Chinese signs and its linguistic landscape

By Confused Laowai | Date: April 4th, 2011 | Category: Language

If you follow the Language Log, you would have seen some interesting posts concerning Chinese signs and the protests in Egypt and Libya.

出发 - Aimed at Mubarak, possibly meaning for him to resign, to be sent off.

埃及人民要求总统穆巴拉克下台 - The Egyptian people want Mubarak to step down.

穆阿迈尔·卡扎菲是说谎者 - Muammar Gaddafi is a liar

滚出去穆巴拉克 – Get out Mubarak!

All these signs were extremely fascinating to me. Although Chinese has the most speakers of any language in the world, it is still second to many other languages in terms of global impact and reach. Then these pictures showed up. I always though the best way to write your signs to reach a wider audience would be in English. I mean that’s how you get your message across. It’s a simple choice.

These signs however show a different picture. To understand the choice of the protesters is a difficult one, but one can speculate as to why they chose to write those signs in Chinese. One, would be to target the Chinese population or the Chinese government. Give a message straight to them. The second would be then of course to reach a wider audience, and this ties in with point number three, in that aiming to target the Chinese it is an easy, but less common choice to get noticed. Maybe, English/Arabic signs were plentiful, but having a sign in Chinese would mean interest, but not only will be it seen, but will understood by millions of speakers.

Actually thinking on it, it is rather brilliant. Why not write your signs in Chinese more often? The only problem with this is, it will be hard to write Chinese without people inferring political connotations. If I’m at a global televised rally next time, I’d love to write a sign in Chinese, just reach a much wider audience and get attention for it. But I wouldn’t want it to mean that I target the Chinese government to “listen” to me.

What do you think? Why are these signs written in Chinese? I’m not a genius on the political field, I come from a more linguistic background, so help me out here!

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  • http://twitter.com/APB_CHS_350 Andrew Bristle (沈睿均）

    Well, I know there was a pretty large population of Chinese workers in Libya up to the beginning of the revolution. China sent a navy ship over there to help evacuate them once the fighting broke out. Here’s more info about that:

    http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/chinese-missile-ship-races-to-libya-for-rescue-duty/

    That being said, I would never have suspected that the Chinese language would have made such a mark in Libya. This is really surprising!

  • http://twitter.com/APB_CHS_350 Andrew Bristle (沈睿均）

    oops, posted under the wrong account lol

  • http://niel.delarouviere.com NielDLR

    Oh, cool, didn’t know that. I know almost every country has some Chinese
    population somewhere, but not to the extent that they’d actually send a
    ship over. That’s pretty cool!

  • http://twitter.com/oneyearchinese Katherine

    My two cents… I think they know that those darn English speakers will give notice anyways, so might as well maximize the opportunity to reach another audience! Also, I think you’re right that these people are reaching out to China–recognizing them as a nation with considerable and rising influence.

  • http://niel.delarouviere.com NielDLR

    I like your two cents, ’cause I agree.

    Btw, I like your blog. Good luck with the year!

  • Jiong

    How ironic, Egyptians writing in pictures again, after all these years! ;-)

  • http://niel.delarouviere.com NielDLR

    Hahaha. Oh wow that only hit me now. Ironic indeed.