Chapter 29 language

Zhao Yuanren can speak 33 Chinese dialects, and he can use the local dialect to communicate with local people in most parts of the country.He is proficient in English, German, French, Japanese, Russian, Greek, Latin and many other foreign languages, and even proficient in dialects of these languages.Zhao Yuanren got the nickname "Big Brother Zhao" because of this. Zhao Yuanren's hearing is very sensitive, he can learn a dialect in a very short period of time, and he will never forget it all his life.He showed extraordinary language talent when he was a child. Every time he lived in a place, he could quickly learn the local dialect.At the end of the Qing Dynasty, his grandfather was an official in the north. When the young Zhao Yuanren lived with his family in Beijing, Baoding and other places, he learned Beijing dialect and Baoding dialect from his nanny. When Zhao was 5 years old, he returned to his hometown of Changzhou. The family hired a local tutor for him, and he learned to recite the Four Books and Five Classics in Changzhou dialect.Later, Zhao Yuanren learned Changshu dialect from his aunt and Fuzhou dialect from his aunt.

Zhao Yuanren was admitted to Nanjing Jiangnan Higher School when he was 15 years old.At that time, among the 270 students in the school, only 3 were authentic Nanjing people. He learned the authentic Nanjing dialect from these three Nanjing students.Once at a certain banquet, Zhao Yuanren was able to use 8 dialects to talk with guests at the same table from all directions. Liu Bannong once wanted to compile a "swearing album", and he published a "swearing notice" in the "Beijing Morning Post", openly collecting swearing words from all over the country.After seeing the notice, Zhao Yuanren came to Liu Bannong's dormitory and cursed Liu Bannong in the dialects of Hunan, Sichuan, Anhui and other places.Later, Zhou Zuoren also came and cursed Liu Bannong again in Shaoxing dialect.When Liu Bannong went to class, he was scolded in dialect for a long time by students from Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Hubei and other places.Later, when Liu went to visit Zhang Taiyan, he was scolded by Zhang with the vulgar words in the ancient Chinese language.

In 1920, American educator Dewey and British philosopher Russell came to China to give lectures. Jiang Baili, Cai Yuanpei, Ding Wenjiang, Tao Lugong, Qin Jingyang and others recommended Zhao Yuanren as Russell's translator. At that time, Zhao Yuanren had accepted the letter of appointment from Tsinghua University, but he had not back home.Through the efforts of Cai Yuanpei, Ding Wenjiang and others, Tsinghua University finally agreed to Zhao Yuanren to act as Russell's translator.After Zhao Yuanren returned to China, he toured the country with Russell for a year.Because Zhao Yuanren was articulate and knowledgeable, he could translate in dialects wherever he went, which made Russell's lectures more effective than Dewey's.Since then, Zhao Yuanren's linguistic genius has been recognized, and he himself has decided to make linguistics his main research direction in his life.

When Russell went to China, he also took his girlfriend Braque with him.Therefore, Zhao Yuanren not only had to translate for Russell and Braque, but also translated the speeches of the Chinese hosts every time they had a dinner party, but he had to deal with Yuru.Some people say that only Zhao Yuanren can fully translate the contents of Russell's speeches, and even the jokes that Russell said can be translated without losing their shape. Russell’s speeches involved psychology, physiology, ethics, mathematics, logic, physics, pedagogy, sociology and other fields. Zhao Yuanren was able to handle them easily. He felt that ordinary polite words in life were very difficult to translate, but translating academic speeches would be more difficult. easier.After serving as an academic lecture translator, he wrote in his diary that day: "I extended my explanations according to my own wishes... Speaking as an interpreter is more fun than the speaker, because the audience reacts only after the interpreter finishes speaking. .”

Zhao Yuan served as an interpreter for Russell, and whenever he went to a place, he would translate in the local dialect.When Russell gave a speech in Hangzhou, Zhao Yuanren translated in Hangzhou dialect; he learned Changsha dialect from Hunanese on the way to Changsha, and when he arrived in Changsha, he could already translate in local dialect.After the lecture, a student ran up to him and asked him, "Which county in Hunan is Mr. Zhao located?" When he was teaching at Tsinghua University, Zhao Yuanren once performed ventriloquist "National Travel": from Beijing to the south along Jinghan Road, through Hebei to Shanxi and Shaanxi, out of Tongguan, from Henan to Lianghu, Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou, and then from Guangdong to Guangxi to Jiangxi and Fujian , into Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, from Shandong to the three eastern provinces across Bohai Bay, and finally into Shanhaiguan to return to Beijing.This "travel", he talked for nearly an hour at a stretch, "traveling" over half of China, and every time he "arrived" at a place, he used the local dialect to introduce places of interest and local products and specialties.

