The Linguistics of Mahjong
Whether we like it or not, more people speak English or at least have a working grasp of English.
The world of mahjong is now multi-lingual. How do we face the problems that occur when players don’t share the same language?
This was a topic I discussed with quite a few players at the recent Austrian Riichi Championship but it’s not the first time it’s been on my mind.
The upcoming UK tournament in Guildford has stated that it is English only. Some may think that this excludes people and may accuse the English of that thing we are so good at in assuming the universality and superiority of our home language.
I’d like to dispute this opinion.
English generally gets a bad rap for forcing itself into almost every corner of the world for good or bad. However, not including English as a main tournament language is even more exclusive.
If a tournament organizer restricted their event to Spanish only, you can imagine the turn out!
Whether we like it or not, more people speak English or at least have a working grasp of English. We can’t change cultural history now and we may wish that Esperanto had got a stronger grasp in Europe, but it didn’t. Facts are facts. Most people in Europe have a good grasp of English and in more cases than I care to admit, better English than native speakers!
The other issue with using non-shared languages is that there is the fear of collusion on the table. Let’s imagine that I go to Thailand to play in an international competition and the three players I’m on a table with all speak Thai and do so all through the game. How do I not know they’re not helping each other?
The World Series of Mahjong tackled this by actively encouraging as little conversation at the table as possible – A rule that most players stuck to. There was little conversation and multi-lingual assistants checking the tables.
I wouldn’t like to suggest enforcing minimal conversation on the European tables. Our tournaments are comfortable and relaxed; losing that would be a great loss.
So what is the answer? Fortunately, I think part of the solution lies in riichi mahjong’s routes – Japanese. I’m not saying we should all spend a few years learning Japanese so that we can be fluent before we go to a tournament. But we can all certainly learn hand names and basic game terms. Perhaps European players could even learn to count in Japanese!
This would allow us to all play in Japanese. Our home languages would not matter anymore! Of course, we wouldn’t be able to escape the fact that announcements and stuff will have to remain in English but at least on the table players of all English abilities will be able to join in with the confidence that they will understand exactly what is going on. It could be a universal platform for us all to progress mahjong in Europe and beyond!
