The idiocy of foreign-language ballots: How do you translate “Hillary Clinton” in Chinese?
You’ve got to read this story in USA Today about Chinese-American activists in Boston demanding full translation/transliteration of ballots. It’s sheer lunacy–and the Secretary of State in Massachusetts is battling the p.c. brigade to stave off a federal foreign-language ballot mandate (embraced, by the way, by the Bush Justice Department):
Boston’s 2008 presidential primary ballot could read like a bad Chinese menu.
There might be “Sticky Rice” in column A, “Virtue Soup” in column B and, in column C, “Upset Stomach.”
Those could be choices facing some voters if the names of Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Hillary Rodham Clinton were converted into Chinese characters, according to Massachusetts’ top election official. And that gives Secretary of State William Galvin heartburn.
On Tuesday, Galvin filed a challenge in federal court to a Justice Department agreement requiring that ballots be fully translated to protect the rights of Chinese-speaking voters.
Galvin says Chinese — which uses characters, not letters; has sounds with several meanings; and is spoken in several dialects — will create ballot chaos.
“Elections have to be precise,” says Galvin, who wants ballot instructions in Chinese but candidate names in English. He says transliteration — using characters whose sounds approximate the way the names are spoken — can have “unintended negative inferences.”
Yes, it would be fun to have Hillary Clinton listed as “Upset Stomach” on the presidential primary ballot (her miffed campaign staffer claims that Chinese-American campaign workers told him that the characters usually used in Chinese-American media for her name mean “Like Prosperity”). But the idea of turning foreign language ballots into a civil right is an affront to civics and citizenship. Whose country is this, anyway? Only U.S. citizens are supposed to be able to vote legally. Naturalization requires new Americans to demonstrate “an understanding of the English language, including an ability to read, write and speak . . . simple words and phrases . . . in ordinary usage in the English language.” A foreign-language ballot entitlement undermines those basic requirements and perpetuates linguistic separatism.
And then there’s the bureaucratic nightmare:
Asian-Americans are among the fastest-growing minority groups in Boston. Officials there first transliterated candidate names last year in special city council elections. But Galvin, who oversees state and federal elections, is balking at doing the same, including for the March 4 presidential primary. He says it would cost Massachusetts “thousands of dollars but, worse than that, litigation and time” if candidates sued over how their names are translated.
Alice Leung, a community organizer with Boston’s Chinese Progressive Association, says that would be unlikely if candidates could review how their names are translated. “For those not familiar with the Chinese language, it may sound possible that the transliterated names carry some meaning. However, Chinese readers would see this as silly as assuming Mr. Green or Brown to be colors,” she says.
Still, things can be lost in translation. Hope Chu of the Organization of Chinese Americans says hers is a tonal language in which a sound has many meanings. Take the “ma” in Barack Obama. It can mean “horse,” “mother,” “how,” “what” or “to scold.” And while Obama comes out as “Oh Bus Horse” in Cantonese, in the Mandarin dialect the Democrat’s full name, according to a translation provided by Galvin, means “Oh Intellectual Overcome Profound Oh Gemstone.” Or, says Siri Karm Singh Khalsa, president of The Boston Language Institute, “Europe Pulling a Horse.”
Can you spell r-e-c-i-p-e-f-o-r-f-r-a-u-d?
Bad enough that the Clinton administration gave us Executive Order 13166, effectively requiring all government agencies to provide translations into any language on demand. But rather than rescind the order and put English first, the Bush administration has gone after localities and forced them to provide foreign language materials. In 2004, the Bush administration ordered Harris County, Texas, to provide all voter registration and election information and supplies, including the voting machine ballot, in Vietnamese as well as English and Spanish. So absurd is the drive to protect the rights of “minority-language citizens” that the little town of Briny Breezes, Fla., was required to publish election notices in Spanish — even though everyone there speaks English.
Some Republicans in Washington have tried to challenge the language-Balkanizers. But when a GOP administration is responsible for carrying water for the multicultural mau-mau-ers, the prospects for restoring sanity to the system are dim.
“Upset Stomach,” indeed.
***
More:
Chinese-American activists protest Mass. Sec. of State.
Boston talker Michael Graham weighs in:
Does anyone in Boston know how to translate “Ask not what your country can do for you” into the original Mandarin Chinese?
I ask this question as a simple-minded American and Bay Stater who remembers the days when American liberals stood by John F. Kennedy and pledged to “pay any price, bear any burden and meet any hardship to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” A generation later, the American left’s motto could be “No Burden, No Hardship, No Democracy? No Problem!”
