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Language Log
Spelling with Chinese character(istic)s, pt. 5
Serious questions about "religion" in Sinitic
Below the fold is for advanced specialists in Chinese philology, theology, and lexicography. Even for them, it is recommended that readers prepare themselves by reviewing "Spelling with Chinese character(istic)s, pt. 4" (7/4/16).
[This is a guest post by IA]
I came across ěrlílìjǐng 爾釐利景 ("religion") last night. And today …
1) I read in two place — without corroboration — that 爾釐利景 was not coined by Péng Guāngyù 彭光譽 (aka Pung Quang Yu) but borrowed by him from Zēng Jìzé 曾纪泽 (another early Chinese [Qing Dynasty] diplomat to the West, eldest son of Zēng Guófān (曾國藩), a leading reformist minister at the Qing court):
1893年时任清廷驻美参赞的彭光誉出席在芝加哥举行的首届世界宗教议会，并在会上代表儒教发布宣言。此宣言中文题为《说教》，英文题为Confucianism[19]。文中没有采用“宗教”的日式译名，而是采用了外交官曾纪泽所倡用的音译法，称为“尔釐利景”，并对勘汉语字义，认为该词在中国当称作“巫”*，其神职当称作“祝”*。
(source)
[VHM: *wū / myag 巫 /https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/%E5%B7%AB-oracle.svg/60px-%E5%B7%AB-oracle.svg.png ("magus"); Victor Mair (1990) proposed that this is a loanword from Old Persian (maguš) (more at Wikipedia: Magus). (Mair, 1990; Mair, 2012). (source)
**zhù / tjuɡ 祝 /https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2d/%E7%A5%9D-oracle.svg/60px-%E7%A5%9D-oracle.svg.png a man kneeling with open mouth (兄) next to an altar (示) ("to pray, to say prayers; words said in a prayer in a religious ceremony; wizard; warlock; sorcerer; temple attendant who burns joss sticks and candles") (source)]
[…] 此外,又有时任清朝外交官的曾纪泽以尔釐利景音译religion, […]
2) As you intimated on the relevant language log page, the 爾+厘 was no doubt intended (but for whom would this not be impossibly recondite??) an initial /r/ of some sort.
(Different than a highly fricative [ʐ] of 日、熱 etc … If that is how either Peng Guangyu or Zeng Jize, the first from 武夷山 , and the second from near 湘潭 pronounced the 日母 initial in their respective versions of guanhua.) So, something along the lines of Orthodox Christianity's DIY new phonemes — 鿞 and so on.
3) 彭光譽's 《説教》is online (both image and text formats) here, but the amusing/interesting quotes from it (below) are from the footnotes in Sun Jiang 孫江, "Representing Religion: 'Chinese Religions' at the 1893 Chicago World Parliament of Religions", Oriens Extremus, Vol. 54 (2015), pp. 59-84 (26 pages), which is here.
Underlining as in the original, not mine.
