For those who are unfamiliar with Classical Chinese (CC) / Literary Sinitic (LS), what I am about to demonstrate in this post may be completely revelatory. Many outsiders to CC / LS operate under the misapprehension that — because they are both written with hanzi 漢字 / 汉字 ("Chinese characters / sinoglyphs") — anyone who […]
From the get-go, I'm dubious about any claims that current AI can fully and accurately translate Classical Chinese / Literary Sinitic (CC/LS) into Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM), much less English or other language, on a practical, functional basis. Since the following article is from one of China's official propaganda "news" outlets (China Daily [CD]), the […]
We are keenly aware that, while advances in machine translation of Vernacular Sinitic (VS) (Mandarin) are quite impressive and fundamentally serviceable, they cannot be applied directly to the translation of Literary Sinitic / Classical Chinese (LS/CC). That would be like using an Italian translating program for Latin, a Hindi translation program for Sanskrit, or a […]
The first thing we have to take into consideration is that Literary Sinitic / Classical Chinese (LS/CC) is a dead language, i.e., a book / written language (shūmiànyǔ 書面語). Nobody has spoken it for the purpose of spontaneous, unrehearsed conversation for thousands of years. So we cannot and should not use pedagogical methods designed for […]
Here I present a digest of four scientific linguistics papers from the latter part of the month of January, 2024 to show that our field is very much alive in diverse subfields at the beginning of the new year. "The Semantics, Sociolinguistics, and Origins of Double Modals in American English: New Insights from Social Media." […]
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This issue caused quite a hullabaloo more than a month ago and, during the runup to the national election that was going on at that time, it generated a lot of hot rhetoric. It's important to note that First Girls High School is an elitist, influential institution that is very hard to get into. The debate over […]
According to Justinas Vainilavičius, "AI-generated science fiction novel wins literary prize in China", Cybernews 12/20/2023: It only took three hours for Shen Yang, a professor at the Beijing-based university’s School of Journalism and Communication, to generate the award-winning admission. The Chinese-language work, entitled The Land of Machine Memories, won second prize at the 5th Jiangsu […]
The Shanghai language and linguistics journal (some say it's a literary journal — I think it's none of these three "l's", but more of a sociopolitical magazine), Yaowen Jiaozi*, announced China's hottest words of the year. Leading the list is the amazing term "xīnzhì shēngchǎnlì 新质生产力" ("new quality productivity"). Naturally, it was coined by President […]
[This is a guest post by Max Deeg. Although the following text has profound implications for anyone who is seriously interested in the actualities of translation between two very different kinds of languages from antiquity, it is fundamentally a task for specialists to render this type of Middle Buddhist Hybrid Sinitic into English. This is […]
Our previous post was on "Hallucinations: In Xanadu did LLMs vainly fancify" (4/3/23). If you were wondering where such an evocative, exotic name came from, it has a direct lineage back to the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) of China where it was called Shàngdū 上都 ("Upper Capital") in Mandarin, ultimately from early Mandarin ʂaŋ` tū. […]
"Kong Yiji" is one of the most famous short stories by Lu Xun (1881-1936), the most celebrated Chinese author of the 20th century. "Kong Yiji" (Chinese: 孔乙己; pinyin: Kǒng Yǐjǐ) is a short-story by Lu Xun, the founder of modern Chinese literature. The story was originally published in the journal New Youth (Chinese: 新青年) in […]
I've never heard of this "Chinese" proverb, but some American friends are asking if I can tell them the original proverb in Chinese. I can't tell them the original proverb in Chinese, but I can tell them about its origins in Japanese.
One of my favorite books for everyday living is Irma S. Rombauer's Joy of Cooking. The author's cheerful approach to her craft in the kitchen is similar to my jubilant upāya उपाय ("expedient pedagogical means; skill-in-means; skillful means" > fāngbiàn 方便 ["convenient"]) in the classroom. In my classes, especially Introduction to Literary Sinitic / Classical […]