The Linguist

@CIOL_Linguists AUTUMN 2023 The Linguist 31 OPINION & COMMENT This trend of transliteration and parataxis marks a departure from the English nature of Chinglish. Only the English form and sound remain while the words, grammar and meaning are uniquely Chinese. This change provides a foundation for the development of Lamese, a new language that blends elements of both Chinese and English. Lamese: Chinese soul in English skin Before we delve into Lamese it is worth mentioning the earlier internet language Guoese (郭语), which gained popularity on Douyin. Its creator 迷人的郭老师 (Charming Teacher Guo) became a hit in late 2019 due to her exaggerated Chinese pronunciation of words such as 'kiwi fruit' (猕猴桃, mí-hóu-táo). Influenced by young Douyin users, nowadays it is broadly pronounced as mí-hó-tēl. Other creators soon jumped on the bandwagon, mimicking her unique language to gain exposure. One of them, 五十岚上夏, was inspired by Guoese and Chinglish to invent Lamese, which is essentially Chinese with an English skin. In his most liked video on Douyin, he raps 'Wobzy huay ABC, wolha huyshore Lamese, woljus ranren gorpanbuchy', which is transliterated from 我不止会ABC, 我还会说岚语, 我就是让人高攀不起 (wǒ-bù- zhǐ-huì ABC, wǒ-hái-huì-shuō-lán-yǔ, wǒ-jiù- shì-ràng-rén-gāo-pān-bù-qǐ; literally 'I can not only say ABC, but can speak Lamese, I just want to be out of your league'). From this example, we can see that Lamese has three distinct features: 1 It is semantically Chinese but phonetically English. For example, gorpanbuchy [ˈɡɔːpænbətʃi] sounds like English but means 高攀不起 ('be out of your league'). 2 It is a mutable language because each morpheme may have different variants but they still carry the same meaning. For example, wo and wol both refer to 我 ('I'). 3 It has no fixed vocabulary as each word is constructed from neighbouring thought groups. For instance, huay (会 huì, 'can') can be a single word but can also join huyshore (会说 huì-shuō, 'can speak'). So, why has Lamese become such a popular internet language? The answer is clear. As a simplified and sinicised Chinglish, it is easy for Chinese people to learn and speak, making it attractive to a large audience. In fact, any Chinese speaker could acquire it by watching a video for just one minute. As a cyber-language, Lamese is odd enough to pique people's curiosity, leading to a shared interest in cryptolalia among internet users. That being said, Lamese is unlikely to last forever, whereas Chinglish is expected to continue to evolve and thrive as a crucial component of China's multilingualism. Notes 1 www.yingyushijie.com/information/detail/ id/3989.html Bilin Liu is a certified translator and a PhD student in Translation Studies at the University of Hong Kong. TL I was having a chat online with my brother-in-law in Venezuela the other day and the subject of datelines that read in both directions (capicúa), like 22.1.22, came up. This led on to palindromes: words, phrases or sequences that can be read backwards or forwards with the same meaning. English readers will be familiar with items such as 'able was I ere I saw Elba', 'a man, a plan, a canal, Panama', 'Madam I'm Adam', or even 'evil rats on no star live'. There are also individual words such as 'racecar', 'civic' and 'kayak'. In Spanish, we can find Anita lava la tina, ojo rojo and Yo hago yoga hoy. Palindromes, of course, should not be confused with semordnilaps, which are words that can be read both ways, but with different meanings, such as 'star'/'rats' and 'drawer'/'reward'. Few people have taken the subject to such extremes as John Pool, whose Lid Off a Daffodil of 1982 is a whole volume of unlikely palindromes, complete with colourful and original illustrations which can be viewed both upside and downside. So I wonder whether palindromes exist in a wider range of languages? Do share your examples. Tim Connell Hon FCIL Top spot: palindromes Email linguist.editor@ciol.org.uk Star Letter prize Next issue's Star Letter writer will receive a copy of the League of the Lexicon board game, which we review at cutt.ly/TLWinter. For an interview with its creator, see page 12. If you love languages and games or puzzles, write to us at linguist.editor@ciol.org.uk for your chance to win. © UNSPLASH

• Cover