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Monday, November 23, 2009

Chinglish vs China English, again (and again)

This distinction between Chinglish and China English is going to be more important than I thought.

I think that in popular discourse, all of the following are "Chinglish" :

- funny or ungrammatical English signs/menus/other printed stuff in China that is the result of bad computer translations

- funny or ungrammatical English signs/menus/other printed stuff in China that is the result of human error

- Unusual but grammatical signs/menus/other printed stuff in China

- Any"ungrammatical" thing a Chinese person says or writes in English

- Any vaguely "non-standard" but grammatical thing a Chinese person says or writes in English


In other words, this just-now-made-up hypothesis is that if it looks/sounds weird to a native speaker and it is physically located in China or came from China, it is Chinglish.

I'm not sure I really think that, but I'm not going to go on a sanctimonious mission to change everybody's mind. I'm just going to keep slowly changing the Wikipedia page on Chinglish until it reflects a broader scope of issues related to English and China.