This new spirit of “convenience democracy” was on display at the State House yesterday when the so-called “Chinese Progressive Association” demanded that ballots for American elections in an American city (Boston) be printed entirely in the language of American democracy - Cantonese. Under orders from the U.S. Department of Justice, Boston now prints ballots in Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese, as well as Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Creole and (coming soon, no doubt), Gaelic, Vulcan and that South African click-click language from “The Gods Must Be Crazy.” However, while the text of the ballots is in Chinese, the actual names of the candidates - Bush in ’88 or Clinton in ’92 or Bush in 2000 or Clinton in 2008 - still appear in English. This isn’t good enough, liberals complain. It’s asking too much of local voters to read any part of a ballot in English.
Which means that the unbearable burden of citizenship for Americans of Chinese descent is to be able to look at the names “Patrick” and “Healy” and tell which candidate is Irish. OK, that’s a bad example.
Seriously, if a mastery of English is a requirement for citizenship - and it is - then how is reading a ballot in English a burden at all? And do we really want the next Leader of the Free World being picked by people who can’t tell “Barack Obama” from “Ron Paul?” Phonetically or politically? And what would JFK say to those who claim that the unbearable burden of citizenship is citizenship itself?
A Boston Herald reader says: “Learn the language.”
***
Here’s a news report via Right on the Right on “Sticky Rice vs. Upset Stomach:”
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This really ticks me off. Because of my name, half of the mail I get is in Spanish. This includes, bank statements voter ballots, and most bills. I can read Spanish better than I speak it. How ever it is annoying.
This is ridiculous beyond words. I understand the Democrats’ objective (”victim” group bloc votes), but Bush has lost his mind. As for the DoJ, I imagine the bulk of middle and lower level minions vote Dem also.
Then we must include ‘Ebonics’ too.
Unbelievable. What part of “learn the language” do these politicians not get? I guess my yelling “English” at the ATM machine every time I go there (instead of Spanish) is NOT helping?? UGH!
It seems that having finally reached the tipping point for the total annihilation of America, the ravagers cannot wait, and are quickly trashing and dismantling every proven productive and healthy policy America has ever had.
This is a complete trainwreck. We already haven’t stopped the Dims from using the Cemetary vote, the ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION vote, the FELON vote, the SNOWBIRDS double, tripple, perhaps QUADRUPLE votes in various states, bussing paid voters to the states that allow same day residence/registration/voting, even if THEY have or will vote at home, too.
…And blocking the military overseas ballots from being counted…
I’m sure there are other methods of fraud they are equally proficient at - oh, yeah, the good old fashioned ballot stuffing, and taking the ballots behind closed doors countings, etc - so now we want to add to the total discombobulation of the whole process, some many of their other frauds can be hidden in the confusion!
What happened to simple VOTER INSTRUCTIONS. They think it is addequate for DRIVING down our streets to replace universal signalling for written instructions, and still expect the foreign language speakers to discern, drive, and not wreck, simultaneously.
These maniacs have to be stopped.
El Presidente needs to rescind executive order 13166. It makes no since to have this service. It’s just a waste of tax payer dollars. Maybe they don’t understand us. TO EL BLANCO DE CASA: ?Tu comprendes
This is insane. I remember something from the last election about a guy in L.A. (I think) that said when he went to the voting place they only had ballots in Mandarin or Korean (or maybe Vietnamese?) left, so instead of being able to vote in english he used a Korean ballot.
I may have the details wrong, but the picture was loud and clear. Not only do we need to print ballots in every concievable language, but we need to make sure we print one of each language for each voter to make sure everyone gets a ballot printed in the language of choice.
Speak English, read English or go home.
Of course, voter fraud will only matter if the Democrat loses.
Though seeing Hillary beaten due to some hanging chen’s will be pretty amusing.
If they cannot read English they should not be able to vote or drive. Period.
This is a ploy to get revenge for discimination based on their Asian names.
How many Americans would seriously support a Chinese candidate named Hung Lo or Long Wang?
But, does Fred Thompson really translate to ‘Virtue Soup’?
If so, that means even the Chinese recognise Fred Thompson’s awesomeness.
What about the civil rights of the Russian Mafia? How can you expect them to vote for who they want to bribe and threaten with death if they cannot read the ballots?
That means also that the Albanian mob will be put at an unfair disadvantage in most areas. Where is the ACLU?
