Graphic pejoratives in written Chinese

Some historical

Disparaging characters for certain ethnic groups depend upon a subtle semantic aspect of

Wilkinson compared these "graphic pejoratives selected for aborigines and barbarians" with the "flattering characters chosen for transcribing the names of the Western powers in the nineteenth century", for instance, Meiguo 美國 "United States" can be read as "beautiful country".^[4]

The most common radical among graphic pejoratives is Radical 94 犬 or 犭, called the "dog" or "beast" radical, which is ordinarily used in characters for animal names (e.g., māo 猫 "cat", gǒu 狗 "dog", zhū 猪 "pig"; however, the traditional characters for "cat" and "pig" are 貓 and 豬 respectively, which contain other radicals). The Dutch historian Frank Dikötter explains the significance.

Physical composition and cultural disposition were confused in Chinese antiquity. The border between man and animal was blurred. "The Rong are birds and beasts" [Zuozhuan]. This was not simply a derogatory description: it was part of a mentality that integrated the concept of civilization with the idea of humanity, picturing the alien groups living outside the pale of Chinese society as distant savages hovering on the edge of bestiality. The names of the outgroups were written in characters with an animal radical, a habit that persisted until the 1930s: the Di, a northern tribe, were thus assimilated with the dog, whereas the Man and the Min, people from the south, shared the attributes of the reptiles. The Qiang had a sheep radical.^[5]

The late American anthropologist and linguist

a leading Chinese linguist has remarked that the name 'Lolo' is offensive only when written with the 'dog' radical. There is undoubtedly here some reflection of the underlying Chinese equation of 'word' with 'written character', providing a clue to the 'pejorativization' of 'exonymized' names of this kind: by writing my name with a 'dog' alongside it you are calling me a 'dog' (and in Chinese this is a unisex epithet). The modern Chinese practice is to write these tribal names with the 'human being' radical, thereby raising their level of acceptance.^[6]

Radical 9 人 or 亻, the "person" or "human" radical, is considered a semantically unprejudiced graphic element. It was used in a few early exonyms, such as Bó 僰 (depicting a person in 棘 "thorns") "Bo people" in southern China (especially Sichuan).^{[citation needed]}

In addition to having linguistically unique graphic pejoratives, Chinese, like all human languages, has typical disparaging terms for foreign peoples or "

One of the prototypes of "right" names for barbarians is the very ancient ethnonym Qiang, which shows up in the earliest forms of Chinese writing after 1200 BCE and is still with us today as the name of a non-Chinese people to the west of central China. It was originally a rendering of a horned being, and scholars debate whether this referred to sheepherders or to sheeplike or deerlike people.^[9]

Over time, the term Qiang would be repurposed to describe different groups of "barbarians to the west". In ancient and medieval China, other groups of barbarians received names that were written with characters that mean dog, wolf, bug, snake or similar.^[9]

Despite Creel's warning about the complications of determining which early Chinese exonyms were derogatory, the first character dictionary, Xu Shen's (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi^{[11][full citation needed]} provides invaluable data about Han dynasty usage. Take for example, definitions of the "Siyi" "Four Barbarians" surrounding ancient China – the Dongyi, Nanman, Xirong, and Beidi – where two are defined militarily and two bestially.^{[citation needed]}

• Yi 夷: "平也. 从大从弓. 東方之人也." "Level; flat. From 大 'big (person)' and 弓 'bow' radicals. Eastern people." (11/20)
• Man 蠻: "南蠻, 蛇穜. 从虫䜌聲." "Southern Man, a snake species. From 虫 'insect' radical and luan 䜌 phonetic." (14/5)
• Rong 戎: "兵也. 從戈從甲." "Weapons, warfare. From 戈 'dagger axe; halberd' and 甲 'helmet' radicals." (13/21)
• Di 狄: "赤狄, 本犬種. 狄之為言淫辟也. 从犬,亦省聲." "Red Di, originally a dog species. Calling the Di dogs refers to licentiousness and depravity. From 犬 'dog' radical, which is also phonetic." (11/8) ^{[dubious – discuss][citation needed]}