In terms of foreign languages, according to Zhao Yuanren himself: "In terms of practical writing, English, German, and French are no problem. As for general usage, Japanese, ancient Greek, Latin, Russian and other languages ​​are not a problem." Once, Zhao Yuanren gave a speech in the Sorbonne, France, and he used a purely standard national French pronunciation.After the speech, the audience said to him: "You speak French really well, your French is better than the French." He often uses some witty words created by himself in his lectures or books on linguistics. stories to impress people.

Once, when Zhao Yuanren talked about the conventional relationship (that is, the non-necessary relationship) between language and things themselves, he said: "Once upon a time, there was an old woman who had a little contact with foreigners for the first time. She was so curious that she couldn't believe it. She said that their words were really weird. It’s five, but the French want to say it’s three (cinq); it’s ten, but the Japanese want it to be nine; it’s water, but the British want it to be water.” Zhao Yuanren's wife, Yang Buwei, also speaks several dialects.After Zhao Yuanren and Yang Buwei got married, they set a schedule, speaking Mandarin today, Hunanese the next day, and Shanghainese the day after tomorrow.

Zhao Yuanren once made up a very "fun" monophonic story to illustrate the relative independence of speech and writing.The story is called "The History of Shi Shi's Lion Eating", and there is only one sound of "shi" in the whole story: "Shi Shi, a poet in the Shishi, is addicted to lions, and vows to eat ten lions. Shi always sees lions in the market. Ten o'clock, the ten lions are in the market. It's the right time, when Shi Shishi is in the market. Shi sees the ten lions, relying on the momentum, and makes the ten lions die. Shi picks up the corpses of the ten lions, suitable for the stone chamber. The stone chamber is wet, and the Shishi envoys to wipe the stone chamber. When the stone chamber is wiped, Shishi begins. Try eating ten lion corpses. When eating, I first knew ten lion corpses, but in fact ten stone lion corpses. Trying to explain it is a matter.” This article was included in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Zhao Yuanren wrote "Ji Xi Playing Rhinoceros" in his later years: "The rhinoceros in the Xixi River likes to play. Ji Xi carries the rhinoceros at night and night, and Ji Xi carefully washes the rhinoceros. Hissing Xixi." He noted: "Ji, Xi Ni Qie, Yin Xi, Qi Yun. One surname, two mountain names." He used this article to explain that Chinese characters can only express articles when their shape, sound, and meaning appear at the same time. mean. There is also a song "chirp chicken" also composed by Zhao Yuanren: chirp chicken, chicken chirp, a few chickens squeeze the ridge of the Jiji.The machine is extremely fast, the chicken is extremely hungry, and the chicken hopes to fight and crucian carp.The machine is not only economical, but the chicken is used to stimulate a few crucian carp.The machine is extremely sick, the crucian carp is extremely palpitating, and it is rushing to gather between the Jiji levels.Then the crucian carp track was extremely quiet, and then the chickens chirped when they were hungry.