________________________
19 Peng Guangyu 1893, 1: 按西學凡所載景教流行中國碑之景教, 系西方古教, 已與今教不同, 英文名今教曰爾厘利景, 此仍用景字譯之, 取其音同易知, 但用本字尾音者, 如同文館丁冠西總教習, 其姓本爲馬爾丁, 入中國止用尾音, 曰丁, 是其例也。
20 Pung 1893, 375. Cf. Peng Guangyu 1893, 3a: 按此會所議者, 於英文為爾釐利景 (阿依而藹基藹窩恩)。明末歐羅巴人譯為華文, 曰教者是也。然華文教字之義, 虚字, 為英文題赤 (梯依愛西鴟) , 實字為英文音司黜廬克慎 (藹恩司梯阿尤西梯藹窩恩)。
21 Pung 1893, 375. Cf. Peng Guangyu 1893, 3a–b: 即儒教之名, 亦由佛老之徒自稱爲佛教、道教, 遂於綱常禮教加以儒名, 稱爲三教。儒者但謂二氏為異學, 回教人又稱儒教為大教, 皆若輩立名所以自別, 非中國本有此異名, 中國禮教一而已矣。
22 Pung 1893, 375–376. Cf. Peng Guangyu 1893, 3b–4a: 余考英文字書, 解爾釐利景為教人順神拜神愛神, 誠心事真神之理也。其人能知神事神言, 著書立說, 言未來事者, 曰樸羅肺特 (披阿窩披鴟依梯, 譯曰先知師, 或曰祭司), 能祝神及代人致祝者, 曰樸釐司特 (披阿藹依司梯, 譯曰神甫), 曰帕司特爾 (披愛司梯窩阿, 譯曰牧司), 或曰彌泥司特爾 (姆藹恩藹司梯依阿, 譯曰教士), 或曰彌森訥爾來 (姆藹司司藹窩恩愛阿喂, 譯曰教士)。然則爾釐利景於華文當稱為巫, 樸羅肺特、樸釐司特、帕司特爾、彌泥司特爾、彌森訥爾來,諸名於華文當稱為祝, 而預知未來事者, 於華文又當稱爲讖緯之學矣。
23 Pung 1893, 376. Cf. Peng Guangyu 1893, 4a–4b: 又考英文高德 (基窩諦), 明季歐羅巴人譯為華文, 曰上帝, 曰神, 曰真神, 曰獨一之神, 有名曰帕特爾 (披愛梯依阿), 又名耶和華 (再依鴟窩霏愛鴟), 有圖像, 有創世紀, 與佛老巫祝者為近。
24 Pung 1893, 378–379. Cf. Peng Guangyu 1893, 5b: 近世西國承學之士, 有謂孔子非爾釐利景者, 有謂中國無爾釐利景者, 謂孔子非爾釐利景, 是矣, 謂中國無爾釐利景殊非。
[end of guest post by IA]
——
Well, according to Peng Guangyu, did China have religion (ěrlílìjǐng 爾釐利景) or not? Or did it only have doctrine / teaching (jiào 教)? Selected readings
* "Some Old Chinese terms relating to religion, mythology, ritual" (9/17/23)
* "What we believe in" (6/29/11)
* "The dangers of translation" (2/15/09) — esp. for Islam
* "\Writing English with Chinese characters" (6/3/15)
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
call off
to cancel an event that was planned or scheduled
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
ump
umpire
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Word of the Day
baccarat
Definition: (noun) A card game in which the winner is the player who holds two or three cards totaling closest to nine.
Synonyms: chemin de fer.
Usage: Because baccarat attracts wealthy players who place enormous bets, a casino can win or lose millions of dollars a night on the game.
Discuss
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
cranky
irritable, easily annoyed
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the dialectometric approach is to examine the data without assuming any particular bin boundaries, and to let the number and nature of the divisions emerge from the quantitative analysis.
There are many interesting methodological issues in the Huang et al. paper, but (for now) I'll leave readers to explore them on their own.
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Language Log
Dialectometry
Every individual's speech is variable — and when we look beyond the individual, we see variation across space, time, style, and social structure — among other dimensions. And these variations are generally gradient rather than abrupt, although standardization efforts by national or regional governments may try to eliminate the variation.
For millennia, scholars have noted and catalogued these patterns of variation — and for the past couple of hundred years, this study has been called dialectology. But until 1970 or so, people interested in this topic faced an uncomfortable choice: you can either pretend (falsely) that the variation can be put into a few well-defined boxes; or else you can limit your research to compiling very large lists of who said what where, when, and why.
About 50 years ago, some European researchers began trying to get past this dichotomous barrier, under the banner of "dialectometry". For a recent survey, see Martijn Wieling and John Nerbonne, "Advances in dialectometry", 2015 (from which I'll quote a long explanation):
The great tradition of European dialect geography produced innumerable detailed maps depicting the geographic distribution of variation, especially in word choice, pronunciation, and morphology. Researchers naturally sought to identify the deeper geographic and social structures that might be assumed to underlie many details and that might be examined as potentially explanatory. But as Bloomfield’s (1933, p. 340ff) classic discussion of this work noted, the maps of individual features often simply did not coincide, leading him to conclude that “in this respect […] dialect geography proved to be disappointing.” The problem usually revolved around how one should distinguish dialect areas, but modern dialectology recognizes that geographic distributions may involve continua or even scattered settlements.