While graphic pejoratives appear to have originated in the

During the Chinese civil war, both sides arrived at the conclusion that modern China should be a unitary state with some recognition of minority nationalities; this was related to the fact that at that time both sides of the conflict were looking for allies and attempted to mobilize and win to their cause various minority groups. As such, both groups started to introduce new regulations and reforms related to replacing old, derogatory terms with new ones. This begun with the Nationalist language reform in 1939 and was eventually taken up and continued by the communist authorities. Many revised names that became the modern names for the non-Chinese peoples were proposed by the Chinese anthropologist Ruey Yih-Fu [zh] (pinyin: Rui Yi-fu). Ruey's pioneering work also traced the origins of such names, noting that early on, they were related to superstitions linking barbarian and animal lifestyles, with claims such that these people supposedly speak and/or live like animals; and later were transformed into prejudicial stereotypes about the innate character of these people.^[9]

During World War II, some Japanese propaganda in Chinese used graphic pejoratives, proposing new spellings of words such as America or England, written with the same dog (quan) qualifier as used for by Chinese language for various historical groups of barbarians.^[9]

Fiskesjö suggests that while the language has changed, conceptually, connection of concept of barbarians/minorities to primitive life style and wild nature still persists in modern China, and is reinforced and exploited by the tourist industry.^[9]

Examples

Although most characters for modern ethnic groups have been

Dog radical

As described above, the "dog", "beast", or "quadruped" radical 犭 is especially common among graphic pejoratives for Chinese exonyms. The Dutch sinologist

The Zhuang people (an ethnic minority primarily living in Guangxi) are currently written with the character for zhuang 壮 "strong; robust", but Zhuang was initially transcribed with the character for tong 獞 "a dog name", and then with tong 僮 ("human" radical) "child; boy servant". The late American sinologist and lexicographer John DeFrancis described how the People's Republic of China removed the graphic pejoration.

Sometimes the use of one radical or another can have a special significance, as in the case of removing an ethnic slur from the name of the Zhuang minority in southwest China, which used to be written with the dog radical but after 1949 was first written with the human radical and was later changed to a completely different character with the respectable meaning "sturdy":

• 獞 Zhuàng (with the dog radical)
• 僮 Zhuàng (with the human radical)
• 壮 Zhuàng ("sturdy")^[17]

This 1949 change to Zhuang 僮 was made after the

The Yi people or Lolo, whose current Chinese exonym is yi 彝 "sacrificial wine vessel; Yi peoples", used to be condescendingly called the Luoluo 猓猓, giving a new luo reading to ("dog" radical and guo 果 phonetic) guo 猓 "proboscis monkey". The first replacement was ("human" radical) luo 倮, already used as a graphic variant character for ("clothing radical") luo 裸 "naked"; the second was luo 罗 "bird net; gauze".^{[citation needed]}

The Lahu people were written Luohei 猓黑, with this same simian luo 猓 and 黑 "black". Their modern exonym is Lahu 拉祜, transcribing with la 拉 "pull; drag" and hu 祜 "favor or protection from heaven".^{[citation needed]}

The Bouyei people in southern China and Vietnam are called Zhongjia 仲家, written with the "human radical" term zhong 仲 "second; middle (of three months or brothers)". The earlier ethnonym Zhongjia 狆家 used the "dog radical" term zhong 狆 "lap dog; pug", which now usually refers to the Japanese Chin (from Japanese language chin 狆).^{[citation needed]}

The modern Chinese transcription for the

Additional "dog" radical examples of exonyms include the ancient Quanrong 犬戎 "dog barbarians" or "dog belligerents" and Xianyun 獫狁 (written with xian 獫 or 玁 "long-snouted dog; black dog with a yellow face"). Feng Li, a Columbia University historian of early China, suggests a close semantic relation, noting that "It is very probable that when the term Xianyun came to be written with the two characters 獫狁, the notion of 'dog' associated with the character xian thus gave rise to the term Quanrong 犬戎, or the 'Dog Barbarians'."^[18]

The Chinese name for Jews, 犹太人 Yóutàirén, or 猶太人 in traditional characters, contains a "dog" radical but has not been revised. However, the character 猶 only means "just like".^{[citation needed]}

Other radicals

Some graphic pejoratives used significs besides the "dog" radical.

