Chinese and Japanese
It’s so cold I have a headache. Ow.
Okay, time to wail about where this post (and its responses) went wrong. I tried to let the thing slide into ‘I forgot’ territory, since my attention span is the equivalent of a retarded bunny, but I forgot to disable emailing comments. So I got this comment in my inbox today, and I’m going to complain.
(Summary: Some chick decides Japanese and Chinese are pronounced the same, and assumes different pronunciations = two different names. Other people agree, also throwing in the fact that one’s name stays the same between languages. German, Spanish and English are a few of the languages that are used for comparison. In short, nobody believes that, in Chinese, Sakura’s name is ‘xiao ying’. Everyone thinks it should be just Sakura, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron).
1. My language is not your language.
It was rather shocking to see the amount of arrogance and assumptions everyone had in thinking Chinese and Japanese were pronounced the same and calling other people morons for thinking otherwise, or that Chinese was part of some odd universal language law that said people’s names stay the same when crossing between the language barrier.
Yes, throw in German/English, Spanish/English, Language learned in high school/English as your basis for comparison. Hey, if GERMAN/SPANISH/LLIHS does that, then it means EVERY LANGUAGE does it too!
No, it does not. Coming from a community that has already shown itself to accept that every single rule is subjective (even with topics of incest, bestiality and rape), it just made me wonder how on earth they managed to lump languages under one single umbrella with a Universal Rule to rule them all. Even English in itself doesn’t follow its own rules; why should every language need to have something in common?
The problem lies with the Japanese kanji and Chinese characters. Chinese does romanize (or Chinesefy?) English names, but the Japanese kanji creates a new rule altogether. Kanji is, essentially, traditional Chinese. Some phrasing has changed over the… decades? Millennium? (like how the kanji for ‘teacher’ are the Chinese characters for ’sir’), but regardless, kanji names are still pronounced the Chinese way when speaking in Chinese, simply because they are Chinese characters.
They are not different names. Simply because the kanji characters are pronounced differently doesn’t mean they’re two unique names with no relation to each other. Think Latin and English. In Latin, the endings of names change depending on their case, but in English it stays the same. They’re still the same person, even though they have like, 4 different versions of their names. (For the record, I took Latin too, so I have the relevant knowledge to make this parallel).
2. No one is a moron. Only you.
Go ahead and backpedal by saying the Japanese/English speakers don’t pick up on the different intonations, so for some reason, the rant is still valid(???), but that makes you look more of the moron. You don’t know for sure if the Japanese can pick them up - you’re not a native Japanese speaker. I learned both Japanese and Chinese (and Latin, hee), I can tell the difference, and that is the limit of my experience. Don’t overstep your boundaries by proclaiming that no one can tell the difference just because you - the native English speaker - can’t.
And yet again, I see projection all over. I find it incredibly infuriating when people assume things they don’t know about applies to everyone else at large, and think themselves knowledgeable when they draw parallels between languages that don’t actually exist. Look, if you don’t know the language and how it works, don’t draw parallels, because you don’t know what the other line actually looks like.
I think it will be extremely heartening to see people rein this this psychological mindset when talking to a public. I too, like to submit to projection when making snarky remarks, but not in terms of making logical arguments that will be judged by the public, in which this rant obviously did. Said person ignored my comments and continued her tirade of ribbing the fanfic author whom she was complaining about.
The lack of knowledge in people isn’t what bothers me. It’s the assumption of knowledge that creates this horrid atmosphere of ignorance and arrogance.
In short: Don’t rant about languages you know nothing about.
