A month or so ago I happened to be in the Zhengzhou (Henan) area at the same time as a couple of my foreigner friends from Shanghai, though our paths never crossed. Upon returning to Shanghai, we talked about what it was like to deal with the locals and we all agreed on a couple points.

First, it was mindblowingly awesome to understand every conversation being had while walking down the street. Since the three of us have all spent the majority of our time in Wu speaking cities since coming to China, it was the first time any of us had experienced that.

Second, tones were by far the biggest problem in communication (unless of course the speaker was a mumbler). In the dialects of the area, tones don’t always match up with the MSM** equivalents. More on that in a minute.

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No, this isn’t another Sharon Stone-esque gaffe/political comment, but something rather more innocent. I was enjoying the Kurt Russell movie Soldier (兵人 in Chinese) on Chinese video sharing site Youku the other week (right, I enjoy campy sci-fi) when an interesting comment caught my eye. Now normally Youku comments are about as worthwhile as Youtube comments (i.e. completely worthless drivel), but this one was special – it was written in Tibetan. Continue…

Here’s a rather stark example of how learning standardized Mandarin (pǔtōnghuà = 普通话) is a non-trivial exercise in learning new phonemes for speakers of other Chinese languages. This question is from the Peking University language forums, so you might guess the person asking is a relatively* sophisticated language learner:

普通话的“你”的声母到底是舌尖的n，还是舌面的gn？我以前一直以为是舌面的gni哦，结果听到一位同事读边音li，他竟然说他也能分清楚li和ni。还说北京话的”你”就是“ni”而不是“gni”。一般情况下，我分不清n和l，但能分清gn和l，所以我一直以为普通话的“你”是gni，因为我一听鼻音就认为声母肯定是gn

In pǔtōnghuà is the initial consonant of “nǐ” actually an apical (tongue-tip) sound ‘n’ or a laminal (tongue-blade) sound ‘gn’**? I used to always think it was gni, but then I heard a coworker read it as a lateral, “li”. Surprisingly, he said he could distinguish “li” and “ni”. He also said Beijing dialect pronounces it “ni” and not “gni”. Usually, I can’t distinguish “n” and “l”, so I always thought that 你/nǐ in pǔtōnghuà was “gni” because as soon as I heard the nasal I thought it was “gn.”

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*Relatively sophisticated, but it’s hard to be sure how sophisticated. For example, I’m correcting the use of “gn” to “ng” to indicate ŋ. But heck, maybe I’m not sophisticated enough myself and there’s something about “gn” that I should know…

**Big correction: I misunderstood the “gn” notation and got corrected by Chrix in the comments below. The whole thing makes a lot more sense when you realize the writer’s “gn” stands for ɲ (IPA) like the ñ in mañana (Spanish) or the gn in gnocchi (Italian). It makes me question my own ears: is it possible that northerners say ɲihao? Does anyone have a good recording of ɲihao?

Hint: it’s lexical. On the map, red and blue indicate the lexical item was exported from China’s north or south respectively, while gray indicates the lexical product does not come from China. If you give up or get lazy, you can get the answer from the very cool World Atlas of Language Structures Online, which I seem to rediscover from time to time and always intend to explore further. This map is just one niblet of all the linguistic goodies they offer.

The following passage from the Analects confused me when I was reading a bit earlier this afternoon. I read the classical Chinese text first, without punctuation, and thought I’d understood it. Then I read a translation, which differed quite a bit from my original reading. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I now think my initial reading was probably wrong. But I would be interested to hear from others what they think.

Below, I’ve quoted the passage in classical Chinese with punctuation marks, but without quotation marks. I’ve appended Legge’s translations, and my own translations where my interpretation differs from his. As always, you can consult the entire text and get basic glosses at the CTP. Some background: Yang Huo was employed by Ji Shi , and responsible for governing the state of Lu.

陽 貨欲見孔子，孔子不見，
Legge: Yang Huo wished to see Confucius, but Confucius would not go to see him.

歸孔子豚。孔子時其亡也，而往拜之，遇諸塗。
Legge: On this, he sent a present of a pig to Confucius, who, having chosen a time when Huo was not at home, went to pay his respects for the gift. He met him, however, on the way.
Note: 時其亡 is an interesting construction! 亡 can often be used instead of 無, as is the case here.

謂孔子曰： 來！予與爾言。
Legge: Huo said to Confucius, “Come, let me speak with you.”

