Showing posts with label calque. Show all posts
Showing posts with label calque. Show all posts

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Calques

I just purchased a book on linguistics: Linguistics: an introduction by Radford et al. (2009 edition) for my friend Ab.'s reference. It's not in my opinion the best textbook (or introduction for the total beginner), but it was the best of the lot I could find here in Kohima.

In the book, one of the authors writes,

"Sometimes when new concepts are introduced from other societies, the speakers of a particular language may use their own native linguistic resources to coin a new word. These are known as calques.".

The examples given include Irish Gaelic sciath fearthanna 'umbrella' (lit. 'rain shield') and Maori wai mangu 'ink' (lit. 'water black'). Under this definition, Chinese 电脑 'computer' would also be considered a calque because it comprises two morphemes meaning 'electric' and 'brain'.

The problem here is, I always thought a calque referred to the borrowing of a compound word or phrase from another language by translating each individual component of that compound or phrase. Therefore, examples like English flea market from French marché aux puces, French gratte-ciel from English skyscraper or Russian детский сад from German Kindergarten would qualify as calques. (Note that the English word kindergarten isn't considered a calque since it's been borrowed 'wholesale' from German.)

By this definition, the examples cited in Linguistics: an introduction would therefore qualify simply as neologisms, created by compounding morphemes already in the language. Since they are not literal translations of terms from another language, I would be hard-pressed to call them 'calques' - last time I checked I don't call my computer an 'electric brain' or 'electro-brain'.

The Wikipedia page seems to confirm my own definition (with the same French examples I've given above - I'm sure they're the ones commonly used in other linguistics textbooks), but maybe I'm missing something here?

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Know how to eat

Over lunch today, my brother mentioned that our grandmother (and I suppose a number of our older relatives here in Singapore) often ask the question: "You know how to eat ______?" about any local dish ranging from buah keluak (sometimes translated as candlestick nuts) to steamed pomfret.

The thing is, the question isn't about whether we know the method or art of eating that particular dish (usually: open mouth, insert food, masticate, swallow). It's about whether we eat the dish at all, with the implication that we like to eat it.

The form of the question is most likely a calque or word for word borrowing from a southern Chinese language/dialect like Teochew or Hokkien. Mum said the question in Teochew over lunch: leu hiau chiat? (lit. 'you know eat?') (not really sure how to transliterate these), where hiau is a modal verb that can be translated as 'can' (in the sense of possessing the general ability) or 'know'. Other languages often obligatorily use a verb meaning 'know' when referring to behaviour that must be learnt, such as cooking and driving, where English has the more general 'can' which can apply to general ability to do something, having permission to do something or having the opportunity to do something. An example off the top of my head: 'He can cook (in the sense that he knows how to, not that he will have time to do so).' would be Il sait faire la cuisine in French (from what I understand, Il peut faire la cuisine would be more appropriate if one means he has the opportunity to cook.)

In Teochew, this modal verb is also applied to the act of eating particular dishes, which is viewed as behaviour that must be learnt. It's therefore not surprising that when I tell my grandmother, "Yes Mama, I know how to eat this", she will often respond with, 'Wah, so clever.'