Talk:Chinglish/Archive 2

Recent edits
I think things are moving in a positive direction, but I wanted to bring up a few things rather than just doing more edits, since I think maybe Keahapana disagree about a few things. I figure having a discussion in good faith here couldn't hurt. In general, I think the sections are getting a bit long, with a lot of examples and explanations of particular references. For example, the history of English in China is mentioned in one paragraph, but specific incidents surrounding the Olympics and World Expo are much longer. (I don't mean those events aren't important, of course, they certainly are.)

Also, briefly, I believe "macaronic language" is an inappropriate term: nothing about it suggests that there is a variety of language which can be called "A macaronic language." Texts can be composed of language which, in its piecing together of multiple codes, is macaronic. (There's plenty of debate about what kind of thing Chinglish should be called, of course -- a pidgin, a creole, codemixing, learner English, bad English, etc.)

As for the "features" section, I'm not a huge fan of the article used as the source, but I think it may work if this article is going to remain devoted to Chinglish in the sense of "badly/weirdly translated English in China" -- I don't recall if we ever resolved the debate about what exactly this article is about, though. I remain interested in trying to represent the perspective which sees "Chinese English" as an emerging "legitimate" variety of English. --Joelh (talk) 05:02, 23 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Joelh. I'm sorry to be slow in replying and I'm glad to discuss why I reverted your deletions (5 Kb, ~12 refs), which I think improve the article's readability and usefulness. When you say the sections are "a bit too long", do you mean in terms of personal opinion or a policy like WP:LENGTH? This article is currently 32 Kb, and I think the Terminology, History, and Examples sections are good enough for now, but the Features (retitle if you like) and Causes sections are too short. Since you seem more knowledgeable than I am about those "Chinese English" aspects of Chinglish, perhaps you could improve the content of those two sections. The Liu et al. article was the best thing I found available to replace the previous unreferenced section. If you can find better references, please add them. Also, how about revising that current "In linguistics terminology" lead and moving macaronic language down to See also? Talking about linguistic "legitimacy" is as pointless as "purity"; I've met speakers of RP who don't consider American English to be "legitimate". Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 00:42, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi, I'm a bit busy at the moment but wanted to check in about a few things. I do mean they are too long in my opinion, not according to any policy. Specifically, I think the "history" section is too detailed when it comes to recent developments. I'd love to work on the features section and will soon. Causes seems a bit trickier to me, but I'll see what I can do. Yes, I'd to see the 'linguistics terminology' revised. I also don't think 'macaronic language' is related to the concept of Chinglish, but if you can find some sources that support it, I'd be fine with moving it to the 'see also.'


 * Regarding 'legitimacy,' I just mean that some (like the anonymous user who prompted us to begin this new round of edits) would argue that Chinglish is not a variety of English, but an interlanguage or a collection of errors. But some -- and I'm interested in representing this perspective a bit more here -- argue that there is or may be a Chinese variety of English (as there are British, American, & Indian varieties, for example), and that this can be interpreted as a good thing.

Thanks for your work on this page, I'm looking forward to continuing to work with you and others.--Joelh (talk) 21:53, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Joelh. This Google Timeline illustrates why the recent Beijing & Shanghai history of Chinglish is especially important. We could shorten the History section by moving the last paragraph down into Features and Causes. I'll tag them now for expansion and you (or someone else) can rename and reorganize later. I'll also cleanup and move the "macaronic language" down since a quick search finds Macaronic Language. I also look forward to working together. Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 23:47, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The section on "Xinhua" English -- i.e., that it "cannot be labeled Chinglish because it is grammatically correct," gets at what I've been mentioning re: "China English." Mair has some interesting points, but he is a scholar of Chinese, not English, and there are a number of scholars who have proposed definitions for this kind of English (e.g., Xu 2010, He & Li 2009, to name a few recent examples). I'd like to expand that section to include those perspectives, and shorten the section on Xinhua English. In general, I think there is too much from Mair in this article (again, that's just my opinion) -- he has worthwhile insights but there are scholars who have done much more work on this than he has.--Joelh (talk) 20:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds like a good idea as mentioned yesterday under (1). You could branch off and expand China/Xinhua English to a new page, which allows differentiating it from Chinglish. Please get started and I'll help out later. I added Mair's refs because they were among the best I could find. Sorry I'm not familiar with Xu or He & Li but perhaps you'll add their relevant refs in both the Chinglish and new articles. Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 23:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Examples
http://208.116.9.205/10/content/28159/2.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.135.71.167 (talk) 16:55, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Years later, still a very poor (start class, low importance) article not meeting even wiki's "encyclopedic" standards
From the "Terminology" section: "One author divides Chinglish into "instrumental" and "ornamental" categories..." The author in question is Abigail Lavin, who has no basis or training in linguistics, as far as I can tell. Nor is she echoing any established theory in Linguistics. Regardless of its "scientific sounding" quality, this paragraph does not belong here. "Lingua franca of cool"? That's catchy, but baseless. Please properly reference this, or remove it, as it detracts from the article.

