Xinhua News Agency has published another list of banned words:<\/p>\n
X\u012bnhu\u00e1 sh\u00e8 x\u012bnw\u00e9n b\u00e0od\u00e0o zh\u014dng de j\u00ecny\u00f2ng c\u00ed \u65b0\u534e\u793e\u65b0\u95fb\u62a5\u9053\u4e2d\u7684\u7981\u7528\u8bcd (\"Forbidden words in news reports of Xinhua News Agency\").<\/p>\n
Since it is designated as \u7b2c\u4e00\u6279 (\"first batch\"), we can expect that more batches will be issued in the future.<\/p>\n
You can find versions of the current list circulating all over the internet.\u00a0 Here's one<\/a> from a WeChat (Weixin.qq.com) post that I have relied on for the following account.\u00a0 The proscriptions may also be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n All together, there are 102 terms divided into 5 major categories:<\/p>\n 1. current affairs and social life<\/p>\n 2. laws and regulations<\/p>\n 3. ethnicities and religion<\/p>\n 4. Hong Kong, Macau, and territorial sovereignty (exceedingly <\/span><\/span>numerous and <\/span><\/span>detailed entries)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 5. international relations<\/p>\n I do not have time to translate and explain all 102 forbidden expressions, but will just mention a few by way of illustration.<\/p>\n They have some very peculiar rules pertaining to terms relating to language.\u00a0 It is explicitly forbidden to refer to the language spoken by the people of Taiwan as \"Taiwanese\" (T\u00e1iy\u01d4 \u53f0\u8bed).\u00a0 If for some reason you must mention the daily language spoken by the people of Taiwan or sung by their singers, you have to call it <\/span><\/span>T\u00e1iw\u0101n M\u01d0nn\u00e1n y\u01d4 \u53f0\u6e7e\u95fd\u5357\u8bed (\"Taiwan Minnan Language\"), and you should put quotation marks around it.\u00a0 I suppose that's to convey the sense of \"so-called\" (but not real) or simply to serve as scare quotes.\u00a0 Similarly, you should avoid mention of Gu\u00f3y\u01d4 \u56fd\u8bed (\"National Language\", i.e., \"[Modern Standard] Mandarin\"), but if for some reason you have to refer to it, you are required to put it inside quotation marks.\u00a0 If you need to refer to language exchange (\"y\u01d4y\u00e1n ji\u0101oli\u00fa \u8bed\u8a00\u4ea4\u6d41\") between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, you have to call it li\u01ceng'\u00e0n H\u00e0ny\u01d4 \u4e24\u5cb8\u6c49\u8bed (\"Cross Strait Sinitic\").\u00a0 You may not refer to it as li\u01ceng'\u00e0n Hu\u00e1y\u01d4 \u4e24\u5cb8\u534e\u8bed (\"Cross Strait Chinese\").<\/p>\n It is not permitted to refer to \"indigenous peoples; aborigines\" (yu\u00e1nzh\u00f9m\u00edn \u539f\u4f4f\u6c11); you have to call them by their tribal names, such as \"\u0100m\u011bi r\u00e9n \u963f\u7f8e\u4eba\u201d (\"Amis<\/a>\") and \u201cT\u00e0iy\u01ce r\u00e9n \u6cf0\u96c5\u4eba\" (\"Atayal<\/a>\").\u00a0 In official documents they should be styled \"g\u0101osh\u0101n z\u00fa \u9ad8\u5c71\u65cf\" (\"montagnards; high mountain tribes\").<\/p>\n It is forbidden to refer to leading cadres and heads of state owned enterprises as \"l\u01ceob\u01cen \u8001\u677f\" (\"boss\").<\/p>\n Terms like \"star\", \"diva\", \"movie king\", etc. may not be used to refer to entertainers.\u00a0 You have to call them \"zh\u00f9m\u00edng y\u00ecsh\u00f9ji\u0101 \u8457\u540d\u827a\u672f\u5bb6\" (\"famous artists\"), and so on.<\/p>\n Most of the rules are ludicrous.\u00a0 For example, \"xi\u01ceos\u0101n t\u014dng \u5c0f\u4e09\u901a<\/a>\" (\"mini three links<\/a>\") must be replaced by \"F\u00faji\u00e0n y\u00e1nh\u01cei y\u01d4 J\u012bnm\u00e9n, M\u01cez\u01d4 d\u00ecq\u016b zh\u00edji\u0113 w\u01cengl\u00e1i \u798f\u5efa\u6cbf\u6d77\u4e0e\u91d1\u95e8\u3001\u9a6c\u7956\u5730\u533a\u76f4\u63a5\u5f80\u6765\" (\"direct contact between the Fujian coast and Quemoy and Matsu\").<\/p>\n I have only touched on a tiny handful of this flood of forbidden words, and more batches are coming.\u00a0 If someone has the time, it would be worthwhile to write a paper on such lists.\u00a0 I believe that they reveal much about the political fixations and broad range of paranoia that grip the Chinese leaders.<\/p>\n Will all of this language policing help to keep China from descending into chaos?\u00a0 It's all part of the Chinese obsession with w\u00e9iw\u011bn \u7ef4\u7a33 (\"stability\").\u00a0 The rulers are terrified that, if the people use the wrong words, diplomatic uncertainty and social instability will ensue.<\/p>\n [h.t. John Lagerwey]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Xinhua News Agency has published another list of banned words: X\u012bnhu\u00e1 sh\u00e8 x\u012bnw\u00e9n b\u00e0od\u00e0o zh\u014dng de j\u00ecny\u00f2ng c\u00ed \u65b0\u534e\u793e\u65b0\u95fb\u62a5\u9053\u4e2d\u7684\u7981\u7528\u8bcd (\"Forbidden words in news reports of Xinhua News Agency\"). Since it is designated as \u7b2c\u4e00\u6279 (\"first batch\"), we can expect that more batches will be issued in the future. You can find versions of the current […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-and-politics","category-taboo-vocabulary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35256"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35272,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35256\/revisions\/35272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}