Chinatown shorthand

Phonetic simplifications in use in New York’s Chinatown — all are in use this month, though I’ve seen them for years:

• 反 ‘to overturn’ for 飯 ‘cooked rice’
• 介 ‘to interpose’ for 雞 ‘chicken’ (these have the same segmentals in Cantonese, [kai])
• 交 ‘to have contact’ for 餃 ‘dumpling’
• 九 ‘nine’ for 韭 ‘Chinese chive’
• 才 ‘talent’ for 菜 ‘cooked food; vegetable’

I can’t remember having seen these in actual printed forms — all appear only in handwriting, though sometimes on signs intended to be read by customers.

Calligraphy in Chinatown

New York’s Chinatown is not generally thought of as a center of high culture — it is where many of us go to get regular doses of better Chinese food than we can make ourselves, and for some kind of validation of our Chinese identities. But here and there you can find the real zìjī 字跡 of famous calligraphers. Here are four, which I’ve supplemented with links to Robert K. Chin’s superb website:

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Yú Yòurèn 于右任, scholar and politician, on the Chinese American Veterans Memorial Arch at Kim Lau Square (off Chatham Square). “華裔軍人忠烈坊” [square for soldiers of Chinese descent who died for their country].

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Cheng Man-ch’ing [Zhèng Mànqīng] 鄭曼青, artist and tàijíquán teacher. on the second-floor sign of the New York T’ai Chi Association, 209 Canal St. “太極拳學社” [Tàijíquán Study Society].

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Hu Shih [Hú Shì] 胡適, intellectual historian, on the doorway of the First Chinese Baptist Church 中華第一浸信教會, 21 Pell Street (south side of the street). “紀念堂” [memorial hall].

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Chairman Mao [Máo Zhǔxí] 毛主席, on the sign of the Xīnhuá Bookstore 新华书店, 9 Elizabeth St. (west side of street). “新华书店” [Xīnhuá Bookstore]. No image yet, and the same calligraphy is used on all the store’s signs around the world, so this is rather less distinctive.

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I’d be glad to hear of any others, and I’ll list them here. Or if you have more detailed photographs, those would be nice, too.

Guide to the radicals of the traditional Chinese dictionary

I have posted a guide to the radicals of the traditional Chinese dictionary (Kāngxī zìdiǎn 康熙字典 system) and their terminology, with a plan for how to learn them.

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Every character has a certain number of strokes, and learning how to count them is one of the essential skills involved in mastering the traditional dictionary. Characters are listed under the appropriate radical, subgrouped by the number of strokes in addition to the radical.

Origins of the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols (注音符號/ㄅㄆㄇㄈ)

I have posted a one-page description of the philological sources of the zhùyīn fúhào 注音符號 or bopomofo ㄅㄆㄇㄈ.

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The Mandarin Phonetic Symbols (zhùyīn fúhào 注音符號; informally known as bopomofo ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) were selected from among various ancient characters, most of which are no longer in use and some of which are known only from medieval dictionaries that contain all sorts of bizarre and otherwise unknown forms. The Symbols were inspired by the Japanese kana and modeled on an earlier system produced by the eminent philologist Zhāng Tàiyán 章太炎 (1868–1936). The use of ancient forms exhibits a clear nationalist sensibility.

The pronunciations of those characters are shown in the document, together with notes on their meanings and origins. This information is mainly based on the preface to the Guóyīn Zìdiǎn 國音字典 of 1919.

Portmanteau characters in Chinese (abstract)

Abstract: Portmanteau here refers to an unusual type of Chinese character: a composite of two or more graphs for living words, all of which are to be read (in order) to give the meaning of the word represented by the whole character. It is something different from the conventional notion of the “ideograph” or huìyìzì 會意字, the juxtaposition of graphs representing ideas or objects that contribute abstractly to the overall meaning of the word represented. I have shown elsewhere that characters are read through a process of recognition rather than decipherment, arguing that “complex pictograph” is a better description of the “motivation” (basis of character structure) of many graphs traditionally considered huìyì (Branner 2009). But the portmanteau is a different case. Its components are not abstract; understanding its structure depends on actually reading these components as connected words to form a phrase that defines or denotes the word.

This paper reviews a number of portmanteaux in current use and considers their place in Chinese grammatology. Such characters are of course part of the history of cursive Chinese and seem to have begun to be discussed rather late in the received history of Chinese writing, around the sixth century c.e.; it is doubtful that they could be strictly the same as the huìyì mentioned in the first-century Shuōwén jiězì 說文解字.

In terms of their structure and their relationship to oral words, portmanteaux embody a conception different from most mainstream characters. Their construction is more self-conscious than other character-types, which suggests that they are a later development. Their relationship to oral words is tenuous and tends to change frequently.

“Portmanteau Characters in Chinese. ” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 131.1: 173–82.