Radical 123 羊, the "sheep" radical, is seen in the ancient Jie 羯 "wether; Jie people" and the modern Qiang 羌 "shepherd; Qiang people".

Radical 153 豸, the "cat" or "beast" radical, appears in the ancient Mo 貊 or 貘 "panther; northeastern barbarians", who are associated with the ancient Huimo 濊貊 "Yemaek people" (in Manchuria and Korea).

Radical 142 虫, the "insect" or "reptile" radical, is used for the early Man 蠻 "southern barbarians" and modern-day Min 閩 people (see Fujian#History). In Minnan they are both pronounced as /ban˨˦/ (POJ: bân). Xu Shen's Shuowen defines both words as 蛇種 "a type of snake". The American philologist and linguist Victor H. Mair explains the modern significance of these two ancient graphic pejoratives as follows:

The debasement of local languages and cultures in China (whether they are Sinitic or non-Sinitic) is so ubiquitous that people become inured to it. They internalize the negative stereotypes associated with peripherality and sheer difference (from the orthodox language and culture of the center). This subtle (but sometimes also brutal) psychological conditioning extends even to the names people call themselves and the totemic myths with which they identify. For instance, the people of Fujian and Taiwan are proud to identify themselves as being from Min, but seldom do they consider that the character adopted to write this name over two millennia ago (it did not yet exist among the oracle bone and bronze inscriptions) includes the infamous chóng ("insect; serpent") radical. There it is staring you right in the face every time you look at the character: a bug inside of a door, but people do not see the insect / snake, perhaps because they do not want to see it or cannot bear to see it. Here is how Xu Shen explained the character used to write mín around the year 100 CE: "Southeastern Yue [i.e., Viet]; snake race. [The character is formed] from [the] insect / serpent [radical and takes its pronunciation from] mén." 東南越蛇穜从虫門聲 ... Southern Min speakers refer to themselves as bân-lâm-lâng, which is usually written with sinographs meaning "Southern Min person" 閩南人, but should actually be written with sinographs meaning "Southern barbarian fellow" 蠻南儂. ... The graph pronounced lâm in Taiwanese is the notorious mán ("barbarians [of the south]") as pronounced in MSM. Here is how Xu Shen explains the graph used to write lâm / mán: "Southern barbarians [who are a] snake race. [The character is formed] from [the] insect / serpent [radical and takes its pronunciation from] luàn 南蠻蛇種从虫" ... The Mán inhabitants of Mǐn are thus doubly southern, doubly barbarian, and doubly serpentine. Since these explanations have been enshrined in the most authoritative, foundational dictionary of the sinographs, a dictionary which is still invoked with reverence today, there is no denying them. The impact that such designations have had on the consciousness of those who are on both the receiving end and the giving-end is enormous.^[19]

See also

• Gweilo
• Hate speech
• List of Chinese ethnic slurs
• List of Chinese racial euphemisms
• List of ethnic group names used as insults
• List of ethnic slurs
• Term of disparagement

References

• Benedict, Paul K. (1987). "Autonyms: ought or ought not" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 10 (1): 186–188.
• Dikötter, Frank (2015). The Discourse of Race in Modern China.
  ISBN 9780190231132
  .
• Wilkinson, Endymion Porter (2000). Chinese History: A Manual.
  ISBN 978-0-674-00249-4
  .