Zhao Yuanren told his daughter Zhao Xinna that he studied linguistics for "fun".Zhao Yuanren's third daughter is called Zhao Laihen Simei. According to Zhao Xina, it was the result of "fun".People often ask why Zhao Yuanren gave his daughter such a long name.It turned out that Zhao's third daughter was called "LenSei" when she was a child. Zhao spelled out the two syllables according to pinyin, but there was no corresponding Chinese character. In the 1920s, Zhao Yuanren produced phonographs for the Commercial Press to promote "Mandarin". In 1925, Zhao Yuanren and his wife returned to China from Marseille, France, and passed through Hong Kong. They saw a shoe store with good white leather shoes, so Zhao Yuanren told the clerk in Mandarin that he wanted to buy two pairs of shoes.Because Zhao Yuanren has a habit of always buying two pairs of shoes that he likes.At that time, the common languages ​​in Hong Kong were English and Cantonese, and not many people were proficient in Mandarin.The clerk's Mandarin is very poor, no matter what Zhao Yuanren says, he doesn't understand.So, Zhao Yuanren stretched out two fingers, and then pointed to the white leather shoes, meaning that he wanted two pairs.The clerk looked at it and said angrily: "Isn't a pair of shoes just two? What else can I say?" In the end, Zhao Yuanren had to buy a pair of leather shoes.When they finished shopping and went out, the clerk said in strong Cantonese, "I suggest you buy a set of Mandarin audio tapes and listen to them. Your Mandarin is too bad." Zhao Yuanren asked, "Who has the best Mandarin audio tapes?" The clerk said "Of course Zhao Yuanren's is the best." Yang Buwei said next to him, "He is Zhao Yuanren!" The clerk said angrily, "Don't be joking, his Mandarin is so bad, how can he compare with Zhao Yuanren?"