Jean Séguy (1971, 1973) is credited with taking the liberating step of examining not individual features, but rather large aggregates of features, effectively asking how often two sites differ with respect to a given set of features (such as lexicalizations, but also the pronunciation of selected sounds, or the realization of a given morpheme). It is historically noteworthy that Haag (1898) had suggested something very similar, namely counting the isoglosses that separated sites to assay the strength of a putative border separating them, as noted by Bloomfield (1933) in the chapter cited above. Séguy not only took this step but presciently applied it to one of the foundational questions in dialect geography, the relation between aggregate linguistic differences and geographic distance (Séguy 1971).
In a programmatic article, Nerbonne (2009, p. 179) summed up the motivation for dialectometry’s attention to aggregates rather than individual features, arguing that the common practice of abstracting away from many details of phonetic variation is an implicit sort of aggregation that all variationists have accepted, and further noting that individual features are inevitably noisy (interpreting Bloomfield’s point above in this way). He also observed that the sheer number of available features makes it likely that a researcher focused on individual features can find some feature or other that coincides with a putative social or geographical influence, exposing the researcher to the danger of “cherry picking” — working with features that are selected (perhaps innocently) to confirm his or her hypotheses. Nerbonne (2009, pp. 190–91) finally notes that moving the analysis from the (categorical) level of individual features to the (numerical) level of aggregates enables language variationists to study general relations such as the law-like relation between linguistic differences and geographic distance demonstrated by Séguy (1971).
[…]
Whereas Black (1976) introduced mult[...]
Funny Or Die (Youtube)
What happens when you reveal you've never seen Hamilton to the wrong person.
Tamara Yajia revealed she’s never seen 'Hamilton' and Dylan Adler was stunned. Link in bio for the full episode of Bless These Braces. Hear the full conversation on this week's Bless These Braces with Tam Yajia.
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: interloper
This word has appeared in 33 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
wacky | whacky
strange or funny in a silly or bizarre way
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Language Log
Non-defined flower
This is a recent instagram post of the Vietnamese singer Suni Ha Linh.
<svg<g<g<g<path
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by SUNI (@sunihalinh)
The translation is accurate.
búbèi dìngyì de huā
不被定义的花
"undefined flower(s) / non-defined flower(s) / flower(s) that is/are not defined"
Who knows what she meant? Unspecified? Random?
Selected readings
* "Off my head there is a path" (2/4/11)
* "Tiny grass is dreaming" (5/24/12)
* "Getting off with your lover" (10/13/13)
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Word of the Day
arbor
Definition: (noun) A shady resting place in a garden or park, often made of rustic work or latticework on which plants, such as climbing shrubs or vines, are grown.
Synonyms: bower, pergola.
Usage: I never saw such a garden—large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them.
Discuss
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: propound
This word has appeared in five articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
rubber
a condom
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Language Log
Chinese dialectometry: fundamental flaws
Really happy to announce our new (open access) paper was finally published today in @LinguisticsJ!
"Geographic structure of Chinese dialects: A computational dialectometric approach"https://t.co/oyNPabq0CN
with He Huang (lead author), Lei Jia and Zhuo Chi
A short … pic.twitter.com/ldXwh3FDCU
— Jack Grieve (@JWGrieve) April 23, 2024
This is the cited paper:
"Geographic structure of Chinese dialects: A computational dialectometric approach", by He Huang, Jack Grieve, Lei Jiao, and Zhuo Cai, Linguistics (De Gruyter Mouton [April 23, 2024]) https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2021-0138 Abstract
Dialect classification is a long-standing issue in Chinese dialectology. Although various theories of Chinese dialect regions have been proposed, most have been limited by similar methodological issues, especially due to their reliance on the subjective analysis of dialect maps both individually and in the aggregate, as well as their focus on phonology over syntax and vocabulary. Consequently, we know relatively little about the geolinguistic underpinnings of Chinese dialect variation. Following a review of previous research in this area, this article presents a theory of Chinese dialect regions based on the first large-scale quantitative analysis of the data from the Linguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects, which was collected between 2000 and 2008, providing the most up-to-date picture of the full Chinese dialect landscape. We identify and map a hierarchy of 10 major Chinese dialect regions, challenging traditional accounts. In addition, we propose a new theory of Chinese dialect formation to account for our findings.
