Some changes to the mother tongue education program in Taiwan which I imagine will make it even more ineffective than it is now ...

Regular correspondence in Holo Taiwanese & Mandarin

As my flurry of posts today indicates, my nearly week-long absence from the blog should not indicate I am fading into irrelevance! But there are a few more Taiwanese-language related links to share with you today.

One issue which should be obvious to most students of Taiwanese and Mandarin is the regular correspondence between those two languages, which can be used to guess the pronunciation of any one of a pair of cognates. But the casual student of this topic will have found it difficult to put his or her finger on some of the finer details of that regular correspondence.

I made a somewhat flawed post in the past on some of the tonal correspondences between the languages, but I have run across some much richer information lately.

First, take a look at the Master's Thesis (PDF) written by Luo Jia-peng (駱嘉鵬), who put considerable time into studying the rhyme tables of the Kuang-yun 《廣韻》, an early rime dictionary from about 1000 A.D. that is highly useful for creating historical reconstructions of pronunciation and studying divergence in modern Sinitic languages.

Phonetic reconstruction of Chinese initials is the main topic of this thesis. Luo, who is really only interested in modern Mandarin and Holo Taiwanese pronunciations and not so much on what the historically correct reconstructions might be, opts to print a table of Huang Jigang's (黃季剛) reconstruction of Kuang-yun initials. But then he gets to the best part, a table which clearly lines up the regular correspondence between Mandarin and Taiwanese with the Kuang-yun rimes (see page 4-5)! There's also a discussion of tones (see pages 6-7)!

And, for the super nerd, you can view this 8 MB excel file where the scholarly Luo has provided a full list of Mandarin and Taiwanese readings for what I thin kis all the characters in the Kuang-yun. Talk about a "wow." Sort that baby by Mandarin or Taiwanese pronounciation and scroll to your heart's content!

語言

語 yǚ MC njwo (上聲) LH ŋɨɑ (上聲) OCM *ŋaʔ

'Speak'

語 yǜ MC njwo (去聲) LH ŋɨɑ (去聲) OCM *ŋah

'To tell'

言 yán MC njɐn (平聲) LH ŋiɑn (平聲) OCM *ŋan

'To speak, speech, talk'

Who would have known they once differed only in the final consonant?

(Information from the ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese)

Review of ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese

This book arrived in the mail from Amazon yesterday, and kicks my ass in more ways than one. If you like this sort of thing, you don't need me to tell you much about it. Pinyin news covers its release, and Forumosa has a thread about it.

The meat of the introduction:

Each entry offers one or more possible etymologies as well as reconstructed pronunciations and other relevant data. Words that are morphologically related are grouped together into “word families” that attempt to make explicit the derivational or other etymological processes that relate them. The dictionary is preceded by a substantive and significant introduction that outlines the author’s views on the linguistic position of Chinese within Asia and details the phonological and morphological properties, to the degree they are known, of the earliest stages of the Chinese language and its ancestor. This introduction, because it both summarizes and synthesizes earlier work and makes several original contributions, functions as a useful reference work all on its own.

For example, we all know that lin2 林 and sen1 森 look a lot alike; but would it surprise you to learn they also once sounded more similar and were even probably cognates, differing only in the onset?

lin2 林 (Middle Chinese ljəm), late Han lim, Minimal Old Chinese *rəm
"Forest, forester"

sen1 森 MC ṣjəm, LH ṣɨm, OCM *srəm
"Forest, dense thicket"; probably an intensive derivative of lin2, possibly influenced by AA parallels.

Phonetic reconstruction may be the nerdiest of all topics in the history of the world, but do I ever love this dictionary. I've asked the legandary Bill Baxter what he thinks of the work, and he came gave me a very positive review by e-mail as well as revealing he and Sagart are on a database that will serve a similar function and will eventually be on the internet, when it's ready.

Hey there Delilah

There's a song which is currently popular enough to merit about thirteen dozen plays on ICRT every day. It's the Plain White Ts' Hey there Delilah, a soft little guitar/vocals ditty. I think the chorus is fascinating too. Here is the opening of the song and the refrain:

Hey there Delilah / What's it like in New York City? / I'm a thousand miles away / But girl, tonight you look so pretty / Yes you do / Times Square can't shine as bright as you / I swear it's true

Hey there Delilah / Don't you worry about the distance / I'm right there if you get lonely / Give this song another listen / Close your eyes / Listen to my voice, it's my disguise / I'm by your side

Oh it's what you do to me / Oh it's what you do to me / Oh it's what you do to me / Oh it's what you do to me / What you do to me

Now what's so fascinating here is that obviously, the chorus only spells out half of the construction, and leaves the other half to the listener's imagination. And I wonder if I'm alone in projecting at least a few words of that construction:

1. It's what you do to me [that makes me ... (have a positive emotional response of some sort)]

or perhaps

2. It's what you do to me [that I ... (love, can't do without, etc)]

I get the distinct impression the implied sentence is not

3. It's what you do to me [that my mother can't stand.]

The chorus engages the listener because he or she anticipates the second half of the utterance and will in some way try to finish the sentence. The listener becomes even further engaged because of the need to identify and empathize with the singer in order to make an intelligent guess as to how the sentence ends, which is why possibilities like (3) are not likely interpretations.