曰：懷其寶而迷其邦， 可謂仁乎？
Legge: He [Huo] then asked, “Can he be called benevolent who keeps his jewel in his bosom, and leaves his country to confusion?”
Alternative: Confucius asked: “Can he be called benevolent who keeps his jewel in his bosom, and leaves his country to confusion?”
Notes: In Legge’s translation, the subject of the second 曰 remains Yang Huo. But 曰 almost always introduces a change of speaker. If Confucius asked this question, it may explain why he had refused to see Yang Huo: he felt he was not a good administrator and did not want to be in his company.

曰：不可。好從事而亟失時，可謂知乎？
Legge: Confucius replied, “No.” [Huo asked:] “Can he be called wise, who is anxious to be engaged in public employment, and yet is constantly losing the opportunity of being so?”
Alternative: Huo replied: “No.” Confucius asked: “Can he be called wise, who appreciates what it takes to serve, yet is always tardy in doing so?”
Notes: There is no 曰 after the 不可, but you have to insert a 曰 for the passage to make sense no matter what.

曰： 不可。日月逝矣，歲不我與。
Legge: Confucius again said, “No.” [Huo asked:] “The days and months are passing away; the years do not wait for us.”
Legge: Huo said: “No. But I am an old man already; I do not have a lot of time left.”
Notes: Legge inserts another 曰 after the 不可 in this sentence. I do not, reading Huo’s statement as an apology for his bad record, which then makes Confucius change his mind about Huo.

孔子 曰：『諾。吾將仕矣。』
Legge: Confucius said, “Right; I will go into office.”

So, which seems more the more probable reading to you, and especially: why? Would be interested to hear your thoughts!

Not too long ago I started talking about the so-called “vagueness” of Mandarin. This is the perception voiced by some — both native and non-native speakers — that the language is more vague, well, than English at any rate. It’s a perception I’d usually call an intellectual hors d’oeuvre*, a mostly untestable idea of questionable origin that has a whiff of plausibility and some tasty examples to whet your appetite — but is fundamentally unsatisfying. Still, I thought it might be possible that the difference between certain grammatical structures — between Chinese and English — might smear a bit of plausibility on the hors d’oeuvre.

Bruce Humes in a comment on another post expanded on the vagueness perception:

Many Chinese really DO believe that the Chinese language lacks grammar, and having been taught that English does have a very demanding grammar, many Chinese professionals (not just lawyers but also engineers, etc.) then proceed to either 1) Ignore finer Chinese grammar points (which they obviously do know, as native speakers), and/or 2) Consciously or sub-consciously apply English grammar to written Chinese in the belief that this would raise their status in the eyes of others. Continue…

I had a conversation last night with a guy in one of the classes I’m taking. I’d noticed his Mandarin was straight out of the textbooks, so I asked where he was from. Turns out he’s from Ürümchi in Хіnjіаnɡ. The details have since been made unclear by baijiu, but I believe he said his father was from Manchuria and his mother was from Guangdong or Guangxi. They had volunteered to go to Хіnjіаnɡ after they were married, like so many Han of their generation, in search of wealth and success in the New Frontier.

We began talking about dialects (方言 was the word used). He said that they didn’t have a dialect, since it was a melting pot. Instead, the locals spoke with a wei dao 味道, a flavour, which from his examples is less an accent than a controlled slurring.

I went on to ask him if, after almost two decades of living in Хіnjіаnɡ, he’d been able to pick up any spoken Uуɡhuɾ. Not more than a few phrases, he said. Simple things like greetings. But not “thank you”. And not “bring me another beer”.

This, he said, was very typical of people his age growing up in Хіnjіаnɡ. You are born there of parents from somewhere else. Dialects and accents aren’t handed down to the new generation. The Uуɡhuɾs speak Mandarin when conversing with the Han population, but it’s rare enough for most people, he said, that there’s little inlfuence on the spoken Mandarin.

In a city as far from Beijing as one can reasonably get, a whole generation is speaking perfect Mandarin.

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*You hear 味道 used like this in a lot of different places. I can’t say I’d encountered it before in terms of language, but the usage is completely unsurprising.

It’s survey time again! It might be hard to top the 179 responses to Bowl/Plate so far, but let’s see what we can get. If you’re a native speaker of Mandarin yourself, just go on and take the survey (but don’t answer what it should be, answer how you actually say it!). Non-natives, just grab your nearest speaker and show them this:

Then answer:

[poll id=”6″]

In the situation that a front-line worker in China is dealing with a difficult situation, are they likely to spout something demonstrably false? Specifically: are they more likely to tell you, to your face, that X is true and then have it become clear (often within minutes) that X is not true? [UPDATE: Intro changed — see comments for details]

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The thick of a game of poker is no time to pull out of the vernacular and use foreign borrowings, so how do Beijingers deal with the Roman letters on a set of poker cards?

I don’t play the game myself, but since it came up in a conversation, here’s one native Mandarin speaker’s version: