sun; sunshine\")<\/p>\n xi\u00e0n \u9677 (\"trap; sink; cave in; sink down\")<\/p>\n I think there's little doubt that, aside from the soaring, slippery dragon, another major theme of the artist are the w\u01d4 x\u00edng \u4e94\u884c<\/a>\u00a0(\"Five Elements \/ Five Phases \/ Five Agents \/ Five Movements \/ Five Processes \/ Five Steps \/ Five Stages\") of Chinese cosmology.\u00a0 These are wood, fire, earth, metal, and water.\u00a0 Wood, water, and earth are clearly present, and it's possible that the\u00a0qu\u00e1n \u5168 (\"complete\") may be a garbled attempt to write j\u012bn \u91d1 (\"metal\"), and there may even be a hu\u01d2 \u706b (\"fire\") lurking in there somewhere.<\/p>\n