Please speak English! Enough of this bending over backwards crap. Its gotten to the point now where we are being forced to reshape our country to accommodate people who refuse to assimilate! I mean, I now have to be able to speak a different language if I don’t want to be at a disadvantage when I apply for a job. This is out of control!
If you can’t read English then how in the world have these people gotten citizenship???? If you can’t read English, then you don’t deserve to have the right to vote.
But I tell you what……..you don’t want to learn English, fine……… Learn brail…… there is your reasonable accommodation!
Can you print mine in Haitian Creole please?
Don’t make me call Al Sharpton.
I believe El Presidente Arbusto never had a mind to lose.
You are no doubt right about the DoJ. Most government workers are Dems. They know which party will work hardest to keep them employed.
They will happily be sure voting guides are distributed in every imaginable language recommending who to vote for to their party members. Divide and conquer!
I can’t write it in Chinese, but you might try translating “Hillery Clinton” into “Goh Baba” (Phonetic)
My wife is Chinese and has been in the U.S. for about 2 1/2 years.
(Legally, she has a green card and came here on a K-1 visa)
She isn’t fluent in English, but she is functional both spoken and written. She is determined to master English and when she isn’t working, practically lives at a school that has ESOL classes.
When she took her drivers test, she almost aced the written part, (Actually did better then I did), and that test was in English.
She has never asked for anything in Chinese, although she did have to call 911 last year. She was fully prepared to speak English, but they had a Mandarin speaker available to translate.
(I don’t mind translators for emergency services)
If/when my wife achieves American Citizenship, she won’t be asking for any special favors.
Alice Leung is being wonderfully disingenuous. Considering that there are mainland superstitions regarding the pronunciation of numbers already in Mandarin, unintended meanings in careless transliteration of American names could bring about at least the appearance of a loss or win by superstition.
I’m firmly on the “Learn English if you want to vote” boat here.
I want my ballots written in Sumerian using the Cyrillic character set.
This is a tough one. You have to learn basic English to become a citizen so what is the problem here .
What is the difference between a chinese American and an asian American ?somalian American or african American ? When are you from another continent as oppossed to another country ? You are American or you are not . Not to mention great numbers of these minorities have never even been out of the US. Enough already .
If you live here learn English .
This is very simple
In order to vote you must be a citizen
In order to become a citizen you must demonstrate English language proficency
So why do we need ballots in other languages?
\
What average voter actually does or wants to actually READ the ballots -JUST USE PICTURES!
Ancient Egyptian Heiroglyphics anyone?:)
I think what they are ultimately pushing for is not ballots written in Chinese, but rather ballots written by NBC News. (Draw your own conclusions about what those might look like)
It seems very odd that “Chinese-American” activists want Chinese ballots. The Asians that have traditionally come to this country have been very proud to learn the language and succeed on their merits. Must be another agenda at work here.
If you cannot understand English, how can you understand the issues enough to vote intelligently…oh wait, I’m answering my own question.
I watch a lot of HK movies, and occasionally, I run across a dvd that is just a cheap transfer of the original film print that had both the English and Mandarin subtitles permanently fixed. With two lines of subtitles on the screen at all times, you can tell that English names and phrases are not transliterated. It is not uncommon to see the top line of subtitles as a string of characters with an English phrase in the middle. If that standard is acceptable for the HK film industry, which has a vested interest in conveying information to its audience, then it should be good enough for voters.
It is interesting that the article does not mention the transliterations for possible candidates with single syllable names. I have a couple of Cantonese dictionaries, and Bush and Ron Paul just don’t seem to be having much luck.
Cantonese dictionaries use multiple standardized systems of Romanization to convey the correct pronunciations. If the law requires that ballots be fully translated, then ballots should not approximate the sounds of a candidate’s name but instead use a standardized system to convey the actual English pronunciation of the name for each language. If multiple systems for the Romanization of Cantonese and Mandarin can be devised, then there is no excuse for a reverse system not to be devised for each language. Foreign language English dictionaries must already have those systems in place, and there is no reason not to use them. To do so would be to produce deliberately imprecise ballots.
Or just English dictionaries…
This thread reminds me of when American companies tried to transliterate their slogans for ad campaigns in Taiwan. “Body by Fisher” transliterated as “Corpse by Fisher” and “Come alive! Join the Pepsi generation” morphed into “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.”
I think that is what happened to Palm Beach County voters in Florida during the 2000 elections!!!..but of course, they tried to blame on butterfly ballots and chads.
Rio
Semper Fi!
That would translate to Hirraly Crinton.