Additionally, the sentence is arranged with a sort of emphatic construction "it's x that y" which moves the x element closer to the default subject position -- even though it's not the real subject -- to make x more important. Consider the difference in tone between:

4. It's you that I can't stand.

and

5. I can't stand you.

I'm not sure there's a way to conclude this post well. It's just a rant that I wanted to post.

Dual-language classes in Texas stirs debate

This is an interesting, whether you are dealing with it in Texas or Taiwan. What is the best policy for language instruction in school? Texas' situation is entirely different from Taiwan's, so it's also fun to look at.

Here's some of the article from the Houston Chronicle, which they lifted from the San Antonio Express-News.

AUSTIN — Here's the plan: Put young children who struggle with English in a classroom with English-speaking students and teach in two languages.

Soon, both groups of children will become bilingual and bi-literate with the youngsters helping each other develop two languages, say supporters of the dual language immersion program.

But others are balking at the experiment that Texas lawmakers approved this spring, contending it's turning classrooms into laboratories.

With House Bill 2814, legislators created a six-year pilot program that will test a dual language plan in up to 10 Texas public school districts and 30 campuses.

English was not the first language for more than 731,000 children attending Texas public schools last year.

Those children, identified as "limited English proficient," spoke hundreds of foreign languages, although Spanish was spoken by 92 percent.

"We know that dual language works, but we have failed to articulate the benefits of placing native English speakers in dual language programs," said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, sponsor of the Senate version of the bill. "They will learn Spanish or some other language, becoming bilingual and bi-literate. When they are little, you can do that."

Learning multiple languages should always be encouraged, said Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, although she opposes the pilot project approach.

"I think the purpose behind this is to help bring up to speed Spanish-speaking kids and turning other kids into guinea pigs," she said.

Seven of her own nine grandchildren are younger than 6, she said: "They are grandchildren, not grand-guinea pigs."

Children in her suburban school district northwest of Houston speak more than 70 languages, Riddle said.

"I don't care what they are speaking," she said. "They are in America. They need to master the English language. This is not a dual-language country. We speak English in this country."

On the national stage

"The bottom line of life is that we don't all speak the same language," House Public Education Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, said, acknowledging that national debate over immigration has triggered deep-seated antagonism.

The Senate voted 28-2 for the pilot project, while the House approved it 106-34. No Democrat opposed the bill.

Riddle said she fears the project will dilute the need to master English.

"I think we are worshipping at the feet of diversity," Riddle said. "There's nothing wrong with diversity, but to minimize English as the primary language of this nation is a mistake, and I think it's a mistake for our kids. Kids need to master the English language, period."

The issue should not focus on immigration because the law requires Texas to educate all children living here, said Jesse Romero, a San Antonio-based legislative consultant for the Texas Association For Bilingual Education.

"If they are going to be educated, let's do it the right way," Romero said. "If we don't educate the children, we're not going to have a viable work force, and if we don't have a viable and educated work force, we're not going to be attractive to the economic development that our state leaders continue to say that Texas is all about."

Eissler said opponents of his bill believe immigrants need to bend to us rather than us to them.

But he views the issue in terms of education.

"The more you know, the better off you are is my theory of life. The more we can teach our kids, the better off we're going to be," Eissler said. "The younger you are, the more adept you are in learning another language, so why do we wait to high school to teach language?"

A growing problem

Previous studies have shown that it costs about 40 percent more to educate limited English students, although the state funds school districts by an extra 10 percent to teach them.

Only 8 percent of limited English proficient 10th-graders passed all parts of the state's assessment test in the 2005-06 school year, according to the Texas Education Agency, and the number of limited English proficient students is increasing. While about 16 percent of all public school children last year were limited-English proficient, more than one-fourth of first-graders struggled with English.

In the state's largest urban school districts — Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth — more than 40 percent of first-graders were limited-English proficient.

"These school districts do represent a growing statewide trend, and it does pose a significant challenge to our educators," Van de Putte said. "The reality is that the numbers are increasing. We can wring our hands and say the federal government needs to take care of this. But that doesn't help us with outcomes."

One success story

The success of dual language immersion programs has been evident in Cedar Brook Elementary in the Spring Branch school district.

Preliminary results show the school will be ranked exemplary following two years of recognized ratings after a federal grant allowing Cedar Brook to test a dual language program.

About half the school's children are limited English proficient, said Catherine Robinson, the former principal at Cedar Brook.

"Most Texans probably are not aware of the challenges facing educators with large numbers of limited English proficient students," she said.

They must learn academic content in addition to a new language.

"When students are acquiring and differentiating a language — when the language is a language other than English — then the challenge of learning in an academically rigorous setting in English is substantial for these students," said Robinson, who is now executive director of Spring Branch's Teaching and Learning program, which develops curriculum and instruction for struggling students.

Mother tongue education day

Liberty Times also has several articles on mother tongue education day and how it's working. The idea is that on one day a week、kids use a mother language (Holo Taiwanese、Hakka、or an aboriginal language) for all classes that day.

The goal is to give the kids more of a chance to practice than half an hour a day for twice a week (the way elementary school does it now) and to extend the education through high school. It also aims to introduce this chance without adding a lot of homework、which you would get if you added another class.

The articles discuss both some of the progress and some of the problems that occur. As you can imagine、considering Taiwan's diverse lingusitic situation and the length of time these languages were supressed、it's not always easy to get qualified teachers and divide students into the appropriate groups.

Obviously、aboriginal communities have an especially big problem promoting the use of their tongue in a classroom for the whole day.

like duh

There is a recent article bemoaning the decline of English among British youth. The study mentioned in the article seems to be good research, and it's most important conclusion is that

The top 20 words used, including yeah, no, but and like, account for around a third of all words, the study says. Teenagers had a vocabulary of just over 12,600 words compared with the nearly 21,400 words that the average person aged 25 to 34 uses.

Now on the first point, I'd have to say it's relatively meaningless. Larger studies of speech and writing in Britain show that 20 words make up about 1/3 of all our words anyway. In speech, the "Top 20" make up just under 1/3 of the total words (32%) and the written Top 20 makes up a similar 28% of all our written text. Nothing new or unusual here, move along.

According to the WordCount website, which says it bases its lists on the same research cited above (though if you click the links you'll see the lists are slightly different), the top 20 English words are: the, of, and, to, a, in, that, it, is, was, I, for, on, you, he, be, with, as, by & at.
That's 6 prepositions, 5 conjunctions, 4 pronouns, 3 be-verbs, and 2 determiners.

Now the second point about a reduced vocabulary I believe. This is because I think our exposure to written and spoken material is increasingly colloquial and entertainment rather than information driven. People also just read less now than they used to, and they are reading material that isn't particularly challenging or rich in language.

I don't know how I feel about it though. One one hand, I always dislike the tendency to artificially inflate language by using a lot of Latin/French words rather than Anglo-Saxon words, so maybe it's quite OK. On the other hand, a major advantage that English has is the richness and depth of its corpus.

I guess they should follow up in five or 10 years to see if the kids will know more words when they're older. Maybe these older adults learned a bunch of these words later on in life, at work or in their leisure and newspaper reading.

English as official language?

Farmers Branch council OKs illegal-immigration measures (Farmers Branch, TX)

Council Passes English Only Measure (Taneytown, MD)

These headlines are sad to me and make one cultural difference between the U.S. and Taiwan really stand out. In the U.S., the right wing seems to have the following expectations:

• adults moving to America should all learn English.
• children of immigrants should enter English only education.
• immigrants should basically culturally assimilate in terms of food and some habits, such as number of people living together and standards of politeness.

In contrast, in Taiwan, I am not expected to know Chinese (people are shocked if you do). I am not expected to like Chinese food. I am not expected know how to use chopsticks. I am not expected to know anything about culture-- people will automatically forgive me for doing something impolite just because I'm a foreigner. Even the police are willing to let foreigners go for driving without a license because its just too much trouble to deal with them.

And while these sorts of privilges are greater for Western foreigners, the whole tone of discussion is different. For example, many Asian foreigners such as Thai or Vietnamese marry Taiwanese here, and there is concern that their kids aren't learning enough Mandarin in school and are isolated. But the concern is entirely about them, the kids who are becoming socially isolated or not learning enough skills to do well in the future. There's no resentement about them taking away from Taiwan's culture or country.

Some of these points are related to an article I read in the weekly Taiwanease by a foreigner with similar experiences. But I think they bear repetition and emphasis at this time.

Why can't a country as huge as America, with an immigrant culture, be more tolerant about these things?

我不懂美國這種一個移民基礎多元的國家之中，還有這麼多右派的人這麼反對不會講英文的人。在台灣，我如果不會講中文抑或台語，這被視為很正常，人家也會找這種方式來跟我溝通：講英文、找會講英文的、用寫的、等。

在美國，相反的現象太長出現。你不會講英文的話，有一些人會怪你，覺得你很煩，不想裡你，甚至有一些村政府現在在通過要求個人講英文的法律跟建議，有一些共和黨的在國會也要通過「英文為國語法」等無聊無幫助無道理的法律。

希望美國能學台灣這個繁榮多元容忍的國家。