Keywords: Chinese dialects; dialectology; dialectometry; geolinguistics; typology Conclusions
To conclude, in this article we have presented the first large-scale dialectometric analysis of Chinese dialect survey data, uncovering hidden structure in regional variation in Chinese, including proposing new theories of modern Chinese dialect regions and of the historical formation of Chinese dialect regions. Our results both support and challenge standard views in Chinese dialectology, providing a quantitative basis for future research in Chinese dialectology, as well as for cross-linguistic typological analysis. This study also highlights the importance of adopting a quantitative and data-driven approach to dialectology. Geolinguistic data is voluminous, high-dimensional, and spatially related, and it is therefore challenging to effectively and efficiently detect and understand relationships and patterns in dialect data. Crucially, extending our scientific understanding of geolinguistic phenomenon must generally rely on the discovery, interpretation, and presentation of multivariate spatial patterns. Dialectometry is a powerful tool that integrates computational, visual, and cartographic methods together to detect and visualize multivariate spatial patterns. It bridges our linguistic knowledges with data-driven, quantitative research and provides us a new way to evaluate previous theories and explore new issues objectively, as we have demonstrated for the Chinese language in this study, leading to new and important insights about regional variation in one of the most important languages in the world.
The conceptual defects of this paper are evident from the first paragraph of the Introduction:
Chinese is a group of language varieties that forms the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan family. It is the mother tongue of 1.2 billion people, approximately 16 % of the World’s population. Understanding the geographic structure of Chinese dialects and the relationships between these dialects is important because it allows us to better understand the history of Sinitic languages, which is crucial for resolving questions about the formation of [...]
Word of the Day
invective
Definition: (noun) Denunciatory or abusive language.
Synonyms: vituperation, vitriol.
Usage: Bartle had become so excited and angry in the course of his invective that he had forgotten his supper.
Discuss
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Idiom of the Day
keep (something) straight (in one's mind/head)
To be able to understand something clearly and comprehensively; to keep the details of something clear in one's mind. Watch the video
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Language Log
Thou shalt be trespassed, as it were
https://twitter.com/thestustustudio/status/1783702628221792310
I still feel uncomfortable with all three usages of "trespass" in the final section of the tweet.
Selected readings
* "You will be trespassed automatically" (8/1/23)
* "Not permission, to violate to punish" (5/8/14)
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Idiom of the Day
keep (someone) in the loop
To keep someone informed about and/or involved in something, such as a plan or project, especially that which involves or pertains to a specific group. Watch the video
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
run up
If you run up a bill or a debt, you get goods or services on the understanding that you'll pay for them later.
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idimensional scaling (MDS) to linguistics, Embleton (1993) applied the technique specifically to dialectometry (see Embleton et al. 2013 for more recent work on alternative MDS visualizations). MDS takes a site × site distance table as input and tries to assign the sites in the table to coordinates in a small-dimensional space, typically consisting of two or three dimensions. Nerbonne et al. (1999) mapped MDS coordinates to color values for the first time, providing visual correlates in response to the frequent critique found in dialect atlases and treatises that the division of the language area into different dialect areas did little justice to the gradual nature of dialect boundaries. Figure 1 shows an example of one of these MDS maps, visualizing Dutch phonetic variation, together with a legend providing examples of words and how they are pronounced in their “fuzzy” areas. Heeringa’s (2004) dissertation used this form of presentation as well. Heeringa identified “typical” word pronunciations by selecting words whose distances correlated highly with the (distances on the basis of the) dimensions proposed in MDS, effectively the intensity of the colors shown in Figure 1 .
