Will We Soon Need To Learn Chinglish?
The English language is undergoing its greatest transformation ever, thanks mostly to translation mistakes made by some 250 million Chinese second-language speakers, according to the San Diego-based consultancy Global Language Monitor.
As the first truly global language, Global English’s propensity for absorbing new words has made it the world’s lingua franca, with globalization accelerating its rate of word assimilation.
At the same time, China’s multitude of English learners and rising global influence means most of the new English words coined daily are being made in China. As these new denominations of linguistic currency circulate online, English’s lexical bank grows richer by the day.
“Long time no see”, a word-for-word Chinese-English translation, is now a standard English phrase, and more Chinglish terms are on their way according to the experts.
“Because of China’s growing influence, it now has more impact on Global English than native English-speaking countries. That’s pretty astonishing,” said GLM president Paul JJ Payack.
Payack says about 30 percent of these new words and phrases are recognizable to native English speakers without explanation. Others, such as “beware, the slippery are very crafty” caution, slippery when wet are just confusing.
“Interesting things start to happen when second-language speakers begin to inhabit a language,” Payack said.
Cripes! I never thought about it. If we’re outnumbered, then we don’t have final say on what is “correct” English. Ha! We’re doomed!
http://www.engrish.com/
It’s nice to know my future hinges on fornicating vegetative matter.
Then again, I’d probably butcher Chinese even worse if I had the guts to try. I guess it works both ways.
Chinglish
Now that should be the word of the year.
Most people who speak English as a second language only learn a small subset of it. I lived in Switzerland for a number of years, where almost everyone speaks three or four languages. Most Swiss were surprised to discover that native English speakers would use an Internationalised version of English with them, and a much broader and richer version of English with other native speakers.
It seems unlikely that there will be a large effect from China, because to really enter the broader English a word or phrase has to appeal to the rest of us, and as most of it is just mildly amusing nonsense created by people who barely speak English, I can’t see it taking over.
Where are my Firefly DVDs? I need to practice…
All your language are belong to us?
J/P=?
“Long time no see” isn’t a chinese phrase.. it’s been in films for over 40years for a start!
It’s bad grammar sure.. but come on!
I already speak fluent engrish. Considering that stuff I had to assemble after Christmas.
Mr. Fusion (#10), one of the hands down best examples I ever ran across was the instructions I received with a CompUSA brand hard drive enclosure a couple of years ago. A classic, not a single sentence made sense. It was almost a work of art. 🙂
I wanted to use it as the artwork for this post but could not locate it… yet.
My favorite has long been what came with some add-in card or other: “Please to insert card in your mother’s board.” But I think that one came from Japan.
Gotta wonder what “Private vegetables” means. Or did I just fall for a gag?
Joss Whedon nailed it in Firefly/Serenity; but his English/Chinglish may have been just a mechanism for his characters to swear loudly and profane without offending the sensitive ears of American moms.
No need for paranoia… languages evolve or die. Always have, always will.
Jägermeister (#14),
Is excelent vegetable answer. Fortune becomes turtle who wait patiently beside water. Wise man is he like you who. Thank luck for yours.
(Come to think of it, Finnegan’s Wake is in Chinglish.)
This is America, buddy. Speak Spanish like everyone else. 😉
want to have fun,
Read ‘Shadowrun’ series
where corps have taken over and the languages have conglomerated.
If we’re outnumbered, then we don’t have final say on what is “correct” English.
Wonder what the British feel about Americanlish
This has already happened once.
I don’t know the number, but I’d guess that speakers of South Asian English far outnumber the US or Britain — or both combined.
It is often a second language but not always. I constantly meet South Asians who are most comfortable in English.
These hundreds of millions of South Asian English speakers seem to have little impact on American or British English. So, I have to wonder if the same will be true for Chinese English.
Hao Jiu Bu Jian
What do the English think of American English?
Mainly we think it’s vibrant and sometimes incomprehensible. A bit like ‘English English’ was in Chaucer’s or Shakespeares time.
Mark Twain and Raymond Chandler (to pick the first two I can see on the bookshelf beside me) and Chuck Berry opened my eyes to an alternative English. I have every hope the language will be enriched every bit as much by the Chinese and especially the Indians who seem to have English as their natural language very nearly as much as Hindi, Bengali and so on.
I’m also a fan of the phrase ‘English is the Lingua Franca of the modern world’. ‘Lingua France’ being the Latin (the original global language) for ‘French Language’ which was to global language of diplomacy until relatively recently.
#21,
But it is that book you didn’t mention that keeps English from fragmenting into many different dialects. The Oxford Dictionary. Or the Mirriam-Webster, or New American, or whichever dictionary you use. These books keep our spelling and pronunciation steady and with a minimum of argument. So instead of English developing multiple dialects, instead we have general regional accents.
On Fanuc industrial robots years ago there were two labels that always cracked me up:
“Change the grease of specified quantity twice yearly” and part of instructions an a circuit breaker talking about the reset button popping out: “…when the button commences to run away…”
I deal with this every day with the testers on my team located at our Beijing office. The way I handle it is to not accept it: If you send me an e-mail that isn’t comprehendable it’s coming back, and if you don’t understand what I’m saying (and you don’t ask for help) then it’s your own damn fault.
Hell, “Mission Accomplished” doesn’t mean what it used to. Try looking less East.
English was a messed up language before any of us started speaking it.
frankly, I think we’d all be better served learning Mandarin Chinese.
#27 no, actually it was each successive invading culture that tore up england, settled and interbred with the previous invaders.
I should clarify something that has come up a couple of times. When I said we, I meant those of us in the western world who speak English, not just Americans. This is the same distinction that the quoted article makes.