CHANGES IN CHINESE LANGUAGE
55
and as te-mo-k'e-la-si #or te hsien-sheng ✯ (Mr. Democracy"). But now these transliterations have become antiquated and replaced by i-hui for parliament, kê-hsüeh ** for science, and min-chu R± for democracy. But a few good transliterations have survived such as chi-he for geometry, lo-chi for logic, yu-mo ✯✯ for humour, wu-t'o-pang ✯‡₺ Ħ for utopia, sha-wen chu-i ✯✯‡ for chauvinism. Yet even in Hong Kong, where many Chinese use English, transliteration remains the less common method for introducing terms of foreign origin. Some popular transliterations are, however, in use such as pâk-ch'e for parking a car, in-shoh for insurance, sz-toh ✰✰ for store, fei-lam for film and chak K for cheque. The Chinese living in multi-lingual communities like Malaya or Singapore resort more frequently to transliteration; but their tendency to do so has not exerted a significant influence on the language as a whole. Transliteration of Western terms having in general been found to be a clumsy practice, many Chinese translators, especially before the May 4th Movement, have preferred to borrow certain terms from the Japanese.
In Chinese, many words can be used in more than one grammatical function, having either completely different meanings or different connotations of one meaning, depending on their position in the sentence. This peculiarity has sometimes been thought to make for a lack of that precision needed in scientific usage. But this so-called imprecision also makes for elasticity in the creation of new terms. For instance, the character pi # can, depending on its place in a sentence, signify "writing brush", "to write", "writing" or "handwriting"; moreover, it can be found in combinations such as kang-pi meaning pen; sui-pi M. sketch or essay; pi-chi . to take notes; ch'in-pi #, one's own handwriting; or finally chu-pi, editor or editorial writer of newspaper. How widely the meaning of a character may vary is best shown by the character su originally meaning "plain and unadorned". However, Chinese dictionaries usually list about ten meanings under this character, as well as numerous combinations in which it forms a part, such as su-shih . vegetarian diet; su-miao ✯, sketch; yin-su #, factor; and yüan-su ƒ‡. chemical element all newly coined expressions. Similar combinations in common use are: ke-ming, revolution;
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CHANGES IN CHINESE LANGUAGE
55
and as te-mo-k'e-la-si #or te hsien-sheng ✯ (Mr. Democracy"). But now these transliterations have become anti- quated and replaced by i-hui for parliament, kê-hsüeh ** for science, and min-chu R± for democracy. But a few good transliterations have survived such as chi-he for geometry, lo-chi for logic, yu-mo ✯✯ for humour, wu-t'o-pang ✯‡₺ Ħ for utopia, sha-wen chu-i ✯✯‡ for chauvinism. Yet even in Hong Kong, where many Chinese use English, transliteration remains the less common method for introducing terms of foreign origin. Some popular transliterations are, however, in use such as pâk-ch'e for parking a car, in-shoh for insurance, sz-toh ✰✰ for store, fei-lam for film and chak K for cheque. The Chinese living in multi-lingual communities like Malaya or Singapore resort more frequently to transliteration; but their tendency to do so has not exerted a significant influence on the language as a whole. Transliteration of Western terms having in general been found to be a clumsy practice, many Chinese translators, especially before the May 4th Movement, have preferred to borrow certain terms from the Japanese.
In Chinese, many words can be used in more than one gram- matical function, having either completely different meanings or different connotations of one meaning, depending on their position in the sentence. This peculiarity has sometimes been thought to make for a lack of that precision needed in scientific usage. But this so-called imprecision also makes for elasticity in the creation of new terms. For instance, the character pi # can, depending on its place in a sentence, signify "writing brush", "to write", "writing" or "handwriting"; moreover, it can be found in combinations such as kang-pi meaning pen; sui-pi M. sketch or essay; pi-chi . to take notes; ch'in-pi #, one's own handwriting; or finally chu-pi, editor or editorial writer of newspaper. How widely the meaning of a character may vary is best shown by the character su originally meaning "plain and unadorned". However, Chinese dictionaries usually list about ten meanings under this character, as well as numerous combina- tions in which it forms a part, such as su-shih . vegetarian diet; su-miao ✯, sketch; yin-su #, factor; and yüan-su ƒ‡. chemical element all newly coined expressions. Similar combinations in common use are: ke-ming, revolution;
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