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Chinian

China Daily的一篇文章：Listen, I’m Chinian, not Chinese (via Language Log)

我的历史知识很有限，不清楚那些细节有没有错误。我也不喜欢上纲上线，把（自己认为）纯语言的问题跟racism联系在一起。不过，这篇文章里起码有一些东西是事实：

Group I: American, Australian, Austrian, Canadian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Russian…

Group II: Chinese, Congolese, Japanese, Nepalese, Portuguese, Sudanese, Vietnamese…

In the State of Ohio in the United States, what do local residents call themselves? Ohioese? Wrong. Ohioan. In Toronto, Canada, the people there call themselves yes, you guessed it Torontonian. Never Torontonese.

Not enough to make you feel superior should you fall into Group I, or inferior if you unfortunately happen to be in Group II? Let’s look at the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 1978, for the definition of “-ese”: suffix, 1. (the people or language) belonging to (a country); 2. (usually derogatory) literature written in the (stated) style. Examples: Johnsonese; journalese.

Or MSN Encarta Dictionary online: … 3. The style of language of a particular group (disapproving). Example: officialese. [Via Old French -eis; Italian -ese]

Even these two dictionaries published in modern times when racism is illegal reveal that, clearly, “-ese” here relates to derogation and shows a low opinion of people, to say nothing of centuries ago when the ancient Europeans saw themselves as the centre of the world, and called the countries near the eastern Mediterranean sea “Near East,” the Asian countries west of India “Middle East,” the Asian countries east of India “Far East,” and North America the “New World.”

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Bonus video: Mew - Special

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 26th, 2006 at 11:39 pm and is filed under Interesting Find. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

10 Responses to “Chinian”

sissy Says:
January 27th, 2006 at 1:35 am
無聊……。又繫呢個問題。

仲記得有次繫某個英語論壇度見到話-ese繫汚辱性詞語。跟貼個D傻SEO起哄閙人地美國佬繫Americaese. 0_0. 仲有D自作聰明話Chinian… - -||

好無奈阿。

P.S. 好驚奇伱繫男囝。仲繫叫Yan。

Yan:

哈哈，显然你也不喜欢上纲上线。Yan有很多字，我不是艳、妍、燕、雁，所以是男生没什么奇怪啊。
sissy Says:
January 27th, 2006 at 3:14 am
噢。
其實。我第一句唧意思繫：e嘎無幾多男囝真正中意en又或者繫語言學。至少我識唧晤多。- -+。（中意西樂美劇過D晤計。因為個d叫愛屋及烏……）
will21cn Says:
January 28th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, damn Viennese…
snrsinica Says:
January 30th, 2006 at 5:13 am
我觉得 Chinaman 不错。
就像黑哥们自称 nigga。

Yan:

我还真用过Chinaman。跟黑人用N-word的原则一样，我自己说可以，其他人门都没有。
可曾记得来时的路？ Says:
February 3rd, 2006 at 6:11 am
Friendlies

奥运的吉祥物标志上面写着Friendlies，Friendly的复数吧。查了一下字典知道了Friendly可以作为名词表示友谊赛等。但是复数Friendlies，是否还是会有一点儿让人联系到Friend Lies啊。也许我太敏感了。

朋友说，有人中文名丽丽li li，在美国有人发音成lie lie，两个谎言。真是无奈。明明很好的名字，有这么多无可奈何的交错。

Yan:

生活中总会有这样的无奈，有时我们能做的就是尽量别想太多。
laura Says:
February 4th, 2006 at 5:06 am
I browsed by and caught this one – very interesting indeed! I’m Finnish, of course, so I don’t seem to belong to either group.
fangzhou Says:
February 5th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Eh… I think it’s just the linguistics kinda thing. Don’t know much, but yeah, “尽量别想太多。”
chugol Says:
February 13th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
那Korean是不是个例外呢？
Brendan Says:
March 11th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
As a native speaker of English, and one fairly sensitive to this kind of thing, I’ve gotta call BS on this. The entry describing “-ese” as derogatory is correct, but incomplete: it’s used, as Language Log says in the linked entry, in the derogatory sense of styles of writing. As a Chinese-English translator, I often complain about the stiff “translatese” that most translation produces.

Chugol asks a good question above — Korean, Laotian, Tibetan, Mongolian, Siberian, Okinawan, Nepali, and Thai are several exceptions to this fictitious “rule” that I can think of off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more. (One could argue that “Thai” used to be “Siamese,” I suppose.)
homecpp Says:
June 9th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
明朝(1368-1644)及清朝初期(1644-1911)时期，欧洲同时期的地图大部分以拉丁文标注为Chinensis，-sis后缀无明确的意思，熟悉拉丁文的朋友，如搞生物、医药的，应该知道。罕有的由约翰.斯彼德(John Speed)编著的地图集(1627-1676)，是由英文标注的，可以清楚的看到Chinian，Chinian men, Chinian women，The Chinian Ocean。而当欧洲列强用大炮敲开了中国的大门后，称谓也就变了！
我引用了香港科技大学图书馆保存的原图给大家看看，看看我们屈辱的近代史！
http://img422.photo.163.com/homecpp/52124827/1379819881.jpg

English-speaking people should know what ‘-ese’ means. Why not let an old map teach us what Chinian is:
http://img422.photo.163.com/homecpp/52124827/1379819881.jpg
What do you see? Chinian, Chinian men, Chinian women and Chinian ocean…
If you don’t believe that, you can visit http://library.ust.hk/info/exhibit/maps-2002/maps-gallery1.html, search for John Speed and Kingdome of China, and see for yourself!

What a day and what a shame! It is so difficult to use our natural name, why? Who can give me an answer?

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