Linguist Chen Yuan wrote in his reminiscence article: "Zhao Yuanren, Zhao Yuanren, in my youth, there were shadows of Zhao Yuanren everywhere." When he was a teenager, Chen was fascinated by Zhao Yuanren's translation of "Alice in Wonderland".When I grew up, I wanted to learn "Mandarin", so I learned it through Zhao Yuanren's "Mandarin Gramophone Textbook". Later, I fell in love with music, and I fell in love with Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" introduced by Zhao Yuanren's friend Xiao Youmei, and also fell in love with it. Zhao Yuanren composed and sang "Teach Me How Not to Miss Her". The first Chinese translation of "Alice in Wonderland" was translated by Zhao Yuanren and published by the Commercial Press in 1922.At that time, Zhao Yuanren especially emphasized that this book is "another philosophical and ethical reference book". In 1928, thanks to the efforts of Zhao Yuanren, Qian Xuantong and others, the Nanjing Government University officially announced the "Chinese Roman Character Pinyin French Style" as the second form of the national phonetic alphabet. Zhao Yuanren happily wrote in his diary on this day: "GRyinyiijeouyueh 26ry hgongbunle．Hooray!" (Mandarin Roman characters have been announced on June 26, so wow!) When Zhao Yuanren wrote a letter to Lin Yutang, he wrote in English in Chinese characters, for example: "Di Er shaves outside, and Hao harms her husband's temples?" (Dear Yutang, what have you been up to lately?) Lin Yutang liked it very much. Zhao Yuanren likes to study the language wherever he goes, summarizing the characteristics of the language in that place.Once he was selling tickets to Malm* at a railway station in Sweden, and he said the place name in a half-falling tone in English, German and other non-tone languages.After Zhao Yuanren talked for a long time, the ticket seller suddenly realized.Zhao Yuanren found that the ticket sellers pronounced Malm* as if they had passed the Qu Sheng Jia Yang Ping in Mandarin, so he discovered that Swedish has tones. Zhao Yuanren once drove around Europe with his family.He summed up the conventions of speaking to foreigners in the countries along the way.The French and Belgians spoke French to them along the way; the Dutch mostly spoke English with foreigners because they knew few people could speak Dutch; they spoke German when they arrived in Germany; and the Danes and Swedes tried to speak English with foreigners as much as possible. .He said: The impression we got when we drove from France, Holland, Belgium, and Germany to listen to their conversations was not that we had to change a language from one country to another. Our feeling was very similar to the accent that gradually faded all the way from Shanghai to Sichuan on a Yangtze River ship. change, not country by country. Once, Zhao Yuanren was in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Because he was going to drive to the Matterhorn mountain the next day, he planned to send the car to the dealer for maintenance, lubricating oil and checking the machine.That evening he took a dictionary and looked up the German names of the parts.When I arrived at the car dealership the next day, the people in the car dealer saw that Zhao Yuanren was a foreigner, so he spoke French instead.Zhao Yuanren said, that won't work, I used German last night, and today I have to use German to talk about cars. Wherever Zhao Yuanren went in the world, the local people recognized him as a "fellow villager".After World War II, he went to France to attend a conference.At the Paris station, he spoke Parisian dialect to the porter. The porter thought he was a native of Paris, so he sighed: "You are back, it is not as good as before, Paris is poor." Later, he came to Berlin, Germany. , chatting with locals in German with a Berlin accent.An old man in the neighbor said to him: "God bless you, you escaped this disaster and came back safely." Zhao Yuanren's hearing is very good, and his ability to distinguish sounds is strong.He can analyze the pronunciation of a word into several parts, start from the latter part, and read a word from the back to the front.Sometimes he used a tape recorder to record a passage of this strange pronunciation, and then played it with a tape recorder that could be played backwards, which sounded like reading a passage in the order of normal pronunciation.He likes to perform this feat to his friends when he is happy. After 1949, Hu Shi was still very concerned about the cultural developments in the mainland.He also read Mao Zedong's poems carefully. Seeing that Li Shuyi's rhyme ran out of bounds, he asked Zhao Yuanren if the Hunan dialect could be used in this way, and Zhao answered no. In his dictation in his later years, Liang Shuming talked about his evaluation of Zhao Yuanren: Liang: At that time, he was one of the four tutors of Tsinghua National University. His knowledge was very rich. I heard that he had such an ability, that is, he usually spoke ordinary Beijing dialect like us, but if he went to a new place, such as In Fujian, when he arrived in Guangdong, he lived there for a day or two, and he could speak the language of that place. Ai: That's right, I've heard that too. Liang: Because he knows how the local people speak, in terms of phonology and articulation, he will know how to speak after living for a day or two, and he will speak the local dialect. Ai: Yes.I also asked for advice when I was in Berkeley. When I was researching this book, it was about Russell, because he accompanied Russell in the translation. Liang: There was a passage that was originally translated by another person, but it was not possible later. Later, that person could not translate what Russell said, so I asked Mr. Zhao to translate it. Ai: Yes, I have also heard other stories about his ability, that is, he can speak a sentence backwards, and the last few tones are spoken first. This is the case for a long paragraph of speech. After recording, the tape will be recorded If it is normal to play backwards, he is a genius with language. In the early 1920s, the vernacular movement had become popular, and Zhao Yuanren began to promote the phoneticization of Chinese characters.He edited and produced the "Chinese Phonograph Textbook". Hu Shi wrote a preface to the book, saying that there is no one better than Yuan Ren to teach Mandarin with phonograph. , and the language in the book is lively and humorous, which can break the dullness of textbooks. In 1927, Zhao Yuanren went to Jiangsu to conduct a three-month investigation of the Wu dialect. He worked tirelessly, traveled to Zhenjiang, Danyang, Wuxi, Yixing, Liyang and other places, and recorded a large number of local dialects.After returning to Beijing, he wrote the collected materials into a book "Research on Modern Wu Dialect".When the book was published, the phonetic symbols were prepared to use the International Phonetic Alphabet, but at that time the printing factory did not have fonts, so he and his assistants wrote and drew by hand, working more than 10 hours a day.This book has become a precious document for the study of Wu dialects and dialects, and Zhao Yuanren has also become the originator of dialect investigations in our country. According to the pronunciation system and the main modern dialects, Zhao Yuanren selected 2,000 characters from the more than 20,000 characters in the "Kangxi Dictionary" as "common characters". He believed that these 2,000 characters would be enough for daily writing.His "Tongzi Program" has been unwilling to release the manuscript easily, and has repeatedly considered and considered, revised it again and again, and also sought the opinions of domestic linguists. In 1979, Zhao Xinna visited his parents in the United States. Zhao Yuanren, who was nearly 88 years old, sat at his desk every day to study the "Tongzi Program". In his early years, Zhao Yuanren worked with language expert Mr. Li Jinxi to promote Mandarin. In 1981, Zhao Yuanren, who returned to Beijing, once said with emotion: "Now that the level of education is high, people's speech is influenced by radio, newspapers, TV and other media, and they export a lot of written language, so they don't like to speak vernacular. Now Beijingers love to speak "Start" is not "beginning"; the long coat is not called "cloak" but "coat". Even children's speech is polite, and people's daily language seems to lack the breath of life." On May 21, 1981, Zhao Yuanren returned to China to record the International Phonetic Alphabet at the invitation of the Language Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.When recording, he pronounced more than 400 vowels, consonants and tones, and even very subtle differences are very accurate, and his ability to distinguish sounds is the same as when he was in the 1930s.All present were surprised and admired very much.