When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
CAIXINMEDIA

China's Farcical War Against English Acronyms

With the intention to stop the 'corruption' of the Chinese language, authorities in Beijing have been taking aim at everything from the NBA and MBAs, to iPhones and WiFi.

A Nepalese student writes Chinese characters in class in Kathmandu, Nepal, in April 2014.
A Nepalese student writes Chinese characters in class in Kathmandu, Nepal, in April 2014.
Yu Ge

-OpEd-

BEIJING — Four years ago, China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television banned the use of English acronyms such as WTO, NBA, GDP in television and radio reports, interviews or film subtitles. The agency explained that more of the audience would be able to understand the broadcast programs without them, even though much of the public had become familiar with these terms and even though their absence would create wordier, more confusing translations.

Chinese viewers were suddenly forced to listen to the awkward Chinese translations of terms such as “American professional basketball,” even as the glaring English letters spelling “China Central Television” remained on display in the corner of the TV screen. It was — and is — comical. And now, an article in China’s official mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, seems to be reinforcing this state of affairs.

The newspaper criticizes the use of English acronyms such as Wi-Fi, CEO, MBA, CBD, VIP, and PM2.5, which are commonly employed in global broadcasting and in China’s academic periodicals. Critics say the anglo abbreviations are an abuse of the Chinese language, fragmenting context and undermining the purity of Chinese.

In response, the Chinese blogosphere immediately and jokingly made up sentences avoiding the use of loan words such as Wi-Fi and iPhone. Alas, the examples demonstrated the absurdity of translating these loan words into Chinese. It makes for much longer strings of ideograms, and these IT terms don’t sound any more comprehensible just because they are translated into Chinese.

That there is a war of words, so to speak, between Chinese and foreign languages is not new. The struggle, which involves politics and culture, has been particularly intense over the past 200 years. Though we cannot determine who will be the eventual victor, what can be asserted is that the ultimate winner will be the language associated with political and cultural openness.

Judging a language by its purity is overbearing. Purity is not the first and foremost essence of a language. A closed language surely would be more pure, but it is only by being tolerant and inclusive that a language can have vitality. This is precisely the specialty of Chinese.

Chinese terms such as hu-tong, meaning alley, came from Mongolian, whereascha-na, meaning a moment, came from Sanskrit. The landscape of the Chinese language is enriched, not corrupted by these loan words.

From the purity perspective, the Chinese language has long been a hybrid. An estimated one-fourth of the Chinese we use today is made up of loan words. It is advisable to take a long perspective. Zhang Zhidong, a famous late Qing dynasty mandarin, once furiously denounced his staff for using the new term of the time, jian-kang, meaning health, because “the term came from Japan” and sounded like “the subjugation of China.”

Were there a real enemy of the Chinese language, perhaps it is actually the People’s Daily. The discourse that this newspaper relies on and develops has constituted a yoke on the Chinese language, quashing the willful freedom of Chinese people. Its habitual criticisms and tone corrupt the Chinese language far more than the people it criticizes.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Green

Droughts To Floods, Italy As Poster Child Of Our Climate Emergency

Floods have hit northern Italy after the longest drought in two centuries. Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini explains how these increasingly frequent events are being exacerbated by human activity.

A woman in yellow stands crying on a bridge surrounded by floodwater

Frederica Pizzuto cries after she sees her newly renovated house for the first time after it has been devastated by a meters-high flood wave.

Oliver Weiken/DPA via ZUMA
Carlo Petrini

-Analysis-

FAENZA By now it is undeniable: on the Italian peninsula, the climate crisis is evident in very opposing extreme events (think drought and floods), which occur close together and with increasing frequency. Until just a few days ago, almost the entire country was gripped by the longest drought in two centuries.

Now, however, extreme rainfall has hit the state of Emilia Romagna in the north of the country causing casualties and displacing over 10,000 people.

In 18 hours, the amount of rain that falls on average in a month has fallen. This has caused all rivers to overflow, flooding lowland towns and cutting off hillside towns due to landslides on many roads. Fields have become lakes and orchards that were at a crucial stage of ripening have been severely damaged.

It would be a blessing if this dreadful situation were a sporadic and isolated phenomenon, but unfortunately this is not the case.

What will happen tomorrow is unknown, yet we know it will happen.

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch

The latest