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What is the widest used language all over the world? Of course it is English.

Rencently, there is a news, that in order to make good preparation of the World Expo, shanghai holds a activity of clearing out the Chinglish advertising slogans to avoid being laughed by foreigners. On the other hand, the Guardian in UK publics some articles to protect Chinglish from disappearing, and feels a pity that the Chinglish would be extinct.
Should Chinglish be defended or liquidated? When we have the self-confidence to not feel awkward about Chinglish, we should also endow Chinglish with genuine culture and creative vitality.

Chinglish is regarded as the short form for Chinese English. It is the combination of Chinese grammar and English words. It is greatly welcomed by people while regarded as unstandard by official.

In 2007, a Germany youth named Oliver Lutz Radtke published a book Chinglish- Found in Translation. It is a collection about Chinglish which he saw on the Chinese streets. Besides, he has also established a personal blog to show the pictures taken in public places about the Chinglish slogans. His blog is called Chinglish museum by people for fun.

It is said that the influence of Chinglish becomes greater and greater in the world. As is estimated, English words increased by twenty thousand in 2005. 20% of them are related with Chinglish.

In fact, there are two kinds of Chinglish. One is that words translated directly by translation software, which would lead to misunderstanding while communicate with it. Strictly speaking, this is not the real Chinglish. The other is one translated according to Chinese culture. Take “People Mountain People Sea” as an example, foreigners can infer from the phrase that the words mountain and sea are used to express the idea of large quantity. So they can understand that he phrase means number of people. You can see, real Chinglish will not course any misunderstanding, but will be helpful to transmit Chinese culture.

In a word, we should respect the Standard English. But chinglish, as a cultural phenomenon, should be protected; but it should be the real Chinglish of course.

Tags: Chinese English, chinglish, News

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at 8:02 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.