Figure 1 — legend: The three most important multidimensional scaling dimensions (together accounting for more than 85% of the variation in the location × location distance table) have been mapped to red, green, and blue, thereby providing a comprehensive visualization of Dutch phonetic variation. The five legends provide some typical pronunciations in the areas with the purest colors. Note that areas are genuine, even though borders are gradual. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/DutchDialectometry1.gif For more, you can read the rest of that article — or some of the other references offered by Google Scholar.
You'll learn that similar approaches have also been used to characterize stylistic, social, and temporal patterns of variation. And you'll also learn that this tradition has not in general tried to add to (or even really use) the inventory of terms for ways of talking, such as dialect, topolect, sociolect, idiolect, ethnolect, variety, style, …
Rather, the point has been to replace Bloomfield's disappointment with insight — by exploring ways to analyze and visualize the complex patterns of variation. This effort has been most successful as a way of looking at patterns in space, as in the figure reproduced above.
Beyond applications to European languages, such techniques have been applied to Berber, Javanese, Iranian, Lalo, and others. But as far as I know, the (different varieties of) Han languages (or dialects or topolects or whatever) have not yet been analysis in this way, although a large initial tranche of needed data has been provided by the Linguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects.
And based on that source, He Huang, Jack Grieve, Lei Jiao, and Zhuo Cai have published "Geographic structure of Chinese dialects: a computational dialectometric approach". One of that publication's many maps is reproduced below — the authors comment that
This map clearly shows that the Chinese dialect landscape is highly complex, consisting neither of a single dialect continuum nor a collection of distinct dialect areas separated by sharp borders. Instead, it includes clear dialect areas of relative homogeneity and varying sizes separated by both relatively sharp borders and areas of more gradual transition. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/Grieve3Dimensions.jpeg The use of the term "dialect" in these publications starts with the (translations of the) Chinese sources. But the term is problematic, because it describe a collection of ways of talking that are at least as diverse (and mutually (un)intelligible) as the Romance "dialects" like French and Italian and Spanish, or the Germanic "dialects" like German and Dutch and English. For some of the varieties, it probably makes sense to use the term "language" — and for others, perhaps Victor Mair's term "topolect" makes more sense. But the point of [...]
Language Log
The call / name of the gecko
This is a garrulous little creature who vainly and profoundly likes to enunciate its own name.
Lots more gecko gabbing here:
Note the wide range of vocalizations and verbalizations.
The Neo-Latin gekko and English 'gecko' stem from Indonesian–Malaysian gēkoq, it is a Malay word borrowed from Javanese, from tokek, which imitates the sounds that some species like Tokay gecko make.
(Wikipedia)
A splendid new paper by Olivia Anna Rovsing Milburn on the lore and literature of the gecko ("Noises Off: The Image of House Geckos and Tokay Geckos in Imperial Era Chinese Literature") will soon be published in Sino-Platonic Papers.
Selected readings
* "Another early polysyllabic Sinitic word" (9/21/21) — a detailed disquisition on the Sinitic word for "gecko" (géjiè 蛤蚧), including in a number of different topolects, with a lengthy bibliography
* "That gecko's pleasant accent: Martin and Mellors" (6/16/10)
* "Magical Penis Wine" (9/23/21)
*
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Word of the Day
annunciation
Definition: (noun) A formal public statement.
Synonyms: proclamation, declaration, announcement.
Usage: A long and dramatic drum-roll signaled that a royal annunciation was about to be delivered.
Discuss
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Idiom of the Day
inch-perfect
Extremely accurate; very well placed or perfectly judged. (Used especially of maneuvers, moves, or shots in sport.) Primarily heard in UK. Watch the video
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
keep down (1)
If you keep something down, you stop it from increasing in size or number.
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Funny Or Die (Youtube)
The wickedly talented Dylan Adler has the perfect theme if he had a Bar Mitzvah today
The wickedly talented Dylan Adler has the perfect theme if he had a Bar Mitzvah today. Hear the full conversation on this week's Bless These Braces with Tam Yajia.
