New Words Added to Chinese Language

Posted by onelargeprawn in Everything Else on August 27, 2007 at 2:03 am


The guardians of Chinese, one of the world’s oldest and most complicated written languages, have announced the incorporation of 171 new words after two years of research and the study of more than 900 million words in common usage.

Some of the new phrases endorsed by the Ministry of Education include:

  • House slave: A person struggling to pay off a home loan.
  • Semi-honey couple: A married couple who maintain separate homes to try to keep the romance alive in their marriage.
  • Brokeback: Taken from the film Brokeback Mountain, this is a synonym for a homosexual.
  • Three-hand illness: Hand fatigue caused by overuse of gaming machines, computer mice, and mobile phones.

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    13 comments to "New Words Added to Chinese Language"

    1. Britt
      August 27th, 2007 at 2:22 am

      Brokeback = rofl.

    2. Lawrence
      August 27th, 2007 at 3:09 am

      The characters you have in red read

      Gu Ge - Which has no meaning, but Google is using it for their name.

      I've heard of
      Semi honey couple - ban tang fu qi (半糖夫妻)
      BrokeBack Mountain - duan bei shan 断背山
      and
      House Slave (mortgage slave) - fang nu 房奴
      but not the others.

      Brokeback is a pretty good one as the meaning is clear even if you don't know the "new" meaning.

      Lawrence / http://www.shanghaiguide.com

    3. Sid Morrison
      August 27th, 2007 at 7:27 am

      What are the words & characters for:
      1. Lead-painted toy?
      2. Poisoned pet food?
      3. Antifreeze-flavored toothpaste?
      4. Counterfeit prescription drug?
      5. Copywrite law? (I'm betting no word for this concept)
      6. Forced abortion?
      7. Unwilling organ donor?
      8. Religious freedom?

    4. Orjan Smorjan
      August 27th, 2007 at 9:59 am

      "5. Copywrite law? (I’m betting no word for this concept)"
      Haven't heard of any copywrite laws elsewhere either.
      I think the copywriters are governed by ethics and freedom of speech when they are writing their ads.

      Wouldn't it therefor be a little overkill to have a symbol for it?

    5. Rob
      August 27th, 2007 at 10:31 am

      I would assume there's no word for "copywrite" considering that it's not a word in English either. :P

    6. Bruce V. Bracken
      August 27th, 2007 at 11:27 am

      So, they've basically discovered slang. Government-approved slang

    7. Lasse
      August 27th, 2007 at 1:01 pm

      And "Democracy", "individual freedom" and "not flooding hundreds of villages because of giant dam".

    8. Sid Morrison
      August 27th, 2007 at 1:08 pm

      yuck, yuck, yuck. I meant "copyright" of course :-)
      Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

    9. Chris
      August 27th, 2007 at 2:10 pm

      Sid : hear, hear!

      9. Political freedom
      10. Child Labor
      11. Working conditions
      12. ...

      Buy PRC! You know exactly what you're buying!

    10. Alex
      August 27th, 2007 at 6:00 pm

      It's Neatorama's typsophilia spreading to Sid Morrison.

      In China's defense, *all* nations go through growing pangs as their societies progress. United States had had witch hunt, slavery, indentured servitude, bigotry, religious intolerance, torture, preemptive war and so forth. (Wait, some of these are still going on! Doh!)

    11. Angela
      August 28th, 2007 at 12:54 am

      I know right? Sid Morrison must be at least 50 years old and still telling kids "Finish your food, there are people starving in China!" Time to wake up, those problems exists in all nations.

    12. Sid Morrison
      August 28th, 2007 at 8:23 am

      angela - I just turned 41 (need an address to send the gift?) and I tell my kid that there are starving in Africa, not China. Nice Try. Pzzzt!

    13. Gina W
      November 19th, 2008 at 4:30 am

      This is really a nice post....Great to read it..


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