From the "History" section: What does "Chinese Pidgin English" have to do with so-called Chinglish? The next few paragraphs ramble on, basically quoting word-for-word articles about so-called Chinglish which could be summed up in a few, succinct sentences, and do not add to the value of the article.

From the "features" section: The error with "shui niu" and "lao huang niu" is still here, years later. Tofu is a borrowing from Japanese. The correct translation of "dou fu" is "bean curd", regardless of how "appetizing" it may or may not sound (I suppose "eating her curds and whey" is unappetizing as well).

From the "examples" section: This is a list of erroneous mistranslations, often machine translation, which is not a definition of so-called Chinglish from the OED, referenced in the article.

Terms: Is not "Chinglish mistakes" redundant? As so-called "chinglish" is--by definition--mistaken? "Chinglish mistakes" implies "proper Chinglish", and yet, such a thing does not exist.

For anyone following this article, who cares anything about the perception of wikipedia as a source for any kind of legitimate information, please fix these glaring flaws in this article.219.79.234.173 (talk) 07:34, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

shanzhai (山寨)
Technically shanzhai is a Chinese word that has entered main stream English not a Chinese interpretation of an English word. Thus this particular example does not belong here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.142.68.62 (talk) 08:26, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

A few small inaccuracies
With the statement "the degree to which a Chinese variety of English exists or can be considered legitimate is disputed," what does the last part mean? By legitimacy, do you mean in regards to acceptance?

Also, is Chinglish really a pidgin language? I'm not too familiar, but I do know that Spanglish at least is not a pidgin, so I'm wondering whether Chinglish is also not a pidgin.

Does this article suggest that Chinglish itself does not have its own culture? Again, in the case of Spanglish, it has its own culture. However, this is due to the fact that Spanglish has been around arguably longer and therefore has developed its own culture.

Under "Causes", it could be helpful to cite "Liu et al." in the references section. Aling007 (talk) 07:05, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

---55AC--EP The usage of a dictionary definition within the contents of the article feels a little out of place. From my recent experience the nature to which the dictionaries describe such complex ideas such as interlanguages tends to be falsely displayed. I may be wrong but it feels like it should be removed as a direct reference to meaning.

The last sentence of history ... "On October 11, 2011, a Broadway play written by David Henry Hwang named Chinglish, which deals heavily with the themes of Chinese and American (mis)communication, began performances at the Longacre Theatre." feels like it should be categorized into a new section of Chinglish in popular or current media. It does fit into the fact that it is progressing in our current times, but still feels misplaced.

The language regarding the features of Chinglish feels either too academic or not clearly structured to give the reader of the article to read. subsections would definitely help in regards to simplifying this section. Elmerpan (talk)  — Preceding undated comment added 02:44, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I would like to first say that I think this article has come a long way from what it was a few months ago. It seems this is primarily due to the efforts of registered users Joelh and Keahapana. While it is unfortunate that a supposedly "free" document is restricted to the edits of two members(or really one), it seems they are quite equal to the task.

At the same time that I commend their efforts, I would like to point out a few small inaccuracies in the article, one glaring one remaining from several months ago, and a couple "new" ones which may or may not require editing.

(1)"Giving, then erroneously revising a definition in reference":

The article begins by describing "chinglish" thus:"Chinglish refers to spoken or written English language that is influenced by the Chinese language."---Fair enough as a *de facto* definition of the term, although this is NOT the definition provided by the Oxford dictionary which is referenced, but who cares, right? This is, after all, Wikipedia, the "encyclopedia" that uses The Urban Dictionary for reference. No big problem so far.(although by this definition the sentence "He ate chop-suey." is "chinglish")

The article continues:"The term "Chinglish" is commonly applied to ungrammatical or nonsensical English in Chinese contexts, and may have pejorative or deprecating connotations." Very true, setting the term in its proper context.

