User Comments - bababardwan
bababardwan
Posted on: Sign Language in China
December 10, 2010 at 10:42 PMtop·o·lect
[top-uh-lekt]
əˌlɛkt
Show IPAThe Chinese word fangyan is a compound of fang 方 "direction; locality; side; place; region; area" and yan 言 "speech; talk; language; word; saying". Fangyan semantically ranges across "language", "regional language", "variety", and "dialect" in comparative linguistics terminology, which involve criteria of mutual intelligibility, vocabulary, idiom, and pronunciation. Chinese fangyan is usually, but problematically, translated as English "dialect". Regarding the differences between fangyan and dialect, Victor H. Mair says,
It is no wonder that massive confusion results when one is used as a translational equivalent of the other. The abuse of the word fangyan in its incorrect English translation as "dialect" has led to extensive misinformation concerning Chinese language(s) in the West. (1991:6)
Two English neologisms have been coined to remedy this mistranslation of fangyan. John DeFrancis (1984:57) suggests regionalect for the mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese, leaving dialect for the mutually intelligible sub-varieties. Mair (1991:7) suggests topolect, which is fully Greek in derivation and size-neutral in regard to the speech area. (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language includes topolect). Although these fangyan distinctions may seem like pedantic hair-splitting, this word is crucial in some political, social, and linguistic arguments whether Spoken Chinese consists of "dialects" or "languages" (see Identification of the varieties of Chinese). Julie M. Groves (2008) analyzes attitudes among native speakers of Cantonese and Putonghua whether Standard Cantonese is a language or a dialect, or whether it in fact fits the concept of a 'topolect' better.
My take on this would be best dealt with by example:
Chinese language
Wu topolect
Hangzhou dialect
..with dialect being the most specific term, topolect a collection of related dialects from a region, and language at the highest broadest level covering related topolects.
Posted on: Sign Language in China
December 10, 2010 at 10:11 PMmenglelan,
噢，怪不得我找不到那些帖子。。我搜索“唇读”在中文可是应该是“看口形”，还有那些帖子在英文。多谢你的解释和你的链接。加油！
Posted on: This Needs to be Dry Cleaned
December 10, 2010 at 2:58 AMI haven't listened to this lesson, but I thought a bit differently about ji kuai qian. I thought it was used when the price was relatively low..only a few or up to several kuai [?below 20], but not for more expensive items.
Posted on: Sign Language in China
December 9, 2010 at 11:51 PMJen,
let's see if I've got it. Ng is Cantonese pronunciation of a common Chinese Surname. Literally you'd be signing "my family name is Ng". But there are a couple of other things going on here. Firstly the ng at the end of xing is the same as the ng surname.
Secondly, the i looks like a rude sign and perhaps after this you're pointing twice [the two ng's] to a third party [suggesting the rude sign is meant for them]. Am I close or way off here?
Posted on: Sign Language in China
December 9, 2010 at 12:11 AMmenglelan,
谢谢，我找得到有些帖子提到了聋人，可是找不到任何提到唇读。麻烦你，可不可以给我一个链接？
Posted on: Sign Language in China
December 8, 2010 at 11:55 PMI haven't struck this before, but mdbg has 似的 as shi4de just like in the vocab tab, but when you break it down it changes it to si4 and de:
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqb=%E4%BC%BC%E7%9A%84+
...and mandarin popup has it as si4de even when the characters are together. Any comment?
Posted on: Sign Language in China
December 8, 2010 at 3:02 PMthanks John. Earlier I was reading through your article I linked to below and when I got to the Chinese pinyin fingerspelling in your article I thought bingo..that's what it was in the lesson avatar but then I thought I noticed some discrepancies and wasn't so sure [and I also noted the similarity to ASL fingerspelling and then your comment pointing that out]. I guess it was because the avatar isn't showing the whole chart.
Posted on: Sign Language in China
December 8, 2010 at 2:23 PM哇， 我刚才发现这个：
“英国科学家已研制出可以分辨不同语言的唇读计算机，能够识别英语、法语、德语、阿拉伯语、汉语普通话及粤语、意大利语、波兰语和俄语等语种。这项技术对耳聋患者、执法机构以及嘈杂环境中的工作者具有实际应用意义。”
。。。很有意思，很有用，而且这个表明普通话的唇读有可能
Posted on: Sign Language in China
December 8, 2010 at 2:16 PM唇读
Posted on: Sign Language in China
December 10, 2010 at 11:34 PMFrom expansion:
你俩真牛！认识了一天就结婚了。
。。。“真牛”？。。“醉酒”更有可能。。也许在拉斯维加斯