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
go for (1)
to try to get something or achieve something
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Idiom of the Day
in (one's) dotage
In a state of senility or mental decline due to old age. Watch the video
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the linguistic landscape in eastern Eurasia, as well as processes of language variation and change more generally. Critical observations, questions, and exegesis
Chinese is — note the singular form of the verb
a group — not a single entity
language varieties — what is a "language variety"? how does it differ from a language? how does it differ from a dialect?
group… forms [a] branch — is "Chinese" a group or a branch? or both? in any event, whether a group or a branch, by any linguistically acceptable definition, "Chinese" consists of more than a single language, not just a mass of "dialects"
Sinitic — what is this? how does it relate to Chinese? the authors say that "Chinese" is a "group of language varieties [i.e., languages]" that "forms the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan family" in other words, Chinese is essentially equivalent to Sinitic, but — in their minds — perhaps the Chinese group is not exactly equivalent to the Sinitic branch if they are not exactly equal, how do they differ? it's all very muddy and murky
That's just my critical analysis of the first sentence of the Introduction. The rest of it reads like AI-generated superficial, vapid blather, which is true of much of the rest of the paper when it is not citing and interpreting data.
Methinks the authors of this paper have been seduced and confused by the compilers of the Linguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects, the chief source of their data, into thinking that "Chinese" is a single language ("the mother tongue") spoken by 1.2 billion people and that it consists of thousands of mutually intelligible "dialects".
Nothing could be further from the truth, linguistic and otherwise.
My assessment of the paper under review may seem to be unnecessarily harsh. In actuality, it is not much different from countless other studies in Chinese dialectology that cannot distinguish between family, branch, group, language, dialect, and fāngyán 方言 ("topolect").
—
P.S.: This has nothing to do with armies and navies, a topic we've fruitlessly discussed ad nauseam on Language Log countless times in the past.
P.P.S.: As for the mutual intelligibility of so-called "Chinese dialects", listen to this 4-year-old kid from Tianjin, which is close (70 miles) to Beijing, singing in the local Muttersprache.
P.P.S.: If we can't call all those multitudinous strains of language in China "dialects", what would be a good alternative? I propose "lect" (see especially the last sentence in the passage below).
In sociolinguistics, a variety, also known as a lect or an isolect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety. The use of the word variety to refer to the different forms avoids the use of the term language, which many people associate only with the standard language, and the term dialect, which is often associated with non-standard language forms thought of as less prestigious or "proper" than the standard. Linguists speak of both standard and non-standard (vernacular) varieties as equally complex, valid, and full-fledged forms of language. Lect avoids the problem in ambiguous cases of deciding whether two varieties are distinct languages or dialects of a single language.
(Wikipedia) Selected readings
* "The future Sinitic languages of East Asia" (4/21/24)
* "Language, topolect, dialect, idiolect" (10/3/23) — with extensive bibliography (during the last two decades, the Language Log posts on the classification of Sinitic and its lects, large and small, are countless)
* "Topolect was specifically invented in 1991 by Victor Mair as a translation of 方言 (fangyan) to get around the whole language/dialect bombshell when it comes to Chinese", Hacker News (7/4/21) — with minimal, yet essential, bibliography
[Thanks to Hiroshi Kumamoto]
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Language Log
Despite their faces…
Jennifer Rubin, "Has Trump’s family abandoned him? I’m answering your questions", WaPo 4/24/2024:
Q: Are Republicans the party of no? Why can't Republicans say yes? Instead of getting a border deal in exchange for Ukraine funding, they got nothing.
A (Jennifer Rubin, Opinion Columnist):
Yup. They are the masters at cutting off their noses despite their faces. Remember that they really do not want to solve the problem. They want an ongoing crisis they can use against Biden. This is all to deny Biden a "win." Their obligations to their constituents and to their oaths evaporate in the face of performance politics.
Other have taken the same path, e.g.
Chris Cillizza, CNN 2/12/2018: The point here is that Jordan’s carping is sound and fury, signifying not much. If congressional Republicans managed to throw Ryan out, it would be cutting off their noses despite their faces.
There's an entry in the Eggcorn Database, of course.
The obligatory screenshot:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/DespiteTheirFaces.png
[h/t Russinoff]
➖ @EngSkills ➖
