Keywords: German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits China; English acronyms included in Chinese Dictionary irks scholars

German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits China for deeper cooperation 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel begins a two-day China visit on August 30, her second official trip this year and sixth since she took office in 2005. Chinese media have commented that economy will be the major topic during her visit, as both Germany and the EU grapples with economic woes.

The trip made the front page of the People's Daily (overseas edition), where Zhang Jian, deputy director of Institute of European Studies at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), said that a strengthened relationship between China and Germany will attract worldwide attention, especially from the European Union.

As a major EU member, Germany's cooperation with China plays a decisive role in China-EU relations as a whole, as well as ensuring stable relationship between China and Europe.

As long as both nations respect each other, maintain dialogue and pursue mutually-beneficial goals, China-Germany relations will enjoy positive development and serve as an example for other EU members, he concluded.

Fudan University economist Sun Lijian blogged on Chinese financial news portal caijing.com that Merkel is not only visiting Germany's biggest competitor, but also its most promising consumer market. As her country's exports face bottlenecked growth, it is safe to say economy, not politics, will be the focus of her visit. 

China should cooperate with Europe and the US in their most competitive sectors while avoiding heavy investment in the Euro as it is still too fragile, he added.

Scholars protest addition of English acronyms in Chinese dictionary

Compiled by the Commercial Press, a total 239 acronyms such as "NBA", "ATM" and "GDP" were recently added to the sixth edition of the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, one of China's most renowned Chinese-language dictionary, resulting in a group of Chinese translators, scholars and researchers filing a complaint with the General Administration of Press and Publication.

However, Chinese press generally argues that with the development and evolution of the Chinese language, people should give up the excessive focus on the "purity" of the language.

The Xinhua Daily Telegraph published a piece that said there is no absolute "standard" for Chinese, and a blind pursuit for purity can lead to cultural exclusiveness.  As with cultures, a foreign language can never fully replace a local language, but rather supplement it, the paper added.

The scholars' attitude reflects a mood of exclusion, which does not help the Chinese language develop and improve, said the Beijing Times. An open society needs diversified cultures. China's cultural development can not be isolated from exchange with other cultures. The absorption of foreign words is inevitable in the process of cultural exchange.

The Dahe Daily suggested the formation and evolution of languages are driven by multiple forces. Although we should take professional opinions into consideration, we also need to recognize trends in history, and an excessive focus on purity in language negates such trends.

The Shanghai Morning Post opined that the Chinese language has the power to purify itself. There are other methods to protect Chinese language and culture besides dictionaries, such as maintaining the national college entrance examination (gaokao) and standards in document format.

Overall, the destiny of a language is controlled by its speakers. As long as a country becomes more powerful, its language will prosper and be immune from corruption, the article concluded.