Hey MM, we could always just have Rosie O’Donnell translate everything into Chinese since she is the expert afterall.
Anyone for English as the official language! Are we the only country in the world without an official language? Scheesh.
‘Ching-chong ching-chong’
Yep. Flashback video: Ching Chong O’Donnell
Wednesday Greetings Mrs. Malkin and loyal community. From 35-plus years ago, I recall S.I. Hayakawa (future U.S. Senator from California, but then a university president) picturing an Asian-origin student lamenting her inability to have kinky hair and thus visibly fit in with the campus victicrat ethos. After two generations of campus paramountcy, inevitably the Marxist Balkanizing ethos will have infected people of diverse origins and hence this Boston activism on behalf of ballots in Chinese. As yet they haven’t specificed if to use full-form ideographs, as in Taiwan or Hongkong, or simplified, as in mainland China. I am myself a strong proponent of having (Mandarin) Chinese as one of the principal foreign languages taught in our high schools, probably in place of French. However, just as the overdue destruction of Jim Crow should not have meant the rise of the racial preferences ethos of “affirmative action”, so ensuring the demise of the “grandfather clause” in voting should not be an opening to promote Balkanization in American public life. As with border security/”shamnesty”, Federal budget discipline and much else, the future of the Republican party may be very much in question as was that of the Whig party a century and a half ago. In the winter of our discontent, may thoughtful ferment in your loyal community presage hopeful developments in our country.
Michelle Malkin - “How do you translate “Hillary Clinton” in Chinese?”
希拉莉
Michelle-
The Vent video was better then watching the original!
P.S. Lose the hat.
This is the best Rosie Video Clip ever:
Riding the Bus With My Sister
I could watch that over and over!
Yay! Pepto Bismol!…
I’m part of the “learn the language” camp (you come here, you learn English), but let me just add this about the whole transliteration issue:
1) Translating foreign names like “Hillary Clinton” into Chinese categorically does NOT give you means along the lines of “Sticky Rice” or “Upset Stomach” or anything else that makes sense when transliterated back into English. When a native Chinese speaker sees the three characters comprising a foreign name that has been transliterated, they know immediately that is exactly what it is. The transliterated characters usually phonetically approximate to the original pronunciation. So making a big stink over “Sticky Rice” Obama or whatever is creating an issue where one doesn’t exist except in the minds of people who don’t speak Chinese. (Or in the minds of clueless second generation Chinese-Americans who can barely speak kitchen chinese).
2) Transliteration of a candidates name is problematic because each region of China where a non-Mandarin dialect is spoken may have it’s own particular way of rendering a person’s foreign name using Chinese characters. “Hillary Clinton” in Taiwan, written in Chinese, will not be the same as “Hillary Clinton” in Hong Kong. I guarantee it. So, let’s say the measure passes and all ballots are transliterated into Chinese. Great. So whose version of the transliteration do we use? The Cantonese version? If so, what about all the people who come from Fukian or Shanghai or Beijing? Sure, they all probably speak Mandarin, but there’s no way in hell they use the same characters to transliterate a foreign name. The laws of local cultural dynamics pretty much ensure this. (Yes, in Mandarin all the characters are the same across regions, but transliteration is still based on local habits; people may speak the nation-wide dialect, but most people in the provinces speak their local dialect first, Mandarin second…)
I agree with so many others. All ballots should be written in the choice of English or English. If you can’t read English, then you shouldn’t be a citizen as it is a requirement. If you are not a citizen you should not be voting. QED
Why not employ Rosie O’Donnel to translate the ballots??
So we must now pander to their activist overlords!
Sounds like a gateway to fraud to me. How about this: If you can’t read people’s names in English, you can’t vote? Sounds simple to me. Of course, photo voter IDs sound simple to me too. Oh well.
At the risk of steriotyping, many Chinese and Chinese Americans are actually Catholic. Maybe, then, they’ll understand the lesson behind these three little words:
TOWER OF BABEL
I’m sure glad we’re progressive enough that we don’t need a national language.
“Why have standards at all?” that’s what I say…
I’m thinking of driving home tonight on the left side of the road.
In reverse.
Singing the “Twelve Days of Winter Holiday” in hexadecimal.
A very sentient point. If a person is unable to read basic American-English, then it’s probably a sign that s/he should not be allowed even near a voting booth.
They might as well add to the ballots ancient Latin, acient Greek along with Aramaic… Because we are sure going backwards… God help us all.
We also have to make sure aliens are not “disenfranchied”, Jarhead.