However, the article then continues: "Other terms for *the variety of English used in China* include..." . This is inaccurate, "chinglish" is not "the variety of English used in China". This statement is incorrect on at least two counts: the use of the definite article "the", implying that there is one "variety" of English used in China and the use of the word "use", implying that "chinglish" is employed selectively and with purpose or aim. This equates "chinglish" to "the variety of English used in China" which is not one of the definitions referenced, stated, or implied anywhere else in the article.

I now know better than to attempt to change this myself, so I will ask for at least a comment on this from anyone still following this article with sufficient "Wiki-clout" to actually change the article.

(2)Mistranslation(a)

In the burgeoning "history" section, in the paragraph about mathematical terms "中数" is translated as "center number". Where "中" is used in a linear or incremental sense, it's most accurate translation is "middle", not "center". Note that "中旬"(term for the 11th through 20th days of a month) is mid-month, not "center month". However, I assume this is part of the actual text of the paper published regarding the experiment and so cannot be changed, but I just wanted to point that out.

(3)Mistranslation (b)

In the section "features", where the idiom "work like a horse" is discussed, while I suppose "shuiniu" *could* be used idiomatically, the more common idiom is "lao huangniu"(老黄牛). Here is a link for reference: http://www.ichacha.net/search.aspx?q=%c0%cf%bb%c6%c5%a3 Please note this term is not to be confused with the similar term for "scalper" (unlicensed seller of tickets):"黄牛".

I realize this comment/section is quite long and encourage whomever has been truncating the discussion page to do so with this one as well, provided that those with sufficient permissions/rights/influence to amend the article have a chance to read it and act on it, should they so choose.61.170.225.74 (talk) 21:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * These are good suggestions, but the beauty of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit an article. Please try it, and if you need assistance, I'll be glad to help. This will help you get started, How to edit a page. Thanks, Keahapana (talk) 02:36, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Bureaucratic example of wordiness as a feature of Chinglish
I question the example of the Features section using a bureaucratic sample as illustrating Chinglish.

"For example, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced, 'CAAC has decided to start the business of advance booking and ticketing', which could simply say 'CAAC now accepts advance booking and ticketing.'"

That is unremarkable. I frequently see similarly dreadful output coming from American bureacracies.

Thisisnotatest (talk) 22:05, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Too many examples
While the rest of the article does an adequate job defining what Chinglish is the examples section appears to be a random selection of unencyclopaedic content. A myriad of interesting and humourous examples can be found on sites like Engrish.com, no need to provide samples here. Instead, we should either provide samples which are typical of a particular category of mistranslation and then explain what that mistranslation process is, or we should have examples which are typical in their specific wording, in other words "Chinglish" phrases which are more or less standard Chinglish, not simple a one-off mistranslation. The reason for this is that there is an infinite number of possible mistranslations, simply listing several of them here does not make the reader any more informed of the issue, besides cutting into time they could be spending on sites like the one mentioned above. keeping out of WP:OR territory will be difficult, hopefully some quality sources will appear. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 03:38, 21 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Would you please explain what you mean by "unencyclopaedic"? Keahapana (talk) 18:19, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * In this case I mean that it doesn't contribute clear information useful in aiding the reader to develop a general understanding of the topic. I hope this helps. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 12:46, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Of course, deletions have to be evaluated case by case, but it sounds like we have different interpretations of "encyclopedic". The OED defines it as: "Of, pertaining to, or resembling an encyclopædia ... that aims at embracing all branches of learning; universal in knowledge, very full of information, comprehensive." Deleting valid content on the basis of individual opinion, rather than WP conventions, seems counterproductive, and would result in Wikipedia being less universal, less informative, and less comprehensive. According to WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC (discussing AfD, but presumably the same principle applies),
 * Saying something is "encyclopedic" or "unencyclopedic" are empty arguments. Unencyclopedic means "not worthy of being included in an encyclopedia", which is synonymous with "should not be included" or "I want it deleted". So when you use it as a justification for deleting something, it's a circular argument: "Delete, because it should be deleted". This is just repeating yourself. Similar reasoning holds for giving "it's encyclopedic" as your reason. What we want to know are your reasons why the article should or should not be included in Wikipedia. Simply answer the question, What guidelines does it violate or meet, and how?
 * Also, since Chinglish is non-/sub-standard English, deciding what constitutes "standard Chinglish" sounds like a snipe hunt, but I could be wrong. Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 02:42, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I didn't say delete it because it is unencyclopaedic, perhaps you could read the rest of my post? - Metal lunchbox (talk) 03:55, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The examples certain makes it a more entertaining read while also clearly illustrating why Chinglish translations can be so bad. Gymnophoria (talk) 10:41, 27 July 2016 (UTC)