They banned the film but they couldn’t stop the word brokeback from entering the Chinese language.

Now Chinese officials have accepted the term, taken from the film Brokeback Mountain, into the national language registry as a synonym for a gay man. Though banned, millions of Chinese saw the film on pirate DVDs.

The guardians of Chinese, one of the world’s oldest and most complicated written languages, have announced the incorporation of 171 new words after two years of research and the study of more than 900 million words in common usage.

New phrases endorsed by the Ministry of Education include “house slaves”, used to describe someone burdened with a big mortgage after joining China’s legion of new home-owners, and “era of seven”, which denotes the period after the yuan, China’s currency, was strengthened to seven to the dollar. A husband and wife who maintain separate homes to try to keep the romance alive in their marriage can now be correctly referred to as “semi-honey couples”.

The latest official additions to China’s language, complete with Chinese characters, reflect the rapid social change that has engulfed China with the acceleration of economic reforms, the invasion of Western pop culture and the use of English imported along with the internet.

Li Yuming, a senior education official, said: “These reflect rapid cultural and social changes in recent years as well as thriving new concepts in our daily lives.”

“Three-hand illness” is used to describe people fatigued by overuse of their hand to play with gaming machines, click on their computer mouse or to send messages via their mobile phone. Then there are the “grey skills” required by companies who demand that employees be in command of such nontraditional office techniques as drinking, singing karaoke and playing mahjong or cards. The phrase “mistress experts” has sprung up as a breed of new-rich entrepreneurs and powerful officials have set up “second wives”. And a new generation of city-dwelling couples who prefer a pet to a child are now known as ding chong jiating or “Dinks with pets”, a Chinese appropriation of the phrase Dink (double income, no kids) that was coined in the West in the 1980s to describe couples eschewing children in favour of lifestyle and financial advancement.

However, only time will tell if these words are finally entered into the authoritative Contemporary Chinese Dictionary. The 2005 edition added about 6,000 new entries and deleted 2,500 that were outdated.

There are many new words that have entered daily use that are considered too politically incorrect, or too foreign, to be included in any official list.

Among these are English words such as “sigh” and “cool”, “zip it”, 3Q for “thank you”, and “kick your ass” that are hip, and ubiquitous, among digital-savvy young Chinese.

Modern language

— France’s L’Académie Française is going to increasing lengths to find suitably Gallic words. In 2003 they decreed that only the Québécois word courriel means email, surprising their compatriots who had long used email, mail, or mèl

— After the arrival of European settlers, the Maori language showed a remarkable adaptability, expanding the meaning of existing words. Waka, which once meant simply canoe, now also means car

— The Vatican can now issue traditional decrees in Latin instructing Catholics in subjects from the wearing of bracae lÍnteae caerúleae, or blue jeans, to appreciating iazensis música, jazz

Sources: Latinitas Foundation; Maori Language Commission; Times archive

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