Not the ones invading our Northern & Southern borders, the real aliens. Martians, Venutians and the like, I mean! Superman is an illegal alien,
afterall. Ballots in Kryptonian - no justice, no peace!!!
One problem there, James; you’re assuming Rosie is literate.
The law is crystal clear: to vote, on must be a U.S. citizen. To become a naturalized U.S. citizen, one must demonstrate, as Michelle noted, “…an understanding of the English language, including an ability to read, write and speak . . . simple words and phrases . . . in ordinary usage in the English language.”
Okay, to be really pedantic, it is possible that someone could be born here (and thus a U.S. citizen) and never have learned a word of English.
Possible, but not likely.
We should not tolerate an illegal government.
Purplepeep Said: We also have to make sure aliens are not “disenfranchied”, Jarhead.
Not the ones invading our Northern & Southern borders, the real aliens. Martians, Venutians and the like, I mean! Superman is an illegal alien,
afterall. Ballots in Kryptonian - no justice, no peace!!!
Don’t forget Beltar Conehead, he was from France you know!
Mindcrime:
Thanks for that brilliant exposition on the problems of transliteration.
I used to belong to a service union and they would print the ballot in 5 different Chinese dialects. There was a subtle difference in the idiograms that you could see because they were listed top to bottom.
The solution, of course, is to print the ballots in one language. Esperanto, anyone?
changjin89:
You nailed it. It was inevitable that this “Balkinization” which began on campus would move into mainstream politics. It’s the logical result of the victimhood culture - disenfranchising “the other” because they can’t read English.
100 years ago, they never gave such things a second thought which forced new arrivals to learn English as quickly as possible. There was no malice in it. The immigrants in the cities voted Democratic in overwhelming numbers so the idea that they were deliberately disenfranchising one of their most reliable voting blocs is absurd. It just never occurred to politicians that anyone would fail to learn English as quickly as possible.
But leave it to the Democrats to pander when given the opportunity.
This is insane! Boston is so far out there though, I bet they cave in.
For once I know the answer to one of Ms. Malkin’s questions. How does one translate Hillary Clinton into Chinese?
The answer, after consulting Bill Clinton and Al Gore, is to have John Huang and Charlie Trie handle it.
eric
http://www.blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com
That would translate to Hirraly Crinton.
Hey, that’s Hirrary Crinton.
My good friend named Laura ( by her 100% Japanese mom & a legal US citizen now) laughs that her mom can not say Laura, it comes out Roura…true story.
Seriously now. I think we should make all language understandable to everyone. Even hand ’signing’ should be made audible - somehow.
Maybe Target or Kmart has one of those translator machines. Ya know the ones that translate any of 10 million languages into anything you need? Even Orc, Romulan, and Klingon, etc.
Thanks Clinton(s).
So can those who wear the tinfoil hats have their ballots done in Windows Wingdings font? Seems the most appropriate to me.
#52 shooter
Solly, no “r” sound in Cantonese!
(I speak Cantonese.)
“Clinton” would sound something like “kai lun toon” and if you are not careful when saying it (Cantonese is tonal), it could mean “strange and clumsy”!
I think some people have a hard enough time with the ballots already without adding all these other languages - just English is fine for me.
This is because we’ve given in to the hispanic invasion and allowed America to become a bilingual country.
It won’t stop here. Every nationality that speaks a language other than English will be demanding that every document printed should be multi-linqual. We’ll be cutting down whole forests just to accommodate one printing.
We’ve asked for it by being pc and weak.
There are ways to say “Hillary Clinton” in Chinese, but I hesitate to list any of them here for fear of offending the sensibilities of bilingual posters.
#42~
I decided to write to my (R) Senators, my (D) representative and the White House basically saying just that - born here citizen = learn English in school; naturalized citizen = proved a proficiency in English. So, if you are a citizen with the legal right to vote, there is no need for any language other than English. I told them all (for whatever good it did) that I expected this requirement be removed before the next election, and reminded the President that he could do so with the stroke of a pen…
ENGRISH! Please!
Actually, the Chinese have a system for expressing Western names in Chinese characters. Creating chops (personal seals) for tourists based on Chinese transliterations of the tourist’s name is a popular souvenir item over there. It’s much less accurate than Chinese->Roman alphabet transliteration, though.
For the Chinese to fully understand a translation of Hillary’s name. It only needs to be translated to mao.
What about ballots for the totally illiterate?
Hillary Clinton translates into, Marxist lady who will increase taxes.