谁说汉语？谁说华语？

前两天大讲堂里上课时听到的，存在脑子里两天，忍不住还是要记下来。

我刚坐下几秒，坐在我后面那一排的两名女生说了这样一段对话：

“她会说中文啊？”
“是啊，那天......” （我没听清楚另一名女生说了什么）
“嗯......确实一点也长得不像中国人......”

我霎时愣住了。两名女生不是我班上的同学，学的也不是应用语言学。这两周大家还在旁听，确定这学期的选修课，所以我见过他们几次，但是不认识他们，更不知道他们是在说我，还是在说旁边那名打扮得很漂亮，有点像日本OL的台湾女生。（我认为有可能是说我，是因为开学第一天，班上有名台湾同学课后说“啊，原来你会说中文啊！”-她当时还不知道我是新加坡的。）

我原来不太介意的，只是我确实很怕听到有人这么说，因为我从小就不觉得华语是我的第二语言或者是外语。尽管很多人因为常碰到华语说得不太灵光的新加坡人而觉得我们岛上大家的华语水平都不太好，但我不介意别人对我们的不认识，也很乐意去解释其中的种种复杂原因。我不觉得我说得是别人的语言，我更不觉得我从小说的母语其实正统上就只是属于某个地方的，而我因为说这个语言就得长得这个样。估计两名女生没有选社会语言学这么课，否则她们第一周的书都是白看的了。这么说吧，同样的对话，如果两名女同学在苏格兰这个讲堂里看到的是他们口操汉语，样子明显不同的少数民族同胞，那这段对话岂不是显得很吊诡？

无意挑起任何愤怒之情，只是我常会想起自己几年前教过的学生。记得自己当时很有意识地想让他们认识到语言和语言的使用，其范围和界限比他们原来认识的广得多。一些被政治化的想法和概念，不管自己的观点如何，人到了国外，想法就要灵活一些，视野也要放宽一些。虽然他们未必懂得我当时说的一些故事背后到底有什么隐藏的意义，但是至少我希望我那些北大教授对于语言和语言的使用的宽广视野的故事是没有白讲的。

Readings of the week

I am following the language log this week, so that I could have a better idea of what's going on during the reading session on Wednesday night. Besides reading quite a bit of Mair's post on Chinglish, the latest post by Eric Baković  was quite interesting and pretty relevant to our country's situation as well.

Apparently, actress Emma Thompson had said on an occasion that youngsters' poor language use is driving her crazy and she called for awareness of the need to speak appropriately to the situation or occassion.

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  "There is the necessity to have two languages - one that you use with your mates and the other that you need in any official capacity. Or you're going to sound like a knob," she added.

This comment of "having two languages" really struck a chord with me. I have always thought of myself as being a little weird and I thought I probably had a sort of pretence in me when I spoke to different people. I would be speaking standard Hanyu Pinyin style Mandarin to my students in and out of class, a slightly "relaxed" and localised version after they graduated and become more like my juniors; then I would be speaking Mandarin with a slight Beijing accent with my mainland Chinese friends, accentuating words with the right kind of varied intonation (since we tend to be less expressive in tones when we are at home). I could also do Mandarin with a slight Taiwanese accent for the whole week when my family's Taiwanese friends came over to stay with us.

Then there's English, which I could rattle off in a "standard" (it has been quoted as there are debates on what "standard" is.) , localised or slightly American accented way. Unfortunately, the supposedly Scottish accent has not made a significant appearance in my life yet and I still couldn't make much sense out of the phonetics difference that the good old Scottish uses to try speaking in their accent. 

Of course I could also do a perfect rendition of Singlish (either Chinese peppered with English and dialect terms or English peppered with Chinese terms ) , so much so that recently, I received a word of caution from my close friend that I am really lacking in awareness and my language seems to be pretty "polluted" since I left my frontline job in the classroom. I have since reminded myself to be more conscious, since I should be going back to the classroom in the future soon, lest language attrition occurs. Then there's the language that you use with people who are officials ( I recall my dad being very pleased with himself for trying his newly acquired "Law and Order" kind of language on a special occassion. ) versus the language that you would use with heartlanders, as well as the language that you would use to make connection with your relatives......and the list goes on......

It so happened that our lecture on sociolinguistics touched on this topic today and the content has been categorised under "Language and Identity" . I came off from the lecture acknowledging the notion that the usage of Singlish was really a natural way of identity forming. Perhaps it's not really national identity (since the older generation tend to have less mixed-lingual phenomenon), just identity of some form. Nonetheless, I have exemplified it to my students that  of course there's a need to know how to speak appropriately at the right times. However, just as the people who posted the comments on the language log article revealed, some teenagers might not even know what's wrong. It's really no wonder that we have this very "weird" "Speak Good English" campaign since 2000. I called it "weird" since we are supposedly teaching our children and teenagers English at a first language level but that's beside the point in this blog entry. I searched for the first official speech online and it helped me recall what was said by then DPM Lee .

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  "There is nothing wrong for us to inject a few Chinese or Malay words to our daily usage of English, when we are talking about local things, especially food. Char kway teow is char kway teow, not rice noodles fried with egg, cockles and sweet black sauce; even chao guo tiao does not quite taste the same. Likewise with nasi lemak. But it is wrong to think that we are only Singaporean if we speak Singlish. We want to strengthen our common Singaporean identity, but let us do so in other ways, and not by using Singlish."

Besides the mockery that I felt about this campaign, I really appreciate some of the efforts being put into the drive to get people to speak or toe learn how to speak appropriately in different situations. However, to be about to code-switch between the standard form of languages (or the more posh form) and the colloquial form probably requires the speaker to be relatively proficient in the languages that he is code-switching from too. Hence, I thought that perhaps it is not that much of a mockery after all. However, I am not so sure about not using Singlish to identify ourselves. It is obviously not the perfect choice and it is obviously not the best candidate in the list of criteria but it has already occurred and it is probably just something that happens naturally as our society evolves. Perhaps, the nicer way to put it is, let's use our Singapore accent but not Singlish to identify ourselves ?

Musings in Language- Blogging about the Blogged

Attended LangSoc Edinburgh's first lecture series. It was a show of confidence from me, after their successful interactive session for the screening of The Linguists. The speaker was Professor Geoffrey K. Pullum, Head of Linguistics & English Language at the university and happened to be my Programme Director's boss. The title of the lecture was "Blogging Language Science", which didn't make much sense to me initially, with the exception of notions that it was about Blogging, Language and done by a group of Language Scientists. Nonetheless, the 1.5 hour session was really insightful, as Prof Geoff told us stories about the men and woman (yeap, there's only 1 lady blogger so far) behind this group blogging project, Language Log, where this group of linguists write about their observations of language in use in both serious and wacky styles.

To have a sample of what's on the blog, do take a look at Victor Mair's entries. This guy's a Prof in Chinese Lang and Lit and he has done quite a bit of work studying Chinglish. Being one of the few Chinese in the LT this evening, I was glad to have a full appreciation of what's being shared, as the signs and posters captured on his blog entries brought back fond memories of my undergrad days. 

As for an insight into Prof Geoff's wit and humour, though one might think it is simply sarcasm, and how he had entertained us with his readings this evening, take a look at The Dan Brown Code and its series, where he put to pen his disdain for Dan Brown's misuse or "abuse" of metaphors and the English language. 

I really admire people with the flair of a language and that keen eye and mind, keeping good track of their thoughts and sorts!

这一周的流水帐

其实不是很想在这里写流水帐的，但是又怕会忘记一些事情，所以决定还是很账簿式地把这几天做过的事先记下来。

一切从911开始：

11/9（六） --入境。
Edinburgh Direct 是我乘搭过最不直接的机场巴士服务。且不说一路上乱无章法地兜兜转转，遇上爆胎时，随行的Welcome Team工作人员的应变能力差得连中学生都不如。巴士大叔其实看起来是比较有办法的，但是因为这趟旅程不是由他直接负责的，所以他也只是等着该名工作人员的安排。一车二十几人，个个扛着几个行李，而行李大部分又已经先被载到他处。况且当时初来乍到，一车人根本没本钱不高兴。因此，除了几名大汉决定扛着家伙步行40分钟以抵达宿舍，大伙儿乖乖地在路上等救兵，边等边闲聊。最终结果：我下午一点钟抵境，六点钟才到宿舍。就这样，身心疲惫地步入了Mylne's Court的院子，看到迎接我的几名舍监时，高兴得不得了。而最兴奋的是，这栋十七世纪的老楼居然神奇般地已经在好几年前修建了电梯！要不然，这四层楼的梯级该怎么爬啊！

12/9（日）-迎新
大学的迎新活动安排在古典雅致的McEwan Hall. 教堂般的建筑物，感觉肃穆庄严。这里将是我们参加毕业典礼的地方，迎新周后，可能就很少有机会进来了。

从迎新周的手册中看出了大学学生会的组织能力相当强，初步感觉是样样事情都井井有条。当然，活动时间安排宽裕，大伙儿步伐没有那么紧张，性子也没那么急，突发的时间相对地就少了。以前上大学的时候没这等待遇，不知道这会儿我的学弟学妹们是否比较幸福了呢？

13/9（一）
周末过去了，这该各自办理各种行政手续了。后来朋友还带我去了这里的中国超市，说是中国超市其实不太准确，因为阿姨卖的货品琳琅满目，架柜上不只摆着我大学时最爱吃的‘老干妈黑豉豆辣椒’，还卖着韩国的牛肉辛辣面、泰国的TomYamGong调味粉、日本的荞麦面还有新加坡的肉骨茶和杨协成酱料。最重要的是，这里有美禄！幸好没有带煮饭的家伙来。花点小钱就可以炮制家乡的味道，确实方便极了。而把这个小超市称为中国超市也许是因为阿姨是中国人吧，不过傍晚宿舍集会上的一件小事却又再次道出了我为何会突然觉得“中国超市”这个名词其实并没有准确描述了这间超市的特性。

