Patrick Cox

Patrick Cox

Patrick Cox runs The World's language desk. He reports and edits stories about the globalization of English, the bilingual brain, translation technology and more. He also hosts The World's podcast on language, The World in Words.

The multilingual census, and why Thais win at Scrabble

May 5, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment
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photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lccr

The U.S.Census Bureau is firing on all linguistic cylinders to ensure that non-English speakers are counted in this year’s census. It has been getting the word out via ads, PSAs and handbills translated into 28 different languages (compared to 17 in the 2000 census). Now Census workers are starting to knock on the doors of households, many of them non English-speaking, that haven’t yet mailed in their forms.

Much of the linguistic outreach seems to be working, but not all of it: in Vietnamese, the word census was translated to something closer to investigation. Among some Somalis, the very notion of being counted is taboo. And then there are the southern border states, home to millions of Spanish-speaking undocumented immigrants. Arizona’s recent anti-immigrant law has put them on edge: the last thing that many there would do is voluntarily offer up information about themselves to the government.

Next, a BBC news announcer gives us an Icelandic lesson. It’s a very specific lesson: how to pronounce Iceland’s most famous landmark, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano. You may think, why bother now? The volcano is no longer spitting ash into the air and planes are back in the sky. Well, volcanologists believe Eyjafjallajökull isn’t done belching yet. More pronunciation tips here and here.

photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ittybittiesforyou/

Another item recently in the news: Scrabble. It turned out to be a faux story: as initially reported, proper names were about to be permitted under new Scrabble rules. But that wasn’t the case. The proper name rule affected only a new spinoff game that won’t be sold in North America. But given how wrong the news media, including the BBC and NPR, were in their initial reporting, it’s no wonder Scrabble affionados reached for their botttles of Jack Daniels and other proper name beverages. All of which got me wondering what Scrabble obsession is all about (I don’t play the game). After I heard a lively BBC discussion on the subject, I got it. I also came to understand why English Scrabble is so popular among so many non-English speakers, especially Thais.

Finally, five unique Japanese expressions. They are provided by kanji supremo (or perhaps suprema?), blogger and author Eve Kushner. Here they are:

病床日誌 【びょうしょうにっし】 byōshō nisshi diary written while ill in bed:

日照権 【にっしょうけん】 nisshōken the right to sunshine

日向水 【ひなたみず】 hinata mizu water warmed in the sun

三日酔い 【みっかよい】mikkayoi hangover (that still lingers two days after drinking)

日猶同祖論 【にちゆうどうそろん】 nichiyū dōsoron hypothesis that Jews and Japanese are of common ancestry
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Discussion

2 comments for “The multilingual census, and why Thais win at Scrabble”

  • http://executivepagan.wordpress.com Erik Dutton

    Regarding the last Eating Sideways expression, nichiyuu dousoron… several years ago I read a book, “Jews in the Japanese Mind”, that explores the phenomenon of Japanese obsession with the Jewish people (or, perhaps more accurately, their subconscious projections onto the Jewish people).

    There’s a decent review of the book here.

  • AshiAkira

    Mr. Patrick Cox,
    Listening to your program the other day, there was one thing that bothered me and I could not help taking this opportunity to write you about. That is that your lady interviewee, apparently an expert on Japanese kanji, could not explain what “hinatamizu” meant. She was right in saying that it meant “water warmed in the sun.” But she could not tell her listeners for what the water warmed like that was used and some back ground. She should have asked old people like me, and he or she could readily explain that the “hinatamizu” was for taking a bath especially by women and that it showed some important aspect of the Japanese culture two or three generations ago.

    In those days the most of the people could not afford to have bathrooms in their own houses. They had to go to public baths by paying a few cents a person, while money in any amount in those days was very dear to anyone. They might be able to afford that, say, once or twice a week, but during summer times when people sweated profusely because of high humidity peculiar to most parts in our country during the summer time, and they found it necessary to wash themselves many times a day. It was all right for men who could just pour water over their heads even in the street, but not for women, especially for young ones. That’a where the “hinatamizu” came in.

    Before the days of washing machines, every home had a washing basin made of wood, the size of about 50 centimeters or so in diameter. That came in quite handy for putting water in and leaving it in the sun just for an hour or so. The water would get warm enough for taking a bath in the summer time.

    You have to imagine the housing condition of those days in Japan, especially densely populated urban areas. The houses were very small. Even now, you might recall a British government official once said of such Japanese houses, “no bigger than a rabbit hatch.” Since houses were so small and built so closely to each other, each house must be surrounded by fairly high walls mostly made of thin wooden board. Between the wall and the house itself, there was usually a space of two meters or so. People then planted some sort of plants there and called it a “garden.” And that space, though so small, was big enough to give the women some privacy to take a bath in the water warmed in the sun in the wooden washing basin.

    Taking a bath like that was called “gyozui” (行水) in Japanese. There is a very famous haiku about gyozui which I might translate as:

    A crow perched on the wall
    Mesmerized by a woman
    Taking a gyozui

    A woman taking a gyozui was often subjected for paintings and drawings. I have seen some of them. They are beautiful and, needless to say, erotic.

    I may have dragged this writing too long, but I hope you enjoyed it. And please let me add that I always enjoy your programs. I download them on my iPod so that I can enjoy it while I am taking a walk.

    Best wishes,
    AshiAkira