Voices

Debate on how to keep the purity of Chinese language

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-19 10:31

Recently, the government ordered TV and broadcasting hosts as well as journalists not to use foreign words or abbreviations on their programs. For instance, "NBA" should be translated as "American National Basketball Association". WTO, GDP or CPI cannot be used any more either.

Although the regulation has not affected the daily work, a heated debate is underway.

Pros: We should certainly use Chinese characters in Chinese language. To use its full Chinese instead of "NBA" is not normal. After all, not all Chinese people know what "NBA" stands for, but the "American National Basketball Association" can be clearly understood by all. Terms like "CPI" are too professional for most audiences and readers to understand, so changing them into Chinese equivalents can help more people understand, thus widen the audience.

Cons: Communication is important but so is efficiency. The less effort to express an idea, the better. Americans won't use the 10-syllable phrase "National Basketball Association" rather than the simple abbreviation "NBA". That Chinese use the lengthy eight-syllable Chinese equivalent "Meiguo zhiye lanqiu liansai" for "NBA" is sacrificing efficiency for language purity. If we really want to purify the Chinese, pinyin should be abolished too because it stems from Latin which is also a foreign import.

Pros: Pinyin is just an assistant tool for Chinese characters and no one uses it in communication. Which language doesn't cherish its purity? Have you ever seen Chinese characters being employed in English? Why is it a big deal that Chinese language stops from using foreign words?

Cons: There are many foreign words in English such as "government", "parliament" and "tax" which are from French. And "kungfu", "silk" and "typhoon" are from Chinese. Chinese language has been impure for a long time. There are more than 20,000 to 30,000 Chinese words such as "shijie" (the world) and "zhendi" (the truth) that were translated from Sanskrit and Pali in ancient China.

At least several hundred Chinese words like "gongchandang" (communist party), "minzhu" (democracy), "kexue" (science) and "ziyou" (liberty) borrowed directly from Japanese in modern times are still being used today.

Characters are a kind of sign. Letters are signs too. In general, a language will be more vigorous if it has many sources of its vocabulary. It can then contain more cultural and social significance. Language diversification is the requirement for fruitful thoughts.

Pros: Even the French carry out a movement to purify the language. For example, they would say "courriel electronique" instead of "e-mail". Chinese language needs rules on how to use foreign words. To translate foreign words into Chinese won't affect the purity of the language but to directly use them will be harmful.

Cons: There are four ways to employ foreign words into Chinese. The first is transliteration, like "youmo" (humor); the second is free translation based on meaning, like "xianweijing" (microscope); the third is to use them directly, like "GDP" and "WTO"; the fourth is mixing the transliteration and free translation, like "X guang" (X-ray).

Currently, there is a more direct employment of foreign words in Chinese because the communication between China and the rest of the world is accelerating.

Excerpts of a comment that first appeared on www.infzm.com on April 14.