Is Chinglish linguistic trash or a cultural treasure?

Two academics are going toe to toe over the issue: For American David Tool, it shows nothing but shameful disrespect for English, while German sinologist Oliver Radtke reckons it's an enlightening cultural gem.

"Chinglish should be regarded with pride," says Radtke, who has collected more than 5,000 specimens on his website www.chinglish.de and published two books on the subject. "It's enriching an already-existing language, offering a new point of view, a new set of vocabulary and new usages."

Radtke, who recently applied for what he says is the world's first PhD on the topic of Chinglish, believes the only exception is when mistranslations cause danger, exceptional inconvenience or include the F-word - a common software mistranslation of the character for gan, which also means "dry" or "do".

"If you look at a lot of the Chinese signage examples with those translations, you can see how the Chinese mind is working; it's a window into how Chinese people think," Radtke says.

"My goal is to let Chinglish be considered a bridge between two linguistic and cultural systems."

But while Radtke contends Chinglish adds spice to the alphabet soup that is global English, Tool believes it often adds flies.

Rather than a point of pride, the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages (BSFL) committee member argues most muddled translations are shameful.

Since 2001, he has helped the Beijing government fix baffling Chinese-English signs and estimates he has so far edited more than 1 million muddled passages.

He has become something of a local luminary for his work, garnering several top accolades, including a spot as the Olympic torch relay's second torchbearer.

Tool says he supports use of some Chinese-English phrases that are at least as clear, and more concise, than "standard English", such as "no nearing", meaning "stay back". But he believes the cultural treasure idea is "basically nonsense". Chinglish, he insists, too often detracts from foreigners' understanding and appreciation of Chinese culture.

"My major interest has always been the cultural aspects. For instance, Chinglish distracts from the dignity and purpose of a museum display when the foolish errors cause foreigners to laugh, or be irritated or confused."

Radtke says Chinglish often works the other way, grabbing foreigners' attention.

"How often do you remember the content of a museum a day after you left it?" he says.

"The whole pedagogical approach is usually pretty dull ... so isn't it great to remember something from that day?"

Radtke adds the Chinese-language information alone is usually vague and rarely contributes more than the Chinglish to visitors' understanding.

He cites the example of a sign for "The former address of the emperor's toilet" at the imperial summer palace in Chengde, Hebei province. The sign's Chinese, he says, is nondescript but visitors are perhaps likelier to remember the spot because of the striking English wording.

Tool, however, recalls watching as garbled Chinglish subtitles made foreign audience members attending a 2001 performance of Monkey Wreaks Havoc in Heaven guffaw so zealously that they disrupted the show.

"I felt the audience was rude to make so much of these errors since the opera house was trying to make the opera understandable to them," says the Beijing International Studies professor.

This experience inspired him to take up his mission of correcting Chinglish in the capital. "I later became much less forgiving of Beijing's opera house managers," he says.

Tool now goes so far as to say he believes incomprehensible Chinglish translations show disrespect for foreigners.

"It is just polite to try to speak or make the signs correct to show common respect for the guests or the folk whose native language it is," he says. "I am not oversensitive; it is just a simple truth, a simple courtesy, as far as I am concerned."

Radtke, though, rates English signage as a weak barometer of Chinese respect for foreigners. "There are more important things, especially in one-on-one interactions with local people, than whether the 'keep off the grass' signs and menus are like what you'd find in New England," he says.

(China Daily June 25, 2009)