Memories of New York were fading rapidly as we pulled over to the first roadside station we had seen in hours, our gas tank hovering a touch above empty after what seemed to have been an interminable drive through the desert. It wasn't clear exactly where we had ended up, but the gas was cheaper than expected and the counter inside sold some of the best falafels we'd ever eaten....
christopher_dudley
said on December 27, 2012
Another great lesson. Can I just ask, have you stopped recording each line individually now? I find that a really useful feature.
trevelyan
said on December 27, 2012
Echo! Calling Echo!We'll get on it, Christopher. :)
christopher_dudley
said on December 28, 2012
Cool. Thanks guys :)
pefferie
said on December 29, 2012
Can you shed any light on the etymology of 清真? Doesn't look like a sound loan...
huyilin
said on December 29, 2012
I could be wrong about this, but since the literal translation points to something like "clear/just/honest truth" maybe that is what the original muslem word means. There is a branch of Qigong called 圣真功 standing for sacred truth. That is what made me think of this explanation.
minghan
said on December 29, 2012
Hey, just wondering, why is there a 了 at the end of "你干什么啦？" what's the difference between that and "你在干什么呀？"
Echo
said on December 29, 2012
@pefferie & huyilin,清真 was used to refer to Islam since Song and Yuan dynasty. It was originally a normal word meaning clean and pure. People started liking it after Li Bai used it in his poem. --Echoecho@popupchinese.com
Echo
said on December 29, 2012
@minghan,你干什么啦 means what have you done.你在干什么呀 means what are you doing.--Echoecho@popupchinese.com
minghan
said on December 30, 2012
Ah ok, in the transcript, “你干什么啦?" is translated as "What are you doing?"
Brendan
said on December 31, 2012
@Echo @huyilin @pefferie - Just to clarify, Li Bo used 清真 (in the lines "聖代復元古 / 垂衣貴清真") to mean "pure and unadorned" or something along those lines. The word was actually used in some Daoist contexts in that sense; it didn't get associated with Islamic practices until a while later. (The 汉语大词典 says Ming and Qing dynasties; Wikipedia says Yuan and Ming dynasties.) The modern sense of 清真 seems to come from Ming-dynasty Chinese translations of Muslim texts (either the Qur'an or others) or writings on Islam containing lines like “真主原有独尊, 谓之清真” and "至清至真," and Allah is still referred to as 真主 today -- which is to say, as far as I can tell it seems to be a native Chinese term, rather than a sound loan.One thing to keep in mind is that 清真 does not quite match up to the words "Muslim" or "halal" as they're used in English. (Dru Gladney suggested translating it as tahára, "ritual or moral purity.") 清真 is currently used in Chinese only to talk about food or (in 清真寺) mosques: you couldn't describe a person as being 清真, or say that a country following Islamic religious law was 清真. About a year ago, I was out at a Yunnan restaurant with some friends and I thought I remembered having gotten pork ribs there before. I asked the soft-spoken waiter if we could have an order of pork ribs, and he replied that they only had "qīngzhēng de." I'd never had "steamed" (清蒸) pork ribs before, but said I'd take an order anyway -- before realizing, from the pained expression on his face, that he had meant qīngzhēn.
pefferie
said on January 3, 2013
Thank you Brendan for the information. This does seem to match with the religeous undertones of the pure/impure distinction (e.g. w.r.t. foods) that exists in Islam, but also in Judaism.Enlightning story. In a TV series, a woman says to her laowai friend 网上见 which he mistakes for 晚上见. A Chinese friend of mine says that she personally does not distinguish or pronounce these trailing gs (we mostly speak English, so I can't attest to it). I was wondering, do you think she is telling the truth? Can a Chinese person reliably tell 网上见 and 晚上见 apart?
Echo
said on January 3, 2013
@pefferie,It's very normal for people from the South that they can't distinguish n and ng or n and l, because in their dialects those syllables don't make difference of meaning. It's like Beijingren don't distinguish v and w.--Echoecho@popupchinese.com
maxiewawa
said on January 7, 2013
The most famous pun of 2012 had to be "Ni Xing Fu Ma?".
maxiewawa
said on January 7, 2013
You're asking someone called "Echo" to get these lines repeated. Another pun! I'm about to overdose!
mtpastille
said on June 17, 2013
One evening when I was in China, my neighbors knocked on my door and asked me: 有网吗？I promptly went into the kitchen and fetched them a bowl, at which point they started laughing hysterically. That's one of those moments where Chinese just seems completely insurmountable.
Franek
said on September 9, 2013
I enjoyed this dialogue, especially the woman part! These are the kind of conversations which make even the fanciest words memorable.
