Netizens Don’t Get New Web Vocabularies

Many Chinese web users found themselves nearly illiterate in front of a list of new vocabulary said to be mostly originated from the Web, which was released on Thursday by China’s Ministry of Education.

The list, containing over 170 new Chinese words, is compiled by language experts at the ministry, as part of its report on the use of Chinese language in 2006.

But a majority of the over 1000 netizens commenting on the new release, including some heavy web users, said they did not recognize most of these new words. Indeed, except for only a few terms, such as blog article, grassroots netizen, second-generation one-child family, and Gu Ge, the Chinese version for Google, the list is full of words that do not make much sense to even native Chinese speakers.

“I’m afraid it’s the first time for most Chinese people to see 90 percent of the words on the list,” one commented.

“I’m on the Internet for more than 14 hours everyday, but found half of the words unheard of…” said another.

Quite a few people saw such vocabulary simply as language pollution that should be tossed away instead of receiving official documentation. Some went on to criticize the MOE as being irresponsible in giving official release to such terms, since they might disappear very soon and would not stay in the daily language use in China’s fast changing cultural and social arena.

But some commentators supported the documentation of these new words and called for a more open attitude toward new trends in the development of Chinese language.

“I always welcome new words springing up like mushrooms after rain,” one poster said. “The mother tongue has a distant origin and a long stream, rich and deep, only because it is constantly changing and developing.”

Nevertheless, it seemed to be a common agreement that time will finally decide whether these new words, however ridiculous they might appear to be, will become permanent components of modern Chinese.

According to the MOE report on Chinese language use, the number of Chinese blogs has come to the third place right after Japanese and English ones. Blogs, Internet news, email, BBS and cell phone short messages have become the main origin of new words in Chinese, the report says. This is also the first time the MOE tried to document some of these new words entering Chinese people’s daily life in recent years, said Li Yuming, head of the ministry’s Bureau of Language and Information Management.

The list of the new words
http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-08-16/133913677927.shtml

The MOE report on Chinese language use in 2006
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info31533.htm

Online comments
http://comment4.news.sina.com.cn/comment/skin/default.html?channel=gn&newsid=1-1-13677927&style=0

Text Messaging for Chinese New Year Greetings: Hated and Loved

Text messaging has become a popular way of exchaging Chinese New Year greetings in China

Just when a national competition for the best Chinese New Year greeting message texted through cell phone is about to announce the winner, some people in Guangzhou posted comments online calling on the public to refuse text messaging as a “cheap and lazy” way of the New Year greeting.

As a long tradition, greeting people for the Chinese New Year, or bai nian, is an etiquette that almost no one can avoid during the holiday. Everybody, old and young, rich and poor, men and women, will always either utter or receive good wishes for things like money, accomplishments, happiness and health.

For thousands of years, Chinese people have knocked at the door of friends, relatives, teachers or supervisors in order to deliver their holiday greetings, bringing along families and nice gifts. The red envelopes containing some money are also handed out to the younger generation during such visits. This way, people also show their care and respect for others.

Such visits are diminishing in today’s China, and are increasingly limited to the close family or some special persons, like the most important business partner. Instead, more and more Chinese people are making phone calls or sending emails to convey the greetings, without having to see each other any more. Text messaging provides yet another easy out for such greetings, this time even without talking to people.

In many cases, people receive the same message from over a dozen of senders. Since inputting Chinese characters on the tiny cell phone keypad is a taxing task for many people, they don’t bother to create their own messages but simply forward what they have received from others. That is why some people are calling text messaging a cheap and hypocritical way of New Year greeting.

To encourage people to create sincere, funny and thoughtful text messages for the greeting, major local media outlets in Beijing joined over 20 popular websites to launch a text message competition, asking the public to vote for their favorite ones.

The results are due on Thursday, and about 600,000 people from over all China have submitted more than 98,000 text messages. The winner will get a car as the prize, and other runner-ups will get rewards ranging from flat panel TV to cell phones.

No matter how much it is loved or hated, text messaging has inevitably become the dominant way of exchanging Chinese New Year greetings among people. But still, saying a few nice words to people face to face, with enthusiasm and smile during the traditional holiday, is just about as warm as it has always been.

----by Josie Liu

http://www.chinanews.com.cn/sh/news/2007/02-15/875323.shtml
http://news.sina.com.cn/z/chunjiesm/index.shtml (the competition)