Newsgroups: soc.culture.china,soc.culture.taiwan,sci.lang,soc.culture.hongkong,soc.culture.singapore
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 22:47:17 -0800
From: Brian Chang <polyglot@california.com>
To: "Jennifer E. Lee" <xanadu@ripco.com>
Subject: Re: Will the Taiwan's school systems use Pin Yin over Standard Phonetics Symbols in teaching Chinese? (was Re: Mao's Alphabet (2nd posting)
In-Reply-To: <592t08$1bf$1@gail.ripco.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.95.961216224314.11235C-100000@global.california.com>
References: <Pine.BSI.3.95.961214230146.209C-100000@global.california.com> <lstam-1512961749360001@muller.zoo.duke.edu> <592t08$1bf$1@gail.ripco.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
NNTP-Posting-Host: global.california.com
Lines: 180
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!hood.cc.rochester.edu!news.acsu.buffalo.edu!news.uoregon.edu!news.ifcss.org!news-peer.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!ix.netcom.com!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.zeitgeist.net!seashell.california.com!global.california.com!polyglot

The problem of Romanization is not between Mainland and Taiwan:
in this case there's no need to Romanize -- just write in real Chinese!
The problem is how to convey the Chinese sounds to OUTSIDERS:  those
who can't read Mandarin.
That Larry Lab from a zoo can only call names and isn't worthy of 
discussion.

Brian Chang


On 16 Dec 1996, Jennifer E. Lee wrote:

> Pin Yin vs. Wade-Giles is not China vs. Taiwan. Mao Zedong (PY) is 
> Mao Tse-tung in WG. For the Taiwan school systems to adopt Pin Yin
> are good. Because there should be no more Mao's spelling problem,
> if both nations use the same system. I'm wondering what system do
> the Hong Kong and Singapore K-12 systems use for students to learn
> Chinese?
> 
> In article <lstam-1512961749360001@muller.zoo.duke.edu>,
> Laurie Lab <lstam@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
> >Funny! Funny! This Mr. Chang claims he is a comparative linguist - I would
> >say it could be either a joke or a fake. 
> >
> >First, Ping Ying was created on basis of Latin-Roman lingustics, not on
> >English. Don't forget in the world there are over 2,000 kinds of language,
> >English is nothing but only one of them. Don't compare everything with
> >English.
> >
> >Second, Ping Ying was created by a group of linguists including such REAL
> >scholars Yuen-Ren Chao, Shu Xiang Lu etc. They were educated in Europe and
> >North America in the 20s or 30s, in that time English was not dominant as
> >today. Ping Ying actually absorbed some elements from all major western
> >languages, especailly Spanish, Germany, French and Latin. If Mr. Chang is
> >really what he claims, he should know some elementary stuff of Spanish,
> >Germany,  etc. Otherwise, I will doubt either his honesty or his quality
> >of education.
> >
> >Third, Ping Ying had nothing to do with Mao or Soviets. I don't want to
> >waste my time on this point - go to libray to find something basic on
> >modern China.
> >
> >Fourth, Ping Ying could be very different if it is invented today. It will
> >adopt more English elements to be sure. However, this is a purely academic
> >question, nothing to do with politics. 
> >
> >Last, one funny thing is that at least one school in Taiwan gives up
> >Bo-Po-Mo-Fo to Ping Ying. More and more people are talking about to follow
> >the suite.  Mr. Chang could sue those guys in Taiwan for this crime - I
> >will bet 10 for 1 for this trial if the judge really thinks this is not a
> >jerk/fake/joke.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Brian Chang wrote:
> >> A number of non-Chinese, as well as most non-Mainland Chinese,
> >> have trouble believing that somebody in his right mind would
> >> invent such a cumbersome, inadequate and illogical system as the
> >> Mainland Romanization.  (Only MS-DOS can probably compete with it 
> >> in user-unfriendliness and ineptness.)  Many Mainlanders also 
> >> wonder about the origin of this out-of-place system which they
> >> were forced to learn by their government, and why it was needed 
> >> in the first place.  Actually, it started as a means of 
> >> communication between two communist governments.  Now that you
> >> know the answer, do you expect it to function better than a Yugo car
> >> or a Long March rocket? 
> >> 
> >> Being a comparative linguist, I have never heard of another 
> >> language where the sound like "j" (like in JOB) is represented by 
> >> the Latin letters ZH, nor "ch" (like in CHAIN) represented by Q,
> >> etc.  These linguistic feats, or, rather, fiats, are peculiar only
> >> to the eviscerated Romanized version of Chinese which the 
> >> dictators of the Mainland first imposed on their own people, and
> >> later on the UN, i.e. on the rest of the world.  Although sounds
> >> of no single language can be perfectly transcribed in a foreign 
> >> alphabet, one can try to achieve the best possible approximation. 
> >> Honest attempts at renedering Chinese sounds with English letters 
> >> were recorded as Wade-Giles and, later, Yale Romanizations.  (Just
> >> as Hiragana conveys the Japanese sounds more accurately than
> >> Romaji does, the best way to transcribe Chinese is to employ the
> >> Bo-Po-Mo-Fo phonetic symbols, developed on the Mainland early in
> >> this century by the Chinese linguists themselves, and still in use
> >> in Taiwan.  Memorization of this set is no more difficult than
> >> learning the Greek alphabet, and is sincerely recommended to all
> >> learners.)
> >> 
> >> The linguists who invented the earlier Romanizations tried to do
> >> their best to convey to the non-Chinese the rough equivalents of
> >> Chinese sounds.  Both Wade-Giles and Yale systems were designed as
> >> auxiliary systems with a very narrow scope:  their creators have
> >> never plotted the abolition of Chinese ideographs and their total 
> >> replacement by an alphabet.  (This linguistic crime will be dealt 
> >> with in the second part of this article).  They replaced Chinese
> >> characters with Latin ones only in limited circumstamces, when the
> >> former were impractical to use -- e.g. in the English-language
> >> media, or on the initial pages of a Chinese textbook. 
> >> 
> >> The sorry results of the worldwide adoption-by-default of Mao's 
> >> dictum on the linguistic science manifest themselves in the 
> >> LITERAL doublespeak whenever the Latin letters are summoned to
> >> render the Chinese sounds.  Reading about China in English, one 
> >> frequently encounters the SECOND, more phonetically faithful, 
> >> Romanized rendition, following the useless official one.  Below is
> >> an imaginary quote (you've probably seen something like this in 
> >> The New York Times reports or the US State Department press 
> >> releases):
> >> "Although Deng Xiaoping (read: Shaoping) holds no official titles 
> >> now..." 
> >> 
> >> Question:  What is the purpose of writing "Xiaoping" if to most 
> >> lay readers this spelling provides no guidance as to how to 
> >> pronounce it -- or just misleads them?
> >> Answer:  There is no purpose (except the quintessentially Chinese 
> >> notion of tradition for the sake of tradition), but there is a
> >> reason.  The silly and useless Romanization system was not
> >> designed to bridge the cultural gap between China and the modern
> >> developed world, nor was it done by a professional linguist 
> >> train ed in elementary phonetics (as it should have been).
> >> Instead, the linguistic abortion came to this world as a
> >> brainchild of a Russian commissar, Mao's political advisor Michael
> >> Borodin, who stayed in Yennan for years, where Mao was sitting out
> >> while the Japanese bled Chiang's army slowly but steadily.
> >> 
> >> Borodin knew English but no Chinese, and in order to write the
> >> Chinese sounds he improvised a phonetic system based on the Latin 
> >> alphabet.  Now, Russian does not use Latin but Cyrillic, a
> >> modified form of the Greek alphabet, and therefore Borodin wasn't 
> >> really averse to reading X as "sh", Q as "ch", and so on.  His
> >> native language also lacked the sound "j" (like in JOB), and so 
> >> the name of a Chinese comrade of his came to be spelled as Zhou 
> >> Enlai (read: Joe-n-lie).  To make a long story short, Mao 
> >> eventually cheated the Chinese peasants with his promise of land, 
> >> outfoxed Chiang, and became a dictator for life for a quarter of
> >> the mankind.  And, because absolute power corrupts absolutely, he 
> >> ordered the Chinese people to adopt Borodin's half-baked scheme as
> >> their bridge to written communication with foreigners.
> >> 
> >> Of course, if you know Mandarin well, you'll pronounce it right --
> >> out of habit -- no matter how it is written:  Chinese characters
> >> are probably the most un-phonetic transcription system on Earth,
> >> having none or very little relation to their sounds.  But if you
> >> have never studied Chinese before, try to read aloud the Romanized
> >> street signs in Beijing, and you will know what I mean.  How about
> >> writing the street name thrice: 1) in Chinese characters; 2) in 
> >> the awkward and illegible Pinyin (Mao's favorite), and 3) in a
> >> Romanized form that any English speaker can read with a decent
> >> degree of approximation to the Mandarin sound?  Example:
> >>  ---------------------------------- 
> >>           X@@@@@<--- Chinese characters 
> >>      Quan-Men-Xi-He-Yan-Jie     <--- Mao's alphabet 
> >> Read: Chwen-Mun-She-Huh-Yen-Jay <--- Linguistically naive 
> >>  ----------------------------------     (Goldenthal) Transcription
> >> (I must apologize to the Internet readers because the first line
> >> of the sign won't be legible on most computer systems.) 
> >> 
> >> With a pathetic loyalty most Mainlanders cling to their Big 
> >> Brother-prescribed Romanized names.  Little do they know, how 
> >> ridiculous they seem to the non-Chinese, nor know they how awfully
> >> the latter twist the Chinese sounds while trying to read Mao's
> >> alphabet.  A few years ago in Los Angeles, during the political 
> >> asylum trial of my friend who spells his family name as Zhang, his
> >> American lawyer kept calling him "Mr. Zine".  Nobody in the court 
> >> could figure out why this made me giggle involuntarily.  During 
> >> the break, I (in my capacity as a witness) tried to explain to her
> >> that she should read it as "Jong".  "But," she answered, "it is 
> >> clearly written "Zine"!"  Luckily for us, the judge wasn't Jewish.
> >> In Hebrew, that word means "male sex organ".
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Brian Chang
> 
> 
> --
> Jennifer Ellen Lee                                      (xanadu@ripco.com)
> ~@>*---~@>*---~@>*---~@>*---~@>*---~@>*---~@>*---~@>*---~@>*---~@>*---~@>*---~
> " I love Beijing's Tiananmen, but I dissent Beijing government's 
>     repugnance toward Student's Democracy Movement in Tiananmen Sq. in 89. "
> 
> 

