万维读者网记者林孟编译报道：随着中国在世界的影响力越来越大，中式英语（Chinglish）也开始登堂入室，“侵入”传统英文领域。加拿大广播公司（CBC）最近发表罗斯（Colleen Ross）的专题报道说，她在中国报道女足世界杯期间，发现多彩多姿的Chinglish正大行其道。
例如她有天下半夜在饭店房间里点餐，结果在菜单上看到“stuffed fatty meat pork”（填充的肥肉猪？），使她感到不安。而“Slobbering chicken”（流口水的鸡？）、“cheese melting in ham parcel”（融化在火腿包里的干酪？）或“lion head”（狮子头）等菜名，更让她摸不着头脑。最后她只得叫了苹果，因为至少知道自己会吃到什么。
胡乱翻成英文的中菜名称，在中国到处可见。加拿大女足的营养师告诉她一些此类词语的例子。女足队员由于对食物没有太多的经验，因此点菜非常小心。鸡肉通常是安全的选择，如果菜单翻译成“the fragrance explodes the cowboy bone”（香味爆炸牛仔骨？），最好还是不沾为妙，因为那可能太具爆炸性了。
其他生搬硬造，错误百出的例子不胜枚举。如一则按摩治疗师的英文广告说：“Relex your tired of bady”（松弛你的厌倦的身体？），其中还有两个单词拼写错误。一处供残疾人士使用的厕所，标牌上写着：“Deformed man toilet”（畸形男厕所？）。
一条滑道上标示着：“Beware, the slippery are very crafty”（小心，滑的是非常狡猾的？）。而商店表示暂停营业，门口挂的英文字牌是“Drinktea”（饮茶），因为在普通话里，饮茶也有“休息”之意。
总之，Chinglish是英文和中文碰撞之后，产生的荒诞的、令人莫名其妙的混血儿。中文作为表意文字，其词汇往往是一词多义。这些语言学上的精细特点，或许保留在中文里比较好。但一些专家表示，Chinglish正在全球风行，甚至按照自己的方式打入英文。
“全球语言监察者”（Global Language Monitor）是追踪、分析全球英语趋势的组织。其主席、曾在哈佛大学受教育的语言学家帕雅克（Paul Payack）认为，Chinglish现象有助于推动英语的全球化，中式英语贡献了20%的全球英语新词汇。
他表示，过去几年这个比率还在增加，原因是说英语的中国人越来越多，加上中国经济一片繁荣。而互联网使用者已经准备为Chinglish的流行推波助澜。
“全球语言监察者”的年度调查报告，选出了一些顶尖的Chinglish词汇，如 “No noising”（请肃静！）、“airline pulp”（飞机供餐）、“jumping umbrella”（滑翔翼）、“question authority”（“问讯处”或“够有趣”）等。
洛斯还搜集了一些地方性的Chinglish词汇，如 “financial supermarket ”（是否表示一间提供股票、保险、房地产服务的商店？），还有“super brand mall ”（请只拿顶级货）等。
帕雅克表示，一个词汇如果不出现在书面，《牛津英语词典》是不会统计的。但他坚持认为，现实的语言词汇，是已经被人讲、说，并且已经在互联网上使用的那些词汇。他说：“或许只有5%的Chinglish词汇将继续存在，但那已经不少了。”他预料，明年的北京奥运期间，Chinglish的运用将更加广泛。
中国崛起的影响力，不仅表现在受中文影响的英文，也表现在地球上最广泛使用的语言——普通话的输出。维多利亚大学语言学教授林华（Hua Lin译音）说：“如果中文像当初英文那样，成为外国人学习第二语言的首选，那些Chinglish表达方式生存下来的机会，或对英语造成的冲击，就比较小。普通话如果非常流行，人们就会较少用英语沟通，中文影响英文的机会也相应减少。”
无论如何，中国最大的一些城市正在扫除街头那些晦涩难懂的Chinglish词句。北京已经发起一场运动，希望在明年北京奥运期间，街头不会出现外国人看不懂的烂英文。
COLLEEN ROSS: WORD OF MOUTH
Lost in translation, Colourful Chinglish words enter global English
November 8, 2007
I’m in China, covering the Women’s World Cup of soccer for CBC Radio. It’s another late night and I’m resorting to room service to quell the rumbling in my tummy. But, scanning the menu, I’m not at all sure about the offerings: “stuffed fatty meat pork” makes me squirm. “Slobbering chicken,” “lion head” or “cheese melting in ham parcel” … I’m not sold. I opt for the complimentary apples on my table — at least I know what I’m getting.
English mistranslations of food dishes are rampant in China. My favourite example comes through the dietitian for the Canadian women’s soccer team. For obvious reasons, the players were very careful not to be too experimental with food. Chicken is usually a safe bet, but not when the dish is translated as “the fragrance explodes the cowboy bone.” That could have been too, well, explosive.
Other examples of mistranslations abound. A massage therapist advertises: “Relex your tired of bady”; a toilet for a disabled person is labelled “Deformed man toilet”; a slippery road is marked “Beware, the slippery are very crafty” (but they are!). “Drinktea” is hung on a shop door to mean it’s closed. (In Mandarin, it also means “resting.”) Yes, Chinglish is the weird and wonderful result of an English dictionary colliding with Chinese ideograms that often have multiple meanings.
These linguistic delicacies may well stay in China, but some experts say Chinglish words are zipping around the globe, even working their way into the English language.
Photo Gallery: Shanghai subway Chinglish by Anthony Germain
The Global Language Monitor tracks and analyzes trends in global English. Its president, Harvard-educated linguist Paul Payack, says the Chinglish phenomenon is helping drive the globalization of the English language, contributing up to 20 per cent of new global English words. Payack says the rate has increased in the past several years because of China’s rising number of English speakers and economic boom. The surge in internet users has allowed for the free flow of Chinglish.
In its most recent annual survey, GLM selected the top Chinglish words: No noising (quiet, please!), airline pulp (food served on a plane), jumping umbrella (hang-glider) and question authority (information booth, interestingly enough). I decided to take some local words back home with me, stuffing them into my already bloated suitcase: financial supermarket (what better word for one store offering stocks, insurance and real estate services?) and super brand mall (only top-end items, please).
Payack says unless a word is on paper, the Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t count it, but he insists the real language is what’s spoken and what’s used on the internet. “Maybe only five per cent of Chinglish words will stick around,” he says, “but that’s a lot.” He expects the language cycle will go into high gear during next year’s Beijing Olympics.
The rising influence of China is coming not only through Chinese-influenced English, but also through its more famous export: Mandarin, the most widely spoken language on the planet. And beyond China’s borders, tens of millions of people are now picking up scribes and learning to ink ideograms.
“If Mandarin Chinese ever becomes the first choice of a second language to learn, as English has been, there is … less of a chance for these Chinglish expressions to survive or make significant impact,” University of Victoria linguistics professor Hua Lin says. If Mandarin becomes so popular that people speak Mandarin instead of English as a second language, people will communicate less in English, giving it less chance to be influenced by Chinese, Lin explains. Meanwhile, China’s biggest cities are intent on sweeping the streets clear of unintelligible Chinglish. Beijing has launched a campaign to stamp out bad English in time for its international debut at next year’s Olympics.
At Shanghai’s Foreign Languages Institute, a bespectacled Zhang Jiani has spearheaded a student initiative to clean up English on menus, in taxis, in shops and in banks. She’s an accounting student, but says this is her civic duty: “I think most of the students here have some English skills and I think it’s our responsibility to do something for the city.” She says they must, if Shanghai is to market itself as a truly international city.
So, once every few weeks, she meets up with a group of students to trek through designated parts of the city. Equipped with electronic dictionaries, they studiously note any suspected mistranslations. They get the correct wording from a professor, then deliver it to the perpetrator who, they hope, makes the correction.
Drinktea may mean closed for business, but this up-and-coming generation of Chinese will work until the worst of the Chinglish is laid to rest.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_ross/20071108.html