傍晚时分，舍监‘阿杜’召开集会，除了正式欢迎新生，让大家有个机会见面，同时也正式地列下宿舍的“三纲五常”。他介绍Mylne's Court时，用英语说：“今年我们很高兴迎来了更多国家的学生，我们这里一共有来自xx个国家的同学。其中人数最多的国家有英国、中国、台湾......”这一说，我身后的两名同学不由自主地用中文窃窃私语。内容是：台湾不就是中国的吗？怎么能算是一个国家？......然后就顾自地说了个五分钟。

我只能莞尔一笑。如果‘阿杜’懂得中文的话，估计他会知道要说“国家和地区”，但这个环境毕竟不是奥运会，他应该也没有必要刻意去说" States and territories" 。这里不谈政治，我只是想，是不是大家到了这里，就先不要这么介意这种称呼的问题？或者说，介意是可以的，但是很多人都知道这是怎么回事，有这种问题的地区还不少，苏格兰自己就是一个很好的例子。至少，不要因为个人的介意，而忘了听别人接下来要说些什么。

有趣的是，十年后的今天，又有人问我：“你觉不觉得自己是中国人啊？”就像我以前第一次在北大碰到这个问题时，我脑袋里整理了一下，接着又解释了一遍在我的教育当中，国籍和种族的概念是分得很清楚的，这和一些民族国家及民族运动中长大的人的认识是很不一样的。
那名同学的回答很有意思，她说：“我从来没有这样想过这个问题”。不知道她会不会在碰到一个维吾尔族人时问他同样的一个问题呢？

幸好，和十年前不同的是，这几天我听到了不只一次，“反正我们都是华人嘛！”我记得，千禧年在北大上课的时候，‘华人’这个概念的使用还是需要讨论的。毕竟十年了，事情总是会好一些的吧。


14/9（二）天气
爱丁堡的天气漂亮了两天，今天终于露出真面目了。一早的天气特好，阳光明媚，天气宜人。怎知，待我吃完早餐，要去银行时，蔚蓝的天空突然之间就转阴了。
这一天，细雨和阳光是轮流上班的。走在大街上，风挺强的，提伞是没什么用的。凉爽的天气中，太阳露出半个笑脸，人们在路上步行时和雨水打交道。只要风不要刮得太大，这种感觉还是挺舒服的。

15/9（三）悸动
终于到系里去报到了。一天的活动后，晚上看了部令人悸动的电影。

First touching moment in Edinburgh

I created this blog to document my days in Edinburgh, thinking that I would start with an entry about the day before I left for Scotland. There were many things which I could have blogged about since I arrived in this beautiful city on 11th Sept 2010 but things just got held up as I busied myself with the new environment and settling in.

Finally, this short entry is something which I cannot missed. My heart is still wrenching from the effects of the film. I call it "The first intellectual feed of the day." on my facebook.

"When the kids decide to abandon their ancestors' language, the language dies when the kids grow up." - Dr David Harrison


I watched a documentary at an event hosted by the Language Society. It was the best decision of the day. The Linguists was produced in 2007 and premiered in 2008, showcasing Dr K.David Harrison and his colleague Dr Gregory Anderson going around the world to document vanishing languages. Audiences were taken on a journey from Arizona to Siberia, then from Bolivia to India, where stories of some vanishing languages unfolded right before our eyes. It told tales of suppression, shame, struggle, strength and hope in the short span of an hour, serving as a tool of documentation and awareness increase. It brought about reflections to language policies and how people give up their ancestors' languages for supposedly economic reasons or how people were suppressed by their politics oppressors and felt ashamed to speak their language. I nearly cried towards the end of the film.

The audience were very privileged to be able to converse with David Harrison on Skype for half an hour. Intelligent questions were asked and it gave me an insight of how things are in the world of linguistics. Basically, his view is languages hold a lot of knowledge in them and they shape the structure of human knowledge. For eg, we saw in the film that the Kallawaya of Bolivia has hundreds or maybe thousands of words for medicinal plants and floral and fauna species which are not known to the western world and western language yet. It is not just a simple case of language and culture. It is language and knowledge, language and our historic knowledge of mother earth and her civilisations.

Why did I nearly cry? It's been a long while since I was really moved by a film. Perhaps it was because by 2008, 4 of the 9 Chulym speakers ( and they found only 9) they interviewed had died. Perhaps it was because the last speaker of the Chemehuevi language had to speak to himself and his lingual CD because there was no one else left to speak to.

It reminded me of Professor Guo Xi's comment when he spoke at an in-house lecture at SCCL in late August. His field studies in Singapore showed how Singapore's young Chinese speakers have lost a considerable amount of vocabulary in their usage of the language. The takeaway from that studies was, if the parents do not use that vocabulary when speaking to their children, if the society continues to simplify and narrow our choice of vocabulary, then those words which were "obsoleted" by our choice would certainly grow into extinction in that society. I am not even considering about choice of vocabulary. It pains me these days as I observe the choice of language when young parents, who are definitely bilingual by international standards, make decisions which can well push our younger generations to the brink of monolingualism. This might be an overstatement for now. However, considering how those featured in the film had lost their languages over the decades and spoke only adopted languages, it is a future we should really work to prevent.