Wednesday, January 23, 2008

中文被污染了!

中文purists (纯正主义者)老爱埋冤说:“中文里有太多英文词汇,它已被污染了!”


请看看以下几个英文字:

  • typhoon
  • ketchup
  • kowtow


似曾相识,对吧? 没错,它门均源自中文。再看看以下几个字:

  • guru (大师,源自梵文)
  • jungle (森林,源自印度文)
  • monsoon (季候,源自阿拉伯文)
  • tsunami (海啸,源自日文)
  • kindergarten (幼稚园,源自德文)
  • hippopotamus (河马,源自拉丁文)
  • kangaroo (袋鼠,源自澳洲原住民语)
  • fjord (源自挪威文,中文是???)


作为马来西亚华人,我在学校念马来文,英文和中文。另外,我也在夜校上了数十个小时的日文课。在这四种语文当中,中文的外来文字是最少的。被视为“污染源头”的英文,本身被污染的程度远比中文高。

中文的外来词汇少,往往导致我们不能准确的表达意义。举个例子。羚羊有多个种类,英文有以下几个名称:antelope, gazelle, gnu, springbok, impala, kudu, 等等。在中文,我们只能笼统的称它们为羚羊。

更糟糕的是,我们连breadbun都搞不清,尽管面包是星马最普及的食品之一。

所以,大家不妨放胆引入更多外来词汇,请污染中文!

6 comments:

  1. 其实,我一直以为你是受英文教育,不懂中文的哦~~

    对不起啊!

    ReplyDelete
  2. 带语病的中文算是被污染吗?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wah, you language power is good.. you know a lot of langugages

    ReplyDelete
  4. catherine
    No problem...

    christine
    Grammar in classical Chinese literature is different from that of modern Chinese, so what is right and what is wrong?

    keeyit
    I only know 3 1/2 languages, not really a lot. Guru, jungle etc. have become part of English vocabulary.

    ReplyDelete
  5. that is true. agree with u very much ....

    actually malay words also..got some limitation and lots of words are starting to adopt english words now...

    ReplyDelete
  6. winn
    Malay has lots of Sanskrit and Arabic words too. Guru is Sanskrit in origin, so are suka (sukha), duka (dukkha), bumi (bhumi), putra (putra